tihvavy of t:he t:heolo0ical ^eminarjp 
 
 PRINCETON . NEW JERSEY 
 
 FROM THE LIBRARY OF 
 ROBERT ELLIOTT SPEER 
 
 BV 4501 .F57 1919 
 Fleming, Daniel Johnson, 
 
 1877-1969. 
 Marks of a world Christian 
 
6 
 
 
 M//. 
 
 /^/^_ 
 
MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
EVERYDAY LIFE SERIES 
 
 The Christian According TO Paul: John T. Paris 
 Psalms of the Social Life: Cleland B. McAfee 
 The Many-Sided David: Philip E. Howard 
 Meeting the Master: Ozora S. Davis 
 Under the Highest Leadership: John Douglas Adam 
 A Living Book in a Living Age: Lynn Harold Hough 
 How God Calls Men : Prederick Harris 
 Marks of a World Christian: Daniel Johnson Pleming 
 Other volumes to be announced later 
 
EVERYDAY LIFE SERIE;^ ^^^^ ^^ PWH/Q^ 
 
 FEB 20 1959 
 
 '^OGIG 
 
 AL SOii\ 
 
 Marks of a World ChrisHan 
 
 DANIEL JOHNSON FLEMING 
 
 I 
 
 Professor of Missions, Union Theological Seminary 
 
 ASSOCIATION PRESS 
 
 New York : 347 Madison Avenue 
 1919 
 
Copyright, 1919, by 
 
 The International Committee of 
 
 Young Men's Christian Associations 
 
 The Bible Text used in this volume is taken from the American Standard 
 Edition of the Revised Bible, copyright, 1901, by Thomas Nelson & Sons, and 
 is used by permission. 
 
TO 
 MY SISTER LOIS 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 Internationalism has always been implicit in Christianity.. 
 During three great eras of Christian expansion this inter- 
 nationalism became consciously explicit in the Church's out- 
 reach to non-Christian lands. An analysis of the missionary- 
 consciousness back of these great movements ought to yield 
 certain fundamental elements that should characterize every 
 Christian. We turn to what, historically^ has been Chris- 
 tianity's highest expression in order to see more clearly the 
 mind which each Christian should bring to bear upon the 
 world. 
 
 Throughout this little book it has been assumed that, ideally, 
 there is no difference between the Christian and the world 
 Christian. Being a Christian is not a matter of the here or 
 the there of an act or an attitude, but refers to a certain 
 characteristic response which is independent of geography. 
 
 It is hoped that these studies will help both individuals and 
 churches in self-examination. The analysis found in these 
 successive chapters does not attempt to be exhaustive, but 
 certain outstanding elements have been chosen for considera- 
 tion. One or another of these nine "marks" will probably 
 need emphasized development, in order that the spirit which 
 we bring to the world's great problems may be both Christian 
 and international. 
 
 D. J, F. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 Foreword vii 
 
 I. Consciousness of the Larger Self i 
 
 II. Respect for the Capacity of Other Peoples .... 23 
 
 III. Responsiveness to Human Need 47 
 
 IV. Faith in the Pursuant Love of God 72 
 
 V. The Impulsion of a Great Experience 88 
 
 VI. Zeal for the Manifestation of God 110 
 
 VII. Courage for World Purposes 132 
 
 VIII. Readiness to Pay the Cost 154 
 
 IX.,, A Sense of Vocation 178 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 Consciousness of the Larger Self 
 
 Indissolubly knit together are myself, other folks, and God. 
 This triangular relationship is characterized by a very real 
 solidarity. To this living, vital, interpenetrating organism is 
 given the name, the larger self. Now a consciousness of this 
 interrelatedness and interdependence of life is one essential 
 for a great new constructive era. Let us first consider this 
 truth in the form of an ancient analogy. 
 
 DAILY READINGS 
 First Week, First Day: The Family of God 
 
 He made of one every nation of men to dwell on all 
 the face of the earth, having determined their appointed 
 seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; that they 
 should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and 
 find him, though he is not far from each one of us: for 
 in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain 
 even of your own poets have said. 
 
 For we are also his offspring. — Acts 17:26-28. 
 
 In these verses is made one of the great generalizations 
 with reference to mankind. However, long before this decla- 
 ration of the essential unity of the human race in one great 
 family or household, we find that occasional prophetic minds 
 were thinking in terms of humanity. It is worth while to 
 read right through the thirty-two verses of names and peoples 
 found in the tenth chapter of Genesis in order to come from 
 this to the first verse of the next chapter. The religious value 
 of that long list of names is in the realization that all races 
 of the earth belong to the same great family and are really 
 kinsmen. There is one family of God — not many. 
 
 Have we ever seriously considered the obligation arising 
 from this great truth? It involves an international community 
 of interests and responsibilities, an international fellowship 
 in gain and loss, in honor and dishonor. When men say with 
 
 I 
 
[1-2] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Meredith Townsend that "something radical, something un- 
 alterable and indestructible, divides the Asiatic from the 
 European, . . . they are fenced off from each other by an 
 invisible, impalpable, but impassable wall as rigid and inflexible 
 as that which divides the master from his dog,"^ they are 
 forming the background in thought for racial war. It is the 
 denial of the implications of mankind's unity in one family 
 that makes nationalism dangerous. On the other hand, the 
 thorough-going acceptance of those implications would crowd 
 out selfish suspicion and aggression,^ while dignifying and 
 ennobling national individuality and attainment. Success in 
 the acceptance of the truth may be tested by the mutual atti- 
 tudes between peoples. 
 
 It is a growing realization of this truth that is causing 
 a gradual disuse of the word "foreign" in connection with 
 missions. With one blood, one human family, there can be 
 no sharp line between obligation to community, to nation, and 
 to the world. It is that larger outreach, however, which we 
 have known as foreign missions, that preeminently makes its 
 great heroic venture on the fundamental soundness of the 
 postulate of today's teaching. Foreign missionaries act on 
 the conviction that the solidarity of the human race in God's 
 family is true ; they thereby become the most powerful agents 
 for creating the realization of that truth. 
 
 The intelligent assimilation of the truth as to the essential 
 unity of the human race on the part of any individual or 
 group, is a real attainment. When can it be said of us, as of 
 Jesus: "He is not ashamed to call them brethren"? (Heb. 
 2: ii). Or when will we join with him in saying: "Behold my 
 mother and my brethren ! Whosoever shall do the will of 
 my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and 
 sister, and mother. . . . My Father, and your Father"? (Matt. 
 12:49, 50; John 20: 17). 
 
 First Week, Second Day : Still Struggling for Mono- 
 theism 
 
 Thus saith Jehovah to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose 
 right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him, 
 ... I am Jehovah, and there is none else; besides me there 
 is no God. I will gird thee, though thou hast not known 
 me; that they may know from the rising of the sun, and 
 
 1 "Asia and Europe," pp. 50 and 150. 
 
 2 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS OF LARGER SELF [I-3] 
 
 from the west, that there is none besides me: I am Jeho- 
 vah, and there is none else. — Isa. 45 : i, 5, 6. 
 
 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were 
 called in one hope of your calling . . . one God and Father 
 of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. — Eph. 
 4:4, 6. 
 
 For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek: 
 for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich unto all 
 that call upon him. — Rom. 10: 12. 
 
 We shall never attain the democracy of God until we have 
 a common, vital, monotheistic faith at the spiritual basis of 
 our lives. There was a time when tribal gods were commonly 
 worshiped. This was true amongst all neighboring peoples 
 in Isaiah's time. Even Yahweh, himself, had been honored 
 as the exclusively national God of Israel. With magnificent 
 insight, however, the prophets declared Yahweh to be the 
 controller of the whole world. Isaiah believed that even the 
 foreigner, Cyrus, could be considered an anointed servant of 
 Jehovah. Amos must have astounded the people of his day 
 by declaring that God does not love the Israelites more than 
 the Negroes (Amos 9:7). And a beautiful Syriac render- 
 ing of Isaiah 9:7 says that "Great is his kingdom and of 
 his dominion is there no frontier." Hebrew prophecy was 
 the interpretation of history in terms of God's purpose, and 
 increasingly was it perceived that this purpose was utilizing 
 other nations along with Israel. 
 
 Signs are not wanting, however, that even in modern times 
 many have been worshiping tribal gods. The aspirations and 
 petitions of many a prayer during the War revealed an un- 
 conscious survival of belief in one's deity as limited to one's 
 area. Are we willing to believe that some non-Christian 
 monarch or people may be chosen agents in the hand of our 
 God? Do we really acknowledge to ourselves that the Alaskan 
 and the Burman, the Korean and the African are just as dear 
 to God as we? Let us with warmth of conviction exclaim: 
 "God's in the Occident — God's in the Orient." 
 
 First Week, Third Day: The Essential Condition 
 for the Larger Unity 
 
 There can be neither Jew nor Greek, there can be 
 neither bond nor free, there can be no male and female; 
 for ye all are one man in Christ Jesus. — Gal. 3:28. 
 
[1-3] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Where there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision 
 and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, free- 
 man; but Christ is all, and in all. — Col. 3:11. 
 
 In yesterday's reading we saw the fundamental basis for 
 the larger self ; in today's, Paul shows us the essential condi- 
 tion for its attainment. Distinctions of race, of social posi- 
 tion, even of sex, become relatively unimportant in Christ — 
 that is, in our becoming Christian. When God's Spirit dwells 
 in us, a life is possible that is superior to these differences. 
 They are not non-existent, but they seem superficial compared 
 with that sense of deeper unity which comes from realities 
 disclosed in Christ. 
 
 That any two human beings are coequally children of their 
 Father is a vastly more significant truth than that one is a 
 Jew and the other a Greek. Once catch a vision of man's 
 common relationship to the one source, God, and we see that 
 the realm in which we share is vastly larger than the realm 
 in which we differ. In all the mystery of our origin, in all 
 the vastness of our resources, in all the hope for life ahead, 
 we are conjoined with every other human being. What in 
 comparison is the differing social status of master or slave? 
 If woman must be born again in the form of man in order to 
 be saved, as is held in popular Hinduism, if she is a dis- 
 tinctly lower order of being as in Africa, then of course 
 the distinction of male and female is enormously and far- 
 reachingly significant. But if through Christ we see the 
 reality of the spiritual oneness of man and woman, and con- 
 template their common privilege of living the eternal life in 
 time under the care and by the power of God, this common 
 dignity overshadows and ennobles every other thing. 
 
 Sometimes a catastrophe brings about this consciousness 
 of simple humanity. When Robinson Crusoe first saw the 
 man Friday, the fact that they were fellow-humans was more 
 dominating than color or creed. When the earth's crust 
 shakes and terror drives people from their homes, the mem- 
 bers of the heterogeneous company huddled in a place of 
 refuge are more conscious of their common human frailty 
 before this mighty force than they are of old distinctions that 
 loomed so large in days of safety when they forgot their God. 
 
 But what the earthquake can do for a night, Christ can 
 make an abiding attitude. Fellowship with him gives a spiritual 
 perspective that is vital for all time. The world must catch 
 
 4 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS OF LARGER SELF [I-4] 
 
 from him the overwhehningly greater significance of what 
 unites rather than of what separates mankind. Those indi- 
 viduals and those nations who really try to follow him will 
 find amongst themselves an identity of interest and of aim 
 that will command attention, to the exclusion or correction 
 of the things which now divide. 
 
 Here, then, is a practical test for every Christian. Amid 
 race prejudice and national rivalry, does the deeper unity 
 stand out for us? Do we feel closer to a Chinese or an 
 African who is trying to be a Christian than we do to a 
 fellow-countryman who is making no such effort? Can we 
 ever have a league of nations without a deep sense of our 
 underlying unity? 
 
 Paul does not underestimate the magnitude of this change 
 in point of view. To him it is a moral change that can be 
 likened only to a new life, the putting on of a new man. 
 Paul never would have tolerated two classes, Christian and 
 world Christian. Becoming a Christian meant to him some- 
 thing deep and thoroughgoing. In these two epistles he 
 testifies to a wonderful change in attitude. I ask myself two 
 questions : Has there ever been such a change in my mental 
 attitude? If so, would I consider it, as Paul did, so great an 
 evidence of God's working in me that I would write it to 
 my friends as "good news"? 
 
 First Week, Fourth Day : The Interrelation of Peo- 
 ples 
 
 But speaking truth in love, may grow up in all things 
 into him, who is the head, even Christ; from whom all 
 the body fitly framed and knit together through that 
 which every joint supplieth, according to the working in 
 due measure of each several part, maketh the increase 
 of the body unto the building up of itself in love. — Eph. 
 4:15, 16. 
 
 That there should be no schism in the body; but that the 
 members should have the same care one for another. And 
 whether one member sufTereth, all the members suffer 
 with it; or one member is honored, all the members re- 
 joice with it. — I Cor. 12:25, 26. 
 
 For none of us liveth to himself, and none dieth to 
 himself. — Rom. 14:7. 
 
 That apart from us they should not be made perfect. — 
 Heb. 11:40. 
 
[1-4] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Most of these verses were spoken primarily with reference 
 to the Church as an organization. Today they seem equally 
 applicable to the whole world. For not only the physical but 
 the mental seismographs in every land are sensitive to the 
 smallest shock at any place. A pistol shot in a small Bohemian 
 town could set four-fifths of the world at war. True, also, 
 are these verses if applied even to things no more profound 
 than the cross-section of the day of a modern man. "When 
 he rises, a sponge is placed in his hand by a Pacific Islander, 
 a cake of soap by a Frenchman, a rough towel by a Turk. 
 His merino underwear he takes from the hand of a Spaniard, 
 his linen from a Belfast manufacturer, his outer garments 
 from a Birmingham weaver, his scarf from a French silk 
 grower, his shoes from a Brazilian grazier. At breakfast his 
 cup of coffee is poured by natives of Java and Arabia ; his rolls 
 are passed by a Kansas farmer, his beefsteak by a Texan 
 ranchman, his orange by a Florida Negro."' And so on 
 through the day — a million men and women and children 
 have been working for him; and in return he should add his 
 mite to the common stock upon which others draw. 
 
 It is not enough, however, merely to recognize these inter- 
 relations. We nmst also see what lies back of these contribu- 
 tions to our lives. Our coal, our clothes, our ornaments — 
 these things are a part of our system, are a part of us. Many 
 of these things are the fruit of slum conditions and represent, 
 not something apart, but the reverse of what seems like the 
 splendid fabric of our lives. In the graphic figure of H. G. 
 Wells, "The wide rich tapestry of your lives comes through 
 on the other side, stitch for stitch, in stunted bodies, in chil- 
 dren's deaths." And what is true in the social and industrial 
 world holds true in the international. In fact, Norman An- 
 gell's "The Great Illusion" holds as its thesis that no people 
 can possibly benefit itself by conquering, impoverishing, or 
 even forcibly annexing another people. The other nation 
 also is part of the larger self, and we suffer with the other 
 member. 
 
 But even if there were no unsocial conditions of production 
 of which to think, would we be relieved of responsibility? 
 Can we take from Rome, from Greece, from Arabia, from 
 Egypt, the very words and numbers that we hourly use and 
 
 ^GeorgQ Harr-'s, " J/ oral Evolution," p. 36. 
 
 6 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS OF LARGER SELF [I-5] 
 
 feel no sense of obligation in return? Shall we accept from 
 Japan and China the ripe fruitage of their rare arts and feel 
 that the whole debt has been discharged when a mere money 
 recompense has been made? Something more than the re- 
 moval of downright selfishness is needed on the part of the 
 individual and the group if class and racial troubles are to 
 cease. There could still remain that preoccupation with one's 
 more narrow range of interests that obliterates all sense of 
 solidarit3^ What we need is a consciousness alive to the 
 significance of a membership one with the other. We should 
 not need another war to burn into us the awful results of 
 attempting to live unto ourselves alone. 
 
 Let us, on the other hand, not fail to draw inspiration for 
 resourceful constructive work from a vivid realization of our 
 interrelationships. For every social reformer, every religious 
 worker, may know that each victory that he wins will benefit 
 not merely those whose interests he immediately seeks to 
 serve, but also his awakening fellow-members the world 
 around. So real and intricate are our interrelations that the 
 removal of unchristian principles from the social institutions 
 of any land makes the progress of every other land just so 
 much more possible. If we long that God's will should be 
 done anywhere, it is wise and reasonable to keep in mind the 
 whole, to work and pray that "thy will be done on earth." 
 
 First Week, Fifth Day: God's Kindergarten for 
 Eternity 
 
 For I will not dare to speak of any things save those 
 which Christ wrought through me, for the obedience of 
 the Gentiles, by word and deed, in the power of signs and 
 wonders, in the power of the Holy Spirit; so that from 
 Jerusalem, and round about even unto Illyricum, I have 
 fully preached the gospel of Christ. ... 
 
 Wherefore also I was hindered these many times from 
 coming to you: but now, having no more any place in 
 these regions, and having these many years a longing 
 to come unto you, whensoever I go unto Spain. — Rom. 
 15: 18, 19, 22-24a. 
 
 And they went through the region of Phrygia and 
 Galatia, having been forbidden of the Holy Spirit to 
 speak the word in Asia; and when they were come over 
 against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia; and the 
 Spirit of J*^sus suffered them not; and passing by Mysia, 
 
[1-5] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 they came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to 
 Paul in the night: There was a man of Macedonia stand- 
 ing, beseeching him, and saying, Come over into Macedo- 
 nia, and help us. And when he had seen the vision, 
 straightway we sought to go forth into Macedonia, con- 
 cluding that God had called us to preach the gospel 
 unto them. — Acts i6:6-io. 
 
 Every night as we look up at Orion or the Pleiades God 
 is encouraging us to live more magnificent, inclusive lives. 
 Put yourself out in the universe and look back upon the tiny, 
 half-cooled orb we call the earth. Here is where God has set 
 us for a few days to train us for eternity. A few continents, 
 a few peoples, myriads of stars to draw us on — such is our 
 kindergarten. 
 
 Notice how Paul had learned this lesson. The book of 
 Acts deals with great sweeps of geography. Along the great 
 Roman roads, through the great centers of government, Paul 
 not only thought but went. Troas was Paul's door to Europe 
 — Rome and Spain lay on ahead. It was because Paul could 
 think in the world terms of his time that the first great ex- 
 pansion of the Kingdom was made possible. Into the range 
 of his thinking and sympathy had come his whole world. 
 Who does not feel that Paul had already graduated into an 
 ampler school? 
 
 Francis Xavier was another who had learned to grasp a 
 world. He was sent forth by Loyola with the charge, "Go set 
 the world on fire," and in ten crowded years he gave his mes- 
 sage in India, Malacca, Ceylon, Cochin, Japan. When, finally, 
 his life burnt out at the gate of China, he was planning to 
 preach Christ through that empire, and to evangelize Europe 
 by way of Siberia. "Eternity only, Francis, is sufficient for 
 such a heart as yours," wrote his master, Loyola, "the king- 
 dom of glory alone is worthy of it." 
 
 The question for us is whether we, with the immensely 
 increased resources at our command, have left the primary 
 grade with reference to this little ball on which we live. Have 
 we Paul's grasp of facts? Can we, like him, think in conti- 
 nents? Many of us have but begun to learn this first lesson 
 for world citizenship — mere expansiveness of sympathy. 
 America has a greater challenge than any other nation to 
 leave the provincial and to develop the international mind. 
 If the president of the National City Bank can declare that 
 
 8 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS OF LARGER SELF [1-6] 
 
 the banker of the future must be an international thinker, 
 how much more must the Church rear up Christians who can 
 think in world terms. In the New York subway an adver- 
 tisement of chewing gum has actually been pictured against 
 a background of the globe; and surely the Christian, because 
 of his being such, should be able to think as far around the 
 world as South Dakota wheat is carried. A world-encircling 
 purpose and vision is needed right through our church mem- 
 bership. Can you think beyond the bounds of your own 
 community, or state, or nation? Are you accustoming your- 
 self to think in world terms? 
 
 One must make the start and live with it daily, for one 
 does not pass from parochial to world thought over night. 
 John Wesley had it when he spoke of the world as his parish. 
 William Lloyd had it when he said, "My country is the world ; 
 my countrymen the inhabitants of it." The shoemaker, William 
 Carey, had overcome provincialism when, in reading the life 
 of David Brainerd, he could not but ask, "If God can do 
 such things for the Indians of America, why not for the 
 pagans of India?" Alexander Mackay became what he was 
 to Uganda because a father knew how to trace the journeys 
 of Livingstone on a map before the boy and because a 
 mother's heart had thrilled to tales of missionary heroism. 
 Today a band of twenty-five thousand American, British, and 
 continental missionaries are working at a world problem. 
 Modern missions have caught the vision of the world and 
 are at work for mankind. Have you caught it? Are you 
 growing more able day by day to pray "Thy kingdom come" 
 with new content not only in the quality but in the expansive- 
 ness of that conception? The modern mind and heart and 
 conscience must not have frontiers. 
 
 First Week, Sixth Day : Self-Identification with the 
 Larger Group 
 
 And Moses returned unto Jehovah, and said, O, this 
 people have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods 
 of gold. Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin — ; and 
 if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou 
 hast written. — Exodus 32:31, 32. 
 
 I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience bear- 
 ing witness with me in the Holy Spirit, that I have great 
 sorrow and unceasing pain in my heart. For I could wish 
 
 9 
 
[1-6] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 that I myself were anathema from Christ for my brethren's 
 sake, my kinsmen according to the flesh: who are Israel- 
 ites; whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the 
 covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of 
 God, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of 
 whom is Christ as concerning the flesh, who is over all, 
 God blessed for ever. Amen. — Rom. 9: 1-5. 
 
 In these burning words Moses and Paul reveal the com- 
 pleteness of their identification with the larger group about 
 them. Is anything like such attainment possible for us? Did 
 that young lieutenant have it when a shell fell, about to 
 explode, amongst the little group for which he was responsi- 
 ble, and he impulsively threw himself upon it? 
 
 Some attain this identification through patriotism. "What 
 do I want with money if my country fails? If Russia loses, 
 I lose ; if Russia wins, I win." So spoke General Tatisheff, 
 an out-and-out Christian patriot, in answer to his friends who 
 thought him foolish to sell all his property that the proceeds 
 might be used by the Government. 
 
 Some approach it through gratitude, as did a patient in 
 South China. Having recovered from a severe sickness in 
 the mission hospital, he showed how far his old exclusiveness 
 had been changed by presenting to his ward a handsome tablet, 
 bearing characters which signified, "China with outsiders one 
 large family." 
 
 Through devoted response to Africa's deepest need, Francois 
 Coillard came still closer to self-identification with the larger 
 group when, in 1898, on his third journey to that land, he 
 said, "I am departing for the third time to Africa — poor 
 Africa ! Ah, if one could only give oneself to her until the 
 last hour of one's life!" 
 
 On the other hand, how easy it is to miss the attainment 
 of the larger self, even where failure is least expected. The 
 missionary, having responded to a world call, may find him- 
 self so engrossed with the detailed routine of an Indian dis- 
 trict that all interest in the progress of the Kingdom in other 
 lands is crowded out. He may find himself with less knowl- 
 edge of world-wide missions than when he was at home. 
 A president of a foreign missionary society can actually be 
 so enthusiastic over the foreign aspects of the work that she 
 is vexed when the prayer-book for home missions is bound 
 up v/ith that for foreign missions ; or chafes when the Negro, 
 
 10 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS OF LARGER SELF [I-7] 
 
 or the Mormon, or the immigrant question comes up for dis- 
 cussion. It is possible to realize the far-off, and yet quite 
 ignore the near-by self. Whenever we identify "Christen- 
 dom" with the Western nations only, or confine "heathendom" 
 to the Orient we have failed. 
 
 Perhaps nowhere more than in prayer do we see the meager- 
 ness of the self we have attained. "Bless me and my wife, 
 my son John and his wife, us four and no more," is the classic 
 embodiment of the microscopic self. On the other hand, we 
 find a beautiful example of an expanding self in the simple 
 Panjabi Christian, Gulu, Once a desperate character amongst 
 the outcastes, he is now known as one of God's great inter- 
 cessors. One day Gulu came to his American friend and 
 said : "Sahib, teach me some geography." "Why, Gulu, what 
 do you want with geography at your age?" "Sahib, I wish 
 to study geography so that I may know more about which 
 to pray." Shall not we examine our prayer life — that for 
 which we care enough to intercede — as one index of our 
 growth ? 
 
 First Week, Seventh Day: A Prayer for Human 
 Solidarity 
 
 As thou didst send me into the world, even so sent I 
 them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify my- 
 self, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth. 
 Neither for these only do I pray, but for them also that 
 believe on me through their word; that they may all be 
 one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that 
 they also may be in us: that the world may believe that 
 thou didst send me. And the glory which thou hast given 
 me I have given unto them; that they may be one, even 
 as we are one; I in them, and thou in me, that they may 
 be perfected into one; that the world may know that 
 thou didst send me, and lovedst them, even as thou lovedst 
 me. — John 17:18-23. 
 
 We often read these words with no larger application in 
 mind than the abolition of lamented denominational differ- 
 ences. The union of such Christian sects as have come 
 within our range is as far as our longing goes with this 
 prayer of Christ's. Many of us do not include in conscious 
 thought in connection with these verses such great com- 
 
 II 
 
II-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 munions as the Roman Catholic, the Greek Orthodox, and the 
 Syrian Church in India. 
 
 But can any interpretation of these words be complete 
 that confines its thought to European man, or Anglo-Saxon 
 man, or even to white man? When between the Western and 
 the Eastern, barriers fall down, and each sees that he cannot 
 be the man he ought to be without the other ; when "for their 
 sakes" we sanctify ourselves, and include in the word, "their," 
 other peoples as well as other individuals ; when reciprocity, 
 mutuality, and true oneness mark interracial relationships, will 
 not this go far toward answering Christ's prayer for evidence, 
 in order "that the world may believe that thou didst send me"? 
 
 In no place do we have the social character of personality 
 more vividly brought out than here. Our social environment 
 is one that includes not only our closer circle but the whole 
 world of peoples and God himself. Anything that makes for 
 isolation, makes for poverty of personality. 
 
 How is this potential solidarity of all peoples and of man- 
 kind with God to be made actual ? When "the love wherewith 
 thou lovedst me may be in them, and I in them." It is love as 
 inspired by Christ that binds together. 
 
 COMMENT FOR THE WEEK 
 I 
 
 If a child is asked to tell us where his "self" is, he will 
 probably point to his body. In fact, in answer to the ques- 
 tion as to what constitutes the self many of us might naively 
 reply that it is that of which a photograph can be taken. We 
 say, "That is I," pointing toward the picture or to our reflec- 
 tion in the mirror. But n,o man can be wholly found between 
 his hat and his boots. And yet some of us keep on thinking 
 of the self as in some way enclosed within one's skin. If 
 we have not stopped to reflect, this conception of an epider- 
 mal self may never be displaced. 
 
 Every new interest, Iwzvever, is an addition to one's self. 
 Each nezv activity, each new enterprise that calls forth our 
 cooperation constitutes an expansion of the self. If Red Cross 
 work really moves me, it actually becomes a factor in my 
 self. If my impulses find satisfaction in helping Baillie save 
 the Yangtze valley by reforesting Pearl Mountain, then this 
 interest, by very virtue of this fact, becomes a part of my ego. 
 
 12 
 

 CONSCIOUSNESS OF LARGER SELF [I-c] 
 
 If I have accustomed myself to act in such ways that the 
 recital of Belgian or Armenian misery makes me restless 
 until I go forth in some sort of aid, then this interest in relief 
 is a part of myself. On the other hand, if what really moves 
 me is the turning of my tens of dollars into hundreds and 
 my hundreds into thousands, then that interest is the measure 
 of myself. Just because my powers find satisfaction in these 
 ends or purposes they comprise a part of the "me." Psycho- 
 logically then, the self is as wide and large or as small and 
 narrow as one's interests. 
 
 Now although in reality the self is thus expanded, there is 
 a tendency in all of us to identify the self zvith a part only 
 of its whole range. Of necessity most of our activities are 
 narrowed down to a pretty small range. There is the daily 
 round of dressing, breakfasting, and securing the means for 
 shelter and the sustenance of life. Just because we generally 
 are acting for this. more narrow and limited range of self, 
 we tend to identify the self with these habitual interests. For 
 the law of habit is at work in all of us. Since most of our 
 activities center about a narrow range of personal interests, 
 we overlook the fact that we are really larger — or may be 
 larger — than this realm. One may be interested in buying 
 a new automobile for one's family or in welfare work in the 
 slums, but in either case it is the self going out to a particular 
 object. One may aspire to securing a half-pint bottle of cream 
 each morning for one's oatmeal, or may go out to Higginbot- 
 tom's agricultural work for India's farmers. It is the self, 
 however, that goes forth in either case. The real question 
 is as to the kind of self you have. 
 
 II 
 
 It will help us to answer this question if we catch the real 
 significance of such zvords as "selfish" and "unselfish." We 
 use them to describe the behavior of men. But strictly speak- 
 ing, if what we have just said is true, there is no such thing 
 as absolute selflessness. It is only because people have formed 
 the habit of going forth to a rather narrow range of interests 
 that this more narrow range prevents their full conception 
 of what constitutes the self, so that any interest outside this 
 range is said to be wn-selfish. To the hard familiar round 
 to which habitual response is made, the word "selfish" is 
 applied. Similarly from this point of view it is possible to 
 
 13 
 
[I-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 say that there is really no such thing as absolute self-denial. 
 The conception underlying its use implies a limitation of the 
 self to the more personal immediate interests. If we were 
 not in the habit of having a petty expression of ourselves, 
 the word never would have been used. 
 
 What then is the real significance lying back of such words 
 as "unselfish" and "self-denial"? Of course they have their 
 value in common speech, but one should realize the confusion 
 into which they may lead one's thinking. "Unselfishness" does 
 not mean lack of self, for all that we do must be in response 
 to some satisfaction our self gets in the act, but it refers to 
 the kind of self that gets the satisfaction; it signifies a truer 
 sense of values. "Selfish" is used to describe a person who 
 centers on only a part of his whole possible self and who mani- 
 festly works for this smaller so-called self. What makes 
 selfishness selfish is not that certain activities or interests 
 secure the welfare of the self, but that the self that is served 
 is a small and narrow self in comparison with what it might 
 be. 
 
 What has just been said enables us to realize that there 
 is a perfectly natural psychological reason why we are rather 
 vexed to have the cause of child labor, or the mountain 
 whites, or the Mormons, or a school in Africa brought before 
 us. Such things make demands not only upon our pocket- 
 books, but primarily upon our capacity for expanding our 
 range of interests. They may easily require a readjustment 
 of what constitutes our self. These causes may involve the 
 renouncing of the old self and making a new adjustment in 
 the light of the new possibilities of activity. Now the break- 
 ing of any habit is more or less unpleasant. We tend, there- 
 fore, to resist any ideal expansion of the self beyond the 
 customary range. If it requires rather unpleasant concentra- 
 tion and efifort to acquire a new stroke in swimming or to 
 learn tennis at fifty, it is just as natural that there should 
 be something taxing about altering the habitual trend of our 
 interests. If you are not used to such readjustments, if you 
 have not kept yourself flexible through habitual response 
 to public and national and international spirit, such rearrange- 
 ments are likely to be very trying. 
 
 The process of readjustment is the only kind of self- 
 renunciation that is moral. Renunciation is not a dying to 
 the real self but only to the sin of narrowness. It is really 
 
 14 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS OF LARGER SELF [I-c] 
 
 an enlargement of the self — a realignment, with the new data 
 taken into consideration. But the ideal world citizen is alive 
 to the demand for a constant readjustment of the self. In 
 each case of choice the decision ought to be for the highest 
 largest purpose that can be visioned. This may mean pro- 
 ceeding with activities that will secure you a college educa- 
 tion, or will make the comfort of your wife and family secure. 
 Or it may mean launching out for a bank position in South 
 America or a big task under some mission board in China. 
 Whether the decision is selfish or unselfish depends on whether 
 you have enlarged the circle of your real self to include those 
 other wider demands upon your consideration, and whether 
 you act for the common good of this new circle. The obliga- 
 tion is not for any particular act, whether geographically near 
 or far, but for an expanding self which will in each new 
 enlargement act on the highest purpose that can express the 
 greater self. 
 
 From our daily study this week we want to catch the duty 
 and the joy of expansion. For we must be like God in this 
 as well as in other respects. He did not merely love, but 
 he loved "the world" — the largest possible circle as far as 
 we are concerned. "Ye are the salt of the earth" Jesus said 
 — not merely of Palestine. "Ye are the light of the world" — 
 not merely of your small circle. We rejoice to think that 
 infinite reaches are ahead of us; that God has set no limit 
 to the development of this capacity of going out to larger 
 and larger ranges of interests and of entering into wider 
 and wider relations with human beings. Part of the process 
 of becoming perfect as he is perfect is to attain range of 
 love as well as quality of love. If any man would save his 
 life, that is, if any one is going to hold on to his small 
 self and try to wall in what he is at any point in his de- 
 velopment, then Christ says he will lose the only thing that 
 can be called life. But if any man will lose his self — if any 
 man for Christ's sake will break through the crust that 
 habit is ever forming about a given self, he will find a newer, 
 richer, larger self — he v/ill save his life. 
 
 The attainment of the larger self should therefore be a 
 matter of immense importance to everyone. It is a part of 
 the saved life. One may not sit lightly back and say that 
 he has no interest in the world outreach of his church, any 
 more than he may say lightly that he is not interested in 
 
 15 
 
[I-c] MARKS OF A V/ORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 becoming holy, or righteous, or loving. Even to be pre- 
 occupied with one's own affairs to such an extent that one 
 is oblivious to the needs of others, or to be too indolent to 
 conceive or to strive for a larger self, is a serious matter — 
 it is to miss the goal ! A good many people in our churches 
 who refuse to think of the needs of foreign lands, and who 
 have never learned to go out in prayer and gift and service 
 for them, can honestly say that they are not consciously 
 acting on what the world calls self-seeking motives. But 
 nevertheless their self is smaller and less rich than it might 
 be. Interests are the measure of the self, and the question 
 at stake in this first standard for world service is the kind 
 of self you are building up. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Let us enter into the appreciation of the far-reaching com- 
 plexity of the self from another angle. We are all impressed 
 with the extent to which the nineteenth century has be- 
 queathed to the twentieth a problem of interrelationships 
 hitherto unknown in the history of the world. The War 
 emphatically reveals the interlacing of the races : Chinese 
 Christians from America are sent to France to minister to 
 Chinese laborers there ; purdah women in India knit for 
 their soldiers in Europe; every time we put a piece of white 
 bread to our lips we are reminded that the fate of the world 
 for a century ahead lies in no small measure in just such 
 acts. We tried, at first, to go our way, with the idea that 
 the War did not concern us. But such a course was im- 
 possible. 
 
 Even before the War thoughtful minds were noting the 
 increasing interdependence of nations. They saw the stream 
 of student life flowing from every land toward the great 
 centers of Western learning. Hookworm was found to pre- 
 vail all round the world; and its eradication must include 
 the planet. Both the tares and the wheat of one field pass 
 over into the next, for thistles as well as maple seeds have 
 wings. So, too, in child philanthropy the mill conditions of 
 Japan and China must be considered, as well as those of 
 America and England. The thinking and the acting of a 
 world are reported to our doors each morning for a mere 
 pittance. Great human causes like the woman's movement 
 and the spirit of democracy are surging through the world, 
 
 i6 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS OF LARGER SELF [I-c] 
 
 calling for a new breadth of vision and depth of wisdom. 
 There are no longer any foreign nations — there are those 
 with different languages and customs, but they are all right 
 at our door. No longer do we speak of sundering seas ; the 
 oceans have become a bond. Inextricably linked up are we 
 with a world society of immeasurable intricacy, complexity, 
 and pervasiveness. 
 
 IV 
 
 But what has this to do with me? How is the self which 
 I identify with my own individuality concerned in this move- 
 ment? Much every way. Let us therefore think further 
 about this self and see what it really signifies. 
 
 On the one hand there is an extreme individualistic con- 
 ception of society. Suppose we have a stone wall before us. 
 Can we, by way of analogy, use the stones of different shapes 
 and sizes to represent the varied individuals about us? And 
 in like manner may we take the wall to represent society? 
 Without doubt we have a certain consciousness of separate- 
 ness and of freedom of will and with this comes the feeling 
 of personal responsibility. From this point of view we do 
 seem almost as separate one from the other as those stones 
 in the wall. In this mood we may grant that an individual 
 may submerge and lose himself in a crowd, yet we are apt 
 to think of this same individual as emerging from the crowd 
 to live a life of reason by himself. With the stone-wall 
 theory of society, salvation is as simple as the rescue of indi- 
 viduals, and evangelism needs no other method than an appeal 
 for a change of will. Furthermore, he who goes forth to 
 world service may imagine that he can transfer his "self" with 
 more or less completeness from one social group in America 
 to a place in some distant society, just as a stone might be 
 taken from this wall and be put more or less unchanged into 
 some structure in a foreign land. 
 
 But my "self" is not done up in a little bundle which ends 
 with my finger-tips and which can be removed from place 
 to place with more or less completeness, as a brick might be 
 transferred. We are seeing more clearly than ever the social 
 character of Christianity. Many a one who goes as a mis- 
 
 17 
 
[I-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 sionary to a foreign land has had this impressed upon him. 
 Not infrequently such ambassadors are rudely awakened to 
 the fact that the Christianity they had come to give was not 
 wholly in themselves ; that what had sustained them and 
 made them what they were at home was the uplifting influ- 
 ence of friends, associations, the whole church connection, 
 and the general Christian environment in which they were 
 submerged; that apart from this larger self they had less 
 of the real thing in them than they had supposed. As a 
 matter of fact, every person who goes abroad commits 
 partial suicide in the limited sense that he has to some extent 
 broken up the old self and left part of it behind. 
 
 Social workers especially emphasize this aspect of the com- 
 plexity of the self. They see so plainly the effects of the 
 pressure of the great social forces on the individual that 
 some are wrongly led into a kind of social fatalism. The 
 individual seems to them to be merely the resultant of the 
 ever-present social forces, amidst which he lives. 
 
 Salvation is turned over to this social pressure and the 
 individual is relieved of responsibility for exercising his will. 
 From this standpoint the individual is not a stone in a wall 
 but a point in a mesh — a network — binding him inextricably 
 with all the human and material environment about him, that 
 is, a center of relationships. We might call this the "net- 
 work," as over against the "stone-wall" view of society. 
 
 VI 
 
 Now each of these points of view is partially right and 
 partially wrong — right in that it truly represents life from 
 one particular point of view ; but wrong when it sets up its 
 aspect of life as a picture of the whole. For human life, 
 like an ellipse, must be regarded from two foci. From one 
 pole of the ellipse human life does seem to have its separate 
 individual aspect. But this must be recognized as not the 
 whole truth, but an abstraction from the whole. There is 
 no such thing as an absolutely separate individual in the 
 strict sense. There is only an individual aspect of the fact 
 of life. The other pole of the ellipse gives us the social 
 point of view, and shows us how interrelated each part of 
 society is with other parts. The world servant will be alive 
 to the duties and responsibilities of both these poles. But 
 it is the second aspect upon which we are centering thought 
 
 i8 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS OF LARGER SELF [I-c] 
 
 in this chapter — the fact of the larger social self, zvhich exists 
 in its ramifying interrelations whether we are conscious of 
 it or not. We are not going to think of ourselves, then, as 
 so many separate matches in a match-box. Our consciousness 
 will not be of a self as a separate, detached, more or less 
 fixed entity, which may or may not take on college, com- 
 munity, or world interests. One comes to realize that the 
 entering or not upon these new interests determines the kind 
 of self he is to be. 
 
 VII 
 
 For the individual this conception of the larger self is a 
 challenge to become cosmo-Christian, to pass from the class 
 of spiritual defectives. Much as the habit of world thought 
 has been developed since 1914, we must still more acquire 
 a consciousness of humanity. The activities of some people 
 take place in such a narrow circle that they are not able, 
 except in their highest moments, to get beyond its narrow 
 confines. There is a tendency for such to respond as did 
 that African, who, called to help a man whose boat was 
 sinking and who could not swim, stood calmly on the river 
 bank, and said : "He is not of my village." 
 
 On the social side it is a call to search out what men have 
 in common and to work unfailingly against whatever un- 
 necessarily divides them. It will enlist him in breaking 
 down the barriers of social stratification which threaten the 
 unity of the human kind. He will not rest in mere negatives 
 such as showing the lamentable effects of war, or mere 
 a!voidance of those things v/hich lead to international strife, 
 but there will be a positive emphasis on what draws people 
 together in objective endeavor irrespective of national boun- 
 daries. He will see that he cannot be Christian in the full 
 sense until this larger self is Christianized — until the whole 
 social order is Christianized. He will see that he has cor- 
 porate as well as merely individual responsibilities. On the 
 psychological side, the conception of the larger self will be 
 a summons to each one to acquire a disposition of the mind 
 which will be hospitable in the face of each new demand 
 on one's interests. It is a call to the international heart and 
 mind. As the complexity of our relationships becomes more 
 involved, each generation increasingly needs individuals who 
 have visioned with insight and tenacity that we are members 
 
 19 
 
[I-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 one of another, and recognize the world sweep of the obliga- 
 tions of discipleship. 
 
 For the Church it is a challenge to provide a gospel suited, 
 not simply to the individual, but to that larger social life 
 which, in these modern times, one may well claim is the most 
 obtrusive aspect of life as he actually has to live it. The 
 Church must realize that many will be testing it by the solu- 
 tions which it can bring to problems of national and inter- 
 national relations. If the Church is at all to fulfil the possi- 
 bilities of the larger self, she must assert the lordship of 
 Christ not only over the individual but also over the cor- 
 porate relations of men and women. This lordship must 
 be manifested at the back doors of houses, in industry, in 
 business, in politics, in international relations. So insistent 
 are the problems of the larger social self, that, unless the 
 Church unfolds the application of Christianity to these phases 
 of our lives and gives to the solution a sanctity and spirit 
 of her own, she need not be surprised if the modern man 
 turns from her. The larger self must be evangelized and 
 saved. 
 
 The foreign missionary will feel that he is enabling his 
 home constituency to realize their larger selves by adminis- 
 tering their work abroad. Missionary societies are the organ- 
 izations through which the broader self-realization is made 
 possible. It is indeed an inspiring thing to think of 25,000 
 Protestant missionaries, off in their thousands of villages 
 or city communities, inculcating principles that lie at the 
 basis of all Christian democracy and all permanent inter- 
 national good will. 
 
 For peoples of other lands this standard of world citizen- 
 ship will, for example, lead them to approach their problems 
 of sanitation not simply for their own local good. They v/ill 
 be led to see that public hygiene is a problem of international 
 duty, that the mastery of bubonic plague in India is of vital 
 concern to all the world. They will see how all mankind is 
 bound together with them and how they can show their sense 
 of brotherhood in practical deeds of genuine and sincere 
 cooperation in efforts to make the world safe from inter- 
 national disease. It is this spirit that led a Chinese car- 
 penter in one of the furthest removed villages from Tientsin 
 to bring in a Mexican dollar, saying that he had heard about 
 the Armenian suffering and wanted to help. It is what filled 
 
 20 
 
CONSCIOUSNESS OF LARGER SELF [I-c] 
 
 the inmates of the leper asylum at Miraj, India. Twenty-five 
 rupees had been sent out from America to provide a Christ- 
 mas dinner for them. After a time one of the smitten group 
 came and said, "We have been talking it over and we want 
 you to take five rupees of the amount and send to the suffer- 
 ing women and children of Belgium." It was the expanded 
 self that led an aged Dyak chief to come down the river in 
 his dugout, frpm some days' distance away, with some fresh 
 paddi, bananas, and two chickens, which he begged the White 
 Man to accept, and to send on to his brother orang-putch, 
 or white brother, who lay wounded and sick beyond the 
 ocean. Finally, it was the larger self developing in the in- 
 terior of Africa that characterized Mandombi. Fifty mem- 
 bers of his congregation and more than a hundred other 
 converts had been carried oiT by sleeping sickness. No one 
 seemed to understand the disease. Mandombi, knowing that 
 he himself was a victim, conceived the idea of offering his 
 life to save his people. Taking with him five pounds' worth 
 of cloth — his total savings — he left his world, journeyed to 
 the coast, and set his face toward England. He knew little 
 of modern research and of post mortems, but offered his 
 body for experimentation in order that his people might 
 not die. When Mandombi left his wife and two children 
 and gave himself as a sacrifice for his people, he was forming 
 the kind of self that must live on and on forever. It is 
 this life which God means us to have. 
 
 TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 
 
 1. What would be the conception of self held by (a) An 
 African tribesman? (b) An Indian fakir? (c) A Chinese 
 indemnity student in America? 
 
 2. What is the meaning of the self to you? 
 
 3. What are some of the corporate responsibilities of the 
 modern man? 
 
 4. In what specific ways has the War made it easier to 
 think in world terms? 
 
 5. Where does the chief danger lie in having a limited 
 range of interests? 
 
 6. What picture, analogy, or diagram would you use to 
 bring out the relationship of the individual to society? 
 
 7. Show wherein the following passages from the Bible 
 
 21 
 
[I-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 illustrate and enforce the thought of this week: Genesis 
 Chapter i, 9:15; 12:1-3; 28:13, 14. 
 
 8. What is the relation between seeking first the Kingdom 
 of God and attaining a consciousness of the larger self? 
 
 9. What for you is the geographical content of the word 
 "Christendom"? 
 
 10. To what extent may you judge the degree to which you 
 have attained the larger self by an observation of your range 
 of prayer? 
 
 11. What was the justification for the phrase, "foreign 
 missions"? Is it justifiable now? 
 
 12. Just whaft do you mean by the statement, "God is the 
 Father of all men"? Apply this to legislation with reference 
 to Oriental immigration. Illustrate it by other modern legis- 
 lation, 
 
 13. How would you show that national and racial indi- 
 viduality are consistent with the" highest Christian interpre- 
 tation of the truth that all are of one blood? 
 
 2S 
 
CHAPTER n 
 
 Respect for the Capacity of 
 Other Peoples 
 
 The progressive enlargement of the self of which we were 
 thinking last week brings us into direct relationship with 
 other races and other peoples. What shall be our dominant 
 attitude toward them? Of one thing we may be sure; we 
 can never serve a people effectually until we respect them. 
 And on the other hand they can develop only a little unless 
 they respect themselves. 
 
 One of the most important marks, therefore, of the world 
 Christian will be a fundamental respect for the capacities 
 and attainments of other peoples. This will be the first step 
 in stimulating that faith and courage which these peoples 
 must have if they are to come into their own highest possi- 
 bilities. One of the saddest of experiences is to dwell 
 amongst a people who passively accept the judgment of 
 inferiority from their overlords. And one of the most 
 glorious privileges granted man is to help build up in such a 
 people the spirit of a God-based hope and boundless confi- , 
 
 dence that they have a work to do and a contribution to make ) 
 
 that is unique and without which the world would be the \ 
 
 poorer. Let us see what the Bible contributes to this element 
 of the Christian consciousness. i 
 
 DAILY READINGS I 
 
 Second Week, First Day: The Divine Light Which ; 
 
 Lighteth Every Man 
 
 In the beginning was the Word. ... In him was life; 
 and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth j 
 
 in the darkness; and the darkness apprehended it not. 
 . . . There was the true light, even the light which \ 
 
 23 ; 
 
[II-i] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 lighteth every man, coming into the world. He was in 
 the world, and the world was made through him, and 
 the world knew him not. — John i : i, 4, 5, 9, 10. 
 
 The writer of these verses was mainly interested in prov- 
 ing that the divine spirit or reason was incarnate in Christ. 
 But there was another problem also. Thinkers of the early 
 Church were faced with a difficulty which has increasingly 
 confronted our generation, namely, how to account for ele- 
 ments of truth and beauty in non-Christian systems. The 
 early fathers did not have to account for the strong points 
 of Buddhism and Confucianism and Hinduism ; but they 
 could not ignore the attainments of their own philosophers. 
 Some of the earliest fathers frankly recognized Plato as 
 another of the Minor Prophets. But the solution most ac- 
 cepted as they pondered over the evidence of truth outside 
 Christianity was that the light that shines clearly in Christ 
 sends gleams into every part of the world. The principle 
 they wrought out in seeking to account for an Amos or a 
 Plato, can be applied by us to a Zoroaster, a Mencius, or a 
 Ramanuja. This principle was that the Word is eternally 
 active and leaves no human being outside his light. 
 
 In these days when serious study of the non-Christian reli- 
 gions is revealing innumerable fragments of truth scattered 
 up and down amongst them, attention is being redirected to 
 this conception of a divine manifestation of God which is 
 eternally forth-streaming. How else can we account for 
 the long continued wrestling of the non-Christian mind 
 with problems of the spirit; how else can we explain the 
 reality and rich variety of the experience of their religious 
 leaders ; how better can we understand elements of power 
 and value in their literature and practice? The great ecumeni- 
 cal missionary conference, that met at Edinburgh in 1910, 
 reflected in a remarkable way the position of today's reading. 
 One of its great Commissions says : "The religion of Christ, 
 interpreted in the light of the Incarnation, finds everywhere 
 traces of that Light which lighteth every man, that seminal . 
 Word giving fragments of truth even to those not privileged 
 to know God in Christ. The missionary, so instructed, asks 
 of any nation, What is the truth in it by which it has lived 
 through these many centuries?" 
 
 Is our little response to a big light really so much more 
 worthy than a great response to a little light? Am I, in 
 
 24 
 
RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLES [II-2] 
 
 reality, only a nominal Christian? Or am I rejoicing in 
 and am I illuminated by the light that lighteth every man? 
 
 Second Week, Second Day: Recognizing the Func- 
 tion of Non-Christian Peoples 
 
 And the land of Judah shall become a terror unto 
 Egypt; every one to whom mention is made thereof shall 
 be afraid, because of the purpose of Jehovah of hosts, 
 which he purposeth against it. 
 
 In that day there shall be five cities in the land of 
 Egypt that speak the language of Canaan, and swear to 
 Jehovah of hosts; one shall be called The city of destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 In that day shall there be an altar to Jehovah in the 
 midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border 
 thereof to Jehovah. And it shall be for a sign and for 
 a witness unto Jehovah of hosts in the land of Egypt; 
 for they shall cry unto Jehovah because of oppressors, 
 and he will send them a saviour, and a defender, and he 
 will deliver them. And Jehovah shall be known to Egypt, 
 and the Egyptians shall know Jehovah in that day; yea, 
 they shall worship with sacrifice and oblation, and shall 
 vow a vow unto Jehovah, and shall perform it. And 
 Jehovah will smite Egypt, smiting and healing; and 
 they shall return unto Jehovah, and he will be entreated 
 of them, and will heal them. 
 
 In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to 
 Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the 
 Egyptian into Assyria; and the Egyptians shall worship 
 with the Assyrians. 
 
 In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and 
 with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth; for 
 that Jehovah of hosts hath blessed them, saying, Blessed 
 be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, 
 and Israel mine inheritance. — Isa. 19: 17-25. 
 
 The remarkable thing in these verses is the way in which 
 Egypt and Assyria are given an honored place along with 
 Israel. The prophet is leading in a tremendous change of 
 attitude to other lands. For the people of Israel had been 
 used to think of themselves as God's unique possession from 
 among all peoples, as a kingdom of priests, a holy nation unto 
 Jehovah. They had heard God's voice saying: "I will make 
 of thee a great naticrfi, and I will bless thee, and make thy 
 name great; and be thou a blessing: and I will bless them 
 
 25 
 
[II-3] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 that bless thee, and him that curseth thee will I curse: and 
 in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 
 12:2, 3). But in the last verse of today's reading we find 
 that three typical names which had heretofore been applied 
 only to Israel are recognized as applicable to other nations 
 also. It at last dawns on the prophetic consciousness that 
 Jehovah can speak of Egypt as "my people," and Assyria as 
 "the work of my hands." That Israel should be spoken of 
 as third, with Egypt and Assyria as first and second in the 
 trio which is to be "a blessing in the midst of the earth," is 
 the wonder in this most missionary of Isaiah's prophecies. 
 
 Now we need to learn Isaiah's lesson, for our times are 
 not unlike his. Israel was finding it necessary to look beyond 
 its own nation and adjust itself to a larger world — the world 
 of Western Asia. Isaiah helped his people to expand from 
 international isolation or toleration to international appre- 
 ciation. America, in its turn, is passing from a stage of 
 national insularity. 
 
 Are we to recognize that other nations have a real part to 
 play in God's great plans for the world? Are we willing 
 to think of ourselves as associated with any other peoples 
 that we may together become a blessing to the earth? As 
 we scan each day the morning news, may we be given insight 
 to see the hand of a sovereign God in the unfolding history 
 of the Assyrians of our day! 
 
 Second Week, Third Day: The Test of Forfeited 
 Leadership 
 
 But of a truth I say unto you, There were many widows 
 in Israel in the days of EUjah, when the heaven was shut 
 up three years and six months, when there came a great 
 famine over all the land; and unto none of them was 
 Elijah sent, but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, 
 unto a woman that was a widow. And there were many 
 lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; and 
 none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian. 
 And they were all filled v^dth wrath in the synagogue, 
 as they heard these things; and they rose up, and cast him 
 forth out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the 
 hill whereon their city was built, that they might throw 
 him down headlong. — Luke 4:25-29. 
 
 In these verses we have examples of God's special blessing 
 
 26 
 
RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLES [II-3] 
 
 being conferred upon heathen. This suggestion wounded 
 Jewish pride and self-conceit, and the implication that God 
 might turn from them to non-Jews especially angered these 
 people of Nazareth. 
 
 But whenever God has passed leadership on to humbler 
 peoples, the same surprise felt by the men of Nazareth has 
 been experienced. The Christians at Jerusalem could hardly 
 be persuaded that the Gospel was really meant for the 
 Gentiles as much as for themselves. And when finally leader- 
 ship had passed to Rome we can easily imagine a group of 
 Christians there making light of missionary efforts amongst 
 other peoples. To be sure, there were Caesar's Gallia and 
 Germania, but what could God want to do with these savage 
 peoples? Possibly the most intelligent amongst them could 
 barely picture to their minds a far-off group of islands where 
 men held their crude worship about the Druid stones of 
 Britain. And yet to those once-despised peoples of the north, 
 leadership did most certainly pass. 
 
 Now the ease with which each group nourishes its own 
 pride and vanity and boasts itself superior to all outsiders, 
 is a very widespread phenomenon. Each people is likely to 
 scorn the things in which other peoples differ from them- 
 selves. African tribes think it a huge joke that white people 
 do not know their language ; to the older Chinese, the Middle 
 Kingdom was the yolk of the egg, and other lands were the 
 specks here and there in the albumen ; while we take it for 
 granted that our fair skin and our particular kind of hair 
 are absolute marks of group superiority. So common is 
 this tendency for a people to regard those traits as s'uperior 
 which are peculiar to themselves that a name — ethnocentrism 
 — has been given it. 
 
 Today finds us standing in the synagogue with those men 
 of Nazareth. Christ has been amongst us. Wonders that he 
 longed to do for us and through us for the world remain 
 undone because of our lack of faith. Not many mighty 
 things have been called forth through great askings. What 
 attitude are we going to take as the Master looks about for 
 a land that will respond? 
 
 And let us not forget that, as Anglo-Saxons, we are espe- 
 cially subject to this ethnocentric pride. Constitutionally we 
 have a high sense of racial superiority, and nothing would 
 surprise us more than to have God turn to another race and 
 
 27 
 
[II-4] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 give leadership to it. Would not many an Anglo-Saxon 
 today thrust Jesus out of his cities and try to cast him 
 headlong to destruction, if he should suggest that white 
 civilization had refused to hear him and had after nineteen 
 hundred years manifested so little comprehension of his 
 principles that it would be necessary to turn elsewhere for 
 leadership? May God help us humbly to reflect and examine 
 ourselves. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the 
 kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:3). 
 
 Second Week, Fourth Day: Generosity in Appre- 
 ciation 
 
 And the centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not 
 worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof; but 
 only say the word, and my servant shall be healed. For 
 I also am a man under authority, having under myself 
 soldiers: and I say to this one, Go, and he goeth; and 
 to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant. 
 Do this, and he doeth it. And when Jesus heard it, he 
 marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say 
 unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in 
 Israel. And I say unto you, that many shall come from 
 the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, 
 and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven: but 
 the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer 
 darkness: there shall be the vyeeping and the gnashing of 
 teeth.— Matt. 8:8-12. 
 
 Jesus was an internationalist in the aspect of this week's 
 study. 'Amidst the prejudices of a narrowly centered nation, 
 he did not hesitate to point out admirable traits amongst non- 
 Jewish peoples. Rising above all petty national jealousies, 
 we find him ascribing to a despised Samaritan the possession 
 of a most striking ethical attainment. He did not hesitate 
 to affirm that many shall come from the east and west and 
 shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the 
 Kingdom of God. And here in today's reading is the most 
 surprising instance of faith that Jesus had found. Should he 
 be blind to it because it was found in a Gentile? 
 
 Again we find him ascribing true greatness to the spirit 
 of ministry, saying: "Whosoever would be first among you 
 shall be your servant" (Matt. 20:27). Feeling thus, would 
 he have refused his meed of praise if he had found something 
 
RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLES [II-5] 
 
 fine and true such as the following from the Tao-Teh-King 
 of China? "Heaven is long enduring, and earth continues 
 long. The reason why heaven and earth are able to endure 
 and continue thus long is because they do not live of, or for, 
 themselves. This is how they are able to continue and endure. 
 Therefore the sage puts his own person last, and yet it is 
 found in the foremost place. ... Is it not because he has 
 no personal and private ends, that therefore such ends are 
 realized? The highest excellence is like that water. The 
 excellence of water appears in its benefiting all things, and 
 in its occupying, without striving, the low place which all 
 men dislike."^ 
 
 Jesus pronounced a blessing upon the poor in spirit. Would 
 he refuse to express appreciation of this spirit when found in 
 a non-Christian today? And shall not we, as we turn many 
 an arid page of Indian literamre, rejoice over this lovely 
 prayer by the saint, Tulsi Das? "Lord look Thou upon me — 
 nought can I do myself. Whither can I go? To w^hom but 
 Thee can I tell my sorrow? Oft have I turned my face from 
 Thee and grasped the things of this world, but Thou art 
 the fount of mercy, turn not Thou Thy face from me. . . . 
 When I looked away from Thee I had no eyes of faith to 
 see Thee where Thou art, but Thou art all seeing. I am 
 but an offering cast before Thee. . . . Remember Thy mercy 
 and Thy might, then cast Thine eyes upon me and claim me 
 as Thy slave. Thy very own . . . Lord, Thy ways ever give 
 joy unto my heart. Tulsi is Thine alone, and O, God of 
 mercy, do unto him as seemeth good unto Thee."^ 
 
 Second Week, Fifth Day: Incorporating Old Foun- 
 dations in the New Social Order 
 
 Because that which is known of God is manifest in 
 them; for God manifested it unto them. For the invisible 
 things of him since the creation of the world are clearly 
 seen, being perceived through the things that are made, 
 even his everlasting power and divinity. — Rom. i : 19, 20. 
 
 To the people of Lystra, Paul and Barnabas said : 
 
 Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like 
 
 1 " Sacred Books of the East," Vol. 39, p. 52. 
 2S. K. Datta, " The Desire of India," p. 91. 
 
 29 
 
[II-5] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 passions with you, and bring you good tidings, that ye 
 should turn from these vain things unto a living God, 
 who made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all 
 that in them is: who in the generations gone by suffered 
 all the nations to walk* in their own ways. And yet he 
 left not himself without witness, in that he did good and 
 gave you from heaven rains and fruitful seasons, filling 
 your hearts with food and gladness. — Acts 14:15-17. 
 
 So little are we used to planning and acting on the truths 
 of yesterday's lesson that we may well ponder for another 
 day on this far-reaching truth that God's power and divinity 
 have been made manifest to every people in every clime. 
 Amongst none has he left himself without witness. When 
 taken seriously, this great truth is bound to affect the attitude 
 of reconstructors of the world order, whether they go forth 
 to other nations as ambassadors of the Church or as Chris- 
 tian laymen. Must the new building be made from the 
 foundation up with entirely new material? Or shall we go 
 forth confident that some of the preparatory work has been 
 done and that some bits of material needed will be found 
 upon the ground? If we are to exhibit the marks of a world 
 Christian, we must sit at Paul's feet in Lystra. For the atti- 
 tude with which we approach our world brothers not yet 
 Christian will be profoundly affected by our acceptance or 
 non-acceptance of Paul's teaching. Much of their building 
 is sadly defective — how could it be otherwise without con- 
 scious reference to the Master Builder? But in helping them 
 to rebuild we may be confident that if with certainty the 
 foundation stone of Jesus Christ be laid, there will be bits 
 of the old structure that can be fitly used. Shall we, for 
 example, throw this brick aside in building the new structure 
 — it is the saying of a Chinese sage — ? 
 
 "To those who are good to me, I am good; and to those 
 who are not good to me, I am also good; — and thus all get 
 to be good. To those who are sincere with me, I am sincere ; 
 and to those who are not sincere with me, I am also sincere ; 
 — and thus all get to be sincere."^ 
 
 More than one missionary in China carries with him the 
 Analects of Confucius and finds in them many a point of 
 contact for a Christian message. It was the conviction of 
 
 3 " Sacred Books of the East," Vol. 39* p. 91. 
 
 30 
 
RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLES [II-6] 
 
 this truth which led a missionary, famous for his knowledge 
 of Indian thought and famous also for the number of con- 
 verts he had won, to say that it was the bounden duty of 
 every missionary to India to read the Bhagavad-Gita through 
 once a year at least. 
 
 In this emphasis Christ's spirit and teaching make another 
 of their great contributions to the democracy of God. Each 
 one of us will be more prepared to enter into helpful, larger 
 relationships if we also catch a thoroughgoing conviction 
 that others besides ourselves will contribute — that God has 
 not left himself without witness amongst any people. 
 
 Second Week, Sixth Day : Rejoicing in the Mutually 
 Differing Endowments of Peoples 
 
 Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 
 And there are diversities of ministrations, and the same 
 Lord. And there are diversities of workings, but the 
 same God, who worketh all things in all. ... If the 
 whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If 
 the whole were hearing, where were the smelling? But 
 now hath God set the members each one of them in the 
 body, even as it pleased him. And if they were all one 
 member, where were the body? But now they are many 
 members, but one body. And the eye cannot say to the 
 hand, I have no need of thee: or again the head to the 
 feet, I have no need of you. Nay, much rather, those 
 members of the body which seem to be more feeble are 
 necessary. — I Cor. 12:4-6, 17-22. 
 
 Here is another great biblical truth, the application of 
 which we have too long confined to individuals. We rejoice 
 with Paul to acknowledge variety of gifts in persons; let us 
 no less enthusiastically recognize variety of endowment and 
 faculty amongst peoples. In the great family of God, fullest, 
 richest life depends upon the multiplicity and variety of 
 function possessed by the various members. Internationally 
 we may well say: "If the whole world were America where 
 would be the beautiful gifts of Japan? If the whole were 
 Japan where were India? If they were all one member 
 where would be our wondrously varied world?" A Christian 
 world democracy must welcome the most diversely gifted 
 peoples and have the conviction that a use will be found for 
 
 31 
 
[II-6] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 every taste and every instinct and every aptitude that God 
 has given them. Every nation's life, as well as every man's 
 life, is a thought of God. And it is just this fundamental 
 belief in the endowment of other peoples that makes us 
 expectant of reciprocity and takes the note of condescension 
 from an interchange of service. 
 
 As we get further from the condition of primitive peoples, 
 the typical gifts of national groups are increasingly called 
 forth. When intercommunication was as yet undeveloped, 
 each people did for itself all that was done. For an un- 
 developed society is much like that relatively undifferentiated 
 organism, the amoeba — every part of which may in succession 
 be arms or legs or mouth or stomach. It is when the amoeba 
 becomes a many-membered man, and the primitive society 
 becomes an intricately correlated modern world that we be- 
 come conscious of interdependence. It is easiest in the 
 economic realm to show, with Adam Smith in his epoch- 
 making "Wealth of Nations," that there is something which 
 each nation can best produce. But the diamonds of Kim- 
 berley, the tea of Assam, and the coffee of Brazil may be 
 taken as merely symbolic of higher realms of differentiated 
 service that each group may render to the world. 
 
 Finally, no more nationally than individually should we 
 boast over what we may consider less brilliantly gifted mem- 
 bers. There is no place in the mind of a Christian for inter- 
 national depreciation. The eye cannot say to the hand, I 
 have no need of thee, nor should a boastful American say 
 to any land, I have no need of thee. 
 
 In these days more than ever before, those who have been 
 regarded as the more feeble parts of a great world family 
 have been found to be "more necessary." Peoples that might 
 once have been scorned have been transported by the thou- 
 sand to Europe, in order that the health of the whole body 
 might be maintained. But the reason why there should be 
 no boasting is not because it would be ungracious to laugh 
 at those whose humbler gifts are serving us, but because 
 it is God that has given one faculty to the one and another 
 faculty to the other. Let us beware that we do not impugn 
 the wisdom of Him who chose for each person and each 
 nation the endowments they possess. 
 
 Here again the Christian spirit makes a great contribution 
 to the democracy of God. It recognizes the worth of every 
 
 32 
 
RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLES [II.-7] 
 
 individual — not simply of those apparently most favored. It 
 recognizes without disparagement the gift of every individual 
 and seeks to develop that gift to the very utmost. May God 
 help me today, in my judgment of other peoples, to under- 
 stand this truth. Let me despise no group which God has 
 made. 
 
 Second Week, Seventh Day: Mutual Supplementa- 
 tion by Peoples 
 
 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long- 
 suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, 
 self-control. — Gal. 5:22, 23a. 
 
 With a few bold strokes Paul here has sketched nine 
 elements of the Christian character. There are aspects of 
 character here which after centuries of Christian education 
 we do not find it easy, as a people, to embody. On the othe^r 
 hand, suppose you read them over, underscoring those quali- 
 ties which find marked expression in the Orient. You will 
 doubtless underscore qualities which the Occident, if it told 
 the truth, would acknowledge that it scorned. Yet come to 
 the East and see lands which, through God's grace working 
 upon aptitudes already there, may yet make us see the power 
 of patience, the grandeur of gentleness, the nobility of meek- 
 ness, the dignity of submissiveness, and the glory of humility. 
 
 These are not qualities that the average Anglo-Saxon 
 admires. It is really meant to be a term of reproach when 
 we speak of "the mild Hindu." Our emphasis is on cour- 
 age, truth, justice, duty. These ought we to have done 
 and not left the other undone. A full-orbed character in- 
 volves more than our fragments of the sphere, and we may 
 well work for that time when the Spirit of Jesus Christ shall 
 perfect in them elements which will supplement our own. 
 
 Now our blindness to real values in the ideals of Japanese 
 and Chinese and Indian and South American civilizations is 
 a real hindrance to the spirit of world democracy. Every 
 civilization has an angle from which it seems warm and 
 bright to its own people. If America does not have enough 
 sympathetic love to catch that point of view, much that will 
 be done in the way of attempted friendship will be as sound- 
 ing brass and a tinkling cymbal. 
 
 33 
 
[II-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 COMMENT FOR THE WEEK 
 I 
 
 It will help us to form correct attitudes toward other 
 peoples if we look for a moment at several considerations 
 zvhich will better enable us to appreciate the capacity of the 
 peoples of other civilizations than our own. In the first 
 place, we need to mark the distinction so finely drawn 
 by Professor Franz Boas* between cultural achievement 
 and hereditary aptitude for achievement. Starting from the 
 acknowledged fact that European civilization is distin- 
 guished by greater achievement, the question may be raised 
 as to whether this indicates a superior aptitude or capacity 
 in European peoples. The ordinary assumption is that the 
 race that has attained the highest stage of civilization is 
 naturally the most gifted. But a consideration of the ques- 
 tion shows that the ways in which different peoples were 
 grouped together about the Mediterranean basin, the com- 
 parative ease of communication between these peoples, their 
 more or less common physical appearance, and the slight 
 differences in the modes of manufacture between them were 
 favoring conditions facilitating the rapid interchange of new 
 advances in civilization that might be made in any one part 
 of this Mediterranean area. It is thus plain that historical 
 events may have been a very potent factor in leading one 
 race to civilization before another. 
 
 A distinction has been made between genius and fume 
 which helps us to be fair in the comparison of races. "Genius 
 is aptitude for greatness that is born in a man; fame is the 
 recognition by men that greatness has been achieved."^ We 
 cannot scientifically compare the racial capacity of Americans 
 and Africans by the relative numbers of men or women who 
 have attained fame. For genius may not always result in 
 fame. To realize this it is sufficient to note, for example, 
 one or two obstacles that would almost inevitably prevent 
 genius from attaining fame. If the born genius remains 
 illiterate, this is a handicap which he can scarcely surmount. 
 Would one ever have known Lincoln if his mother had not 
 been able to give him a start, small as it was, in reading? 
 
 4 " The Mind of Primitive Man," Chap. I. 
 
 s C. H. Cooley, " Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social 
 Science," Vol. IX, pp. 317 seq. 
 
 34 
 
RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLES [II-c] 
 
 Now there may be Lincolns in Africa, but what percentage 
 of African mothers can enable their sons to rise out of the 
 illiterate masses? Again, undernourishment may effectually 
 keep genius down. When, as in India, malnutrition reaches 
 a point where one hundred million go hungry to bed each 
 night ; and where, as in some parts of China, a mother must 
 face the problem of disposing of her baby girl in order to 
 conserve food for the rest of the family, we can see how 
 possible it is that native ability may have no chance. We 
 cannot, therefore, compare nations or peoples merely by the 
 relative number of outstanding men. 
 
 A still further aid in securing a proper attitude to other 
 peoples is a suitable time-perspective for judgment. Uni- 
 versity professors^ tell us about paleolithic implements which 
 may have been made 150,000 years ago. They say that eolithic 
 remains may antedate this by 150,000 years. Acknowledging 
 these to be rough guesses merely, let us use them to get a 
 perspective for judgment as to our relative attainments com- 
 pared with other peoples. Crowd those 300,000 years down 
 into the time between twelve o'clock last night and twelve 
 o'clock this noon. And on that reduced scale it was only 
 about twenty minutes to twelve today that our Aryan ances- 
 tors were separating, some to go down into India, some to 
 the West. Only fifteen minutes ago the Vedas were v/ritten. 
 Six minutes ago Buddha, Zoroaster, and Confucius lived, 
 while the coming of Christ was only five minutes ago. The 
 discovery of the sea routes about Cape Horn and Good Hope 
 took place in the last minute, while all of modern missions 
 has filled but fifteen seconds of this reduced cosmic time. 
 From this standpoint we do not need to be inordinately proud, 
 for five minutes ago India was far ahead of us in civilization ; 
 they had high culture when our forefathers were little more 
 than savages. We may be shocked at the promiscuous bath- 
 ing customs in the more backward places of Japan and South 
 America, and yet, on the scale we have suggested, the taboo 
 on nudity in central Europe .is as recent as a half minute 
 ago. It is well for us to recall "the rock from which we 
 were hewn and the pit from which we were digged." Not 
 so very long ago St. Augustine of Canterbury, St. Patrick, 
 Columban, and others found customs and conditions in 
 
 "See especially Prof. J. H. Robinson, in "A Lecture on History," Columbia 
 University Press. 
 
 35 
 
[II-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Europe more savage than a missionary is likely to find in 
 mission fields today. The billion illiterates in non-Christian 
 lands make a sharp contrast with our numerous schools and 
 colleges. And yet it is well for us to remember that a cen- 
 tury ago Germany was the only European nation that had 
 organized a national system of education; in England the 
 state did not assume responsibility for supplying elementary 
 education until 1870; while the spread of free public educa- 
 tion and of higher education for women is in the United 
 States largely a matter of the last three-fourths of a century. 
 "With a proper perspective we realize that a few minutes ago 
 many mission lands were ahead of us, and that now we are 
 only "neck ahead," so to speak. This point of view should 
 take from us some of the condescension with which we tend 
 to approach another people. 
 
 With minds fixed on the attainments of modern Western 
 civilization, it may be flattering to regard priority of attain- 
 ment as an indication of superiority. We may enjoy thinking 
 of ourselves as further removed from our simian ancestors 
 than are the peoples of backward nations. Oblivious to the 
 trend of thought with reference to heredity, we may like 
 to think that modern civilization has left its mark for good 
 on the brain structure of the white child. All these things 
 naturally strengthen our racial pride. But it is well for us 
 to realize that modern science has not furnished the proof 
 of one of those assumptions. 
 
 II 
 
 From such scientific considerations with reference to rela- 
 tive racial capacity, we may recall with new freshness those 
 conceptions which were fundamental zuith Jesus. The father- 
 hood of God was one of these fundamental realities to Jesus; 
 and yet we have rolled this phrase so often from our lips 
 that it hardly suggests to us that God's interest in humanity 
 must be unmarked by any favoritism. That every man is 
 a child of God was fundamental with Jesus, and yet, to most 
 of us this has meant a warm assurance of our own sonship, 
 rather than the sonship of the Zulu or the Brahman. That 
 God is love was central to Jesus ; and yet do we really think 
 of the Father's heart hovering in love over each man, woman, 
 and child in the Kamerun as it does over the children of our 
 own community? That any one — whether in the slums of a 
 
 36 
 
RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLES [II-c] 
 
 city or in the New Hebrides — should be loved by God, gives 
 to him priceless worth and opens up the certainties of eternal 
 life involving endless possibilities. 
 
 Furthermore, Jesus revealed the infinite reaches ahea'd of 
 every human being. Our stage of attainment is not fixed, 
 and no limit has been set to growth in our Father's heart. 
 Let us be certain, therefore, that any race or people who are 
 given the chance, who have the knowledge and the will to 
 conform to God's law, may advance. For each people who 
 will appropriate them, God has great riches in store. Neither 
 the Hottentot nor we are wholly bound by past attainment. 
 It is a matter of knowledge that the American Negro has 
 made vast advances ; and if he lays hold on the principle of 
 growth as found in Christ, while we do not, no racial aptitude 
 that we seem to possess will keep him from developing on 
 beyond us. That "God is able to make all grace abound 
 unto you ; that ye, having always all sufficiency in everything, 
 may abound unto every good work" (H Cor. 9:8) was not 
 said more for the white than the black. Why should we not, 
 therefore, enter the new democracy dominated with a bound- 
 less trust in man's unlimited capacity to appropriate the in- 
 exhaustible good of an infinite God? 
 
 The mind of a world Christian has, then, a fundamental 
 respect for other peoples and is enthusiastic over the possi- 
 bilities in all mankind. It does not dwell primarily on men's 
 defects, but upon their potential promise ; not upon what 
 distant peoples are not, but upon what they may become. 
 It holds that no limits can be set to any race in their growth 
 in knowledge, in power, in character, and in a wondrous 
 progressive sharing of the life of God. 
 
 When once we begin to think of individuals on our planet 
 as God must think of them, then our eyes are made alert 
 to see attainments to which before we had been blind. 
 Against the background of God's will for the humblest people 
 of our day, springs up a thrill of enthusiasm for the spiritual 
 possibilities of humanity. And when our hearts and minds 
 get saturated with the conviction of the endless capacity of 
 the hum.an soul, we are impelled to join with God in that 
 patient, educative, hopeful love which helps that soul to attain. 
 
 Ill 
 
 If, then, we have no scientific justification for estimating 
 37 
 
[II-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 white capacity as greater than that of any other race; if 
 we are sincere in beHeving that God is not partial in his 
 love to his children, then there must have been a yearning of 
 the Spirit amidst these other peoples all through the ages. 
 We, as Christians in this world outreach, will be from first 
 to last awake to the fact that we are beginning our mission- 
 ary work far along in the history of God's working with 
 these peoples. God has been working there for centuries. 
 This conviction will lead us to be alert to see what contribu- 
 tions these other peoples will make to the Kingdom of God. 
 
 Any high school essay will recount the racial contributions 
 of a certain trio — ethical monotheism from the Jew, beauty 
 and philosophy from the Greek, law and organization from 
 the Roman ; but, are we sufficiently expectant concerning 
 what God has been training still other peoples to give? Just 
 as we may turn to the Teuton or the Slav for musical gifts, 
 to the Italian for sensitiveness to color, to the French for 
 clarity of thought, and to the Anglo-Saxon for political sense, 
 so, as we shall see, we must turn to the Orient or to South 
 America for other gifts as precious. 
 
 Nor should we be indifferent to these attainments of other 
 peoples. It seems that a stage has been reached in God's 
 tuition of the race in which humanity needs the mutual stimu- 
 lus, criticism, cooperation, example of its various parts. One 
 member cannot solve its problems to the best advantage in 
 isolation. As Bernard Lucas puts it : "As far as we can see, 
 the period of primary education with its divisions into sepa- 
 rate classes and class-rooms is over, and He is gathering His 
 children together that they may impart to one another the 
 lessons they have learned, and cooperate with Him in larger 
 issues."" East and West may find mutually helpful correc- 
 tives in an interchange of emphases — the one, for example, 
 on solidarity, the other on individualism. * A companionship 
 of nations is thus becoming possible which, like friendship 
 between those of varied gifts, contains vast possibilities of 
 mutual enrichment. 
 
 Most truly from this standpoint is the success of one 
 nation the success of all; and the failure of one nation the 
 loss of all. Kipling's law of the jungle becomes true for the 
 somewhat less savage human folk : 
 
 7 Bernard Lucas, " Our Task in India," p. 35. 
 
 38 
 
RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLES [II-c] 
 
 "For the strength of the pack is the wolf, 
 And the strength of the wolf is the pack." 
 
 More stimulating still is the expectation of what these 
 gifts may become when transformed and ennobled by Jesus 
 Christ. We shall never apprehend all that Christ is until 
 we see him bodied forth in every nation. All that he signifies 
 is too rich in content to be fully set forth in any single indi- 
 vidual or any single race. His full expression in the worth 
 and beauty of countless souls is what Tennyson meant by 
 the phrase, "the Christ that is to be." The hope of helping 
 to unfold new expressions of Christian beauty may be a 
 great stimulus to work for other peoples. 
 
 Christian hymn books of the West often contain words by 
 Krishna Pal, Carey's first convert, "O thou, my soul, forget 
 no more," "Church Melodies," 892 ; Baptist Hymnal, 445 ; or 
 that beautiful tribute to our Lord by a daughter of Hindu- 
 stan, Ellen Lakhshmi Goreh, in her verses which begin, "In 
 the secret of his presence how my soul delights to hide."^ 
 Such contributions from other lands suggest that God's white 
 light when passed through the prism of time and space reveals 
 itself in the primary colors of earth's peoples, the spectrum 
 of humanity. 
 
 As in a beautiful stained-glass window the glory of the 
 whole comes from the different colored bits arranged in 
 thoughtful harmony, so only can the most glorious tribute 
 to our God come from his varied children transmitting 
 through their very being the light and spirit of their Father. 
 Or — to use another figure — I can imagine no more wonderful 
 symphony than that made up from the voices of the nations, 
 each with its' characteristic note, under the great Director, 
 Christ. 
 
 IV 
 
 Let us note some of the racial gifts and attainments 
 amongst the peoples of the earth. We shall find that some 
 of these attainments supplement the more habitual emphases 
 in Western thought and practice. 
 
 India, for example, fairly breathes religion. She has pro- 
 duced the religions with which over three hundred and fifty 
 million people face life and death. Nor is this capacity dead ; 
 
 8 "Hymns of Consecration and Faith," No. 287. 
 
 39 
 
[II-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 for a recent authority^ enumerates over two score modern 
 sects in India today. "God-intoxicated," some have called 
 her. To one experienced missionary India's religious nature 
 is "a veritable Nile v^hich w^aits only for the skill which 
 can direct and the energy which can utilize, to transform 
 her into the richest provmce in the empire of Christ." See 
 those great stone steps leading down to the Ganges ; see 
 how that immense throng, in pressing down to the sacred 
 waters, has trampled to death two women who happened to 
 stumble in the descent. And then imagine, if you can, such 
 vast multitudes of people stampeding the churches of our 
 country, so that we need be anxious for our safety. One 
 must note also the philosophic temperament of India. For 
 centuries she has given almost no attention to science or to 
 history; but she has, perhaps without an equal, given her 
 talent to searching out the metaphysical mysteries of reli- 
 gion. This developed gift, when applied to the revelation as 
 found in Christ, should yield new visions of truth to us. 
 
 Still further is one impressed with her capacity for con- 
 templation. We can hardly remain upon our knees long 
 enough to voice a lengthy prayer. But the Hindu has 
 learned a poise and quiet and rest in contemplation, to which 
 we are strangers. Again, the very name of India recalls 
 those thousands of wandering devotees who have left house 
 and family and, with little more than a beggar's bowl, spend 
 their lives in pilgrimage. Now we cannot admire their 
 method of proceeding by successive prostrations to a temple, 
 their rolling for miles in self-imposed discipline, their sitting 
 amidst fires under India's burning sun ; but the capacity for 
 renunciation that is there we can admire. Turn that willing- 
 ness for self-abnegation and devotion into constructive chan- 
 nels, and the world will yet pause in appreciative wonder. 
 
 Turning, now to China we find traits which are full of 
 promise for the Kingdom. Note their love of peace ; their 
 democratic spirit ; their tenacity of purpose ; their indomitable 
 perseverance; their unlimited patience; their reverence for 
 past values, which has led to an extreme conservatism in the 
 past, but nevertheless is a wholesome safeguard against ill- 
 considered innovations for the future ; their physical stamina ; 
 and their genius for labor and thrift, which is popularly 
 embodied in the statement that if you give a Chinese a foot 
 
 9 J. N. Farquhar, " Modern Religious Movements in India." 
 
 40 
 
RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLES [II-c] 
 
 of ground and a pint of water he can manage to pull along. 
 Those long rows of examination halls have disappeared with 
 the passing of China's ancient educational system ; but the 
 developed capacity for the grinding application of the Chinese 
 student remains. The World Missionary Conference at 
 Edinburgh still further appreciatively testifies^" to a suavity 
 and tact that will meet any situation and win unexpected 
 victory from apparent defeat ; a talent for organization which 
 has made the Chinese pastmasters in combinations, guilds, 
 and societies of all sorts; a sense of responsibility which is 
 based on a high ideal of the duties of kinship; and great 
 susceptibility to the influence of a strong personality, be it 
 the missionary or the master whom he is trying to imitate. 
 Surely we can rejoice in such qualities in these earth-com- 
 panions .of ours. 
 
 When we think of Japan one word perhaps comes to all 
 of us as embodying the spirit of that people — loyalty. We 
 may be shocked at a wife's suicide in order to release her 
 husband from domestic ties for his country's welfare — yet we 
 admire the spirit. Loyalty for Japan means sinking the indi- 
 vidual welfare for the sake of the common weal. Their 
 scientific trend of mind — the kind of mind that set up abso- 
 lutely new standards in hygienic conditions for their armies 
 — will likely make their Christianity, if less emotional, yet 
 also less dogmatic than that of our own land. They have 
 made courtesy an art. And when we see how they appreciate 
 the grain in large panels of unvarnished wood; how the 
 mothers in a railway train hold up their babes to see the 
 much-loved plum or cherry blossoms ; or how invariably the 
 hillside temple has found just the most fitting location 
 amongst the cryptomarias, we can thank God for their love 
 of nature, which may yet enable them to help us to behold 
 the King in his beauty. 
 
 Latin America contains a civilization rich in the inheritance 
 of culture. We shall find there quickness of perception, 
 acuteness of analysis, powers of imagination, grace of man- 
 ner, and a spirit of chivalry. The Latin-American is willing 
 to share with us his passion for the beautiful in art, in music, 
 and in literature. 
 
 And how about Africa — has it any gifts for the world? 
 A woman recently said, as she handed over a large sum of 
 
 10 •• World Missionary Conference," igio. Vol. I, p. 85. 
 
 41 
 
[II-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 money to aid an industrial school, "Yes, I think I must help 
 the Negroes; they laugh so much." To laugh — especially to 
 laugh so much — is to do something which needs doing in 
 every community and every nation. Dispositions that are 
 sunny, optimistic, and that can see the joy in life; tempera- 
 ments that are kindly and find none insufferable ; capacity 
 for contentment in spite of untoward conditions — how can 
 the world do without these? "Surely the Negro contributes 
 to American life a iight-heartedness which otherwise it sadly 
 lacks. 
 
 Many hold that the Negro is the only grateful race and say 
 that the fidelity shown by the carriers of Livingstone's dead 
 body is characteristic of the people. Manifest to all is their 
 willingness to forgive and to forget injuries. And who does 
 not pay tribute to their talent for music? Visitors come 
 back from the commencement exercises at Hampton or 
 Tuskegee testifying to the real religious power in those 
 Negro melodies in whose recovery we are beginning to take 
 an interest. There is, furthermore, a sincerity and reality 
 about their religious experience. If you would see this for 
 yourself, listen to that African woman praying for a man 
 that had just confessed Christ: "O, God, this man has given 
 you his heart that it may become your house. Now, God, 
 sweep your house clean." Or hear the testimony of the head 
 of one of our African missions, which has its work far in- 
 land, when he says that if he wanted to be warmed in his 
 spiritual life he would choose not Keswick or Northfield, but 
 a Christian prayer meeting in the heart of Africa, amongst 
 a people — he adds — untouched as yet by whites. They un- 
 doubtedly need wise direction as to the ends to which reli- 
 gion should minister and as to the modes of expression it 
 should take. But what we are here emphasizing is their 
 capacity for religion. The Baganda Christian, we are told, 
 has an intense realization of the personality and the omnip- 
 otence of God, and a vivid sense of His love and care for 
 his people in all the affairs of life — a real emphasis one 
 might expect from a people trained in animism. 
 
 V 
 
 From this week's study we have seen that, in order to 
 possess the mind of a Christian world citizen, it is desirable 
 frankly to recognize the gifts and contributions of other 
 
 42 
 
RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLES [II-c] 
 
 peoples and to have a profound expectation that their appro- 
 priative capacity for the riches of their Father has no known 
 limit. It means that the human nature of a distant people 
 is put on a level of possibility with our own ; it means that 
 we do not begrudge the acknowledgment of the moral and 
 spiritual values which they have already attained ; it means 
 that we are drawn on by what through God's grace mankind 
 may become. 
 
 For the individual this view involves that in the progres- 
 sive enlargement of the self he shall learn not merely to 
 tolerate, but to appreciate and admire. He will recognize 
 that each of these peoples has an aspect which they reveal 
 only to those they love. 
 
 We look at other peoples through the colored glasses of 
 our own temperaments, but a hard and unsympathetic spirit 
 can never disclose another's inner life. Will it not also 
 take the metallic ring from much of our social service if 
 we pause to acknowledge the diversity of gifts which God 
 has bestowed upon his children? When it is no longer pos- 
 sible for us, with imagined superiority, to say, "We have 
 no need of thee," then the very phrase, social service, is in- 
 creasingly displaced by the words "Christian friendship." And 
 how are we to maintain a keen and sensitive appreciation 
 of the needs of others, apart from a lofty view of their 
 capacities and a genuine reverence for their possibilities? 
 This view, furthermore, will afifect the education of our chil- 
 dren, for it will remove one of the grounds for arrogant 
 race pride and race prejudice. We will strive to instill in 
 them the spirit of brotherhood as an attitude of mind made 
 habitual through little courtesies to foreigners in street cars 
 or through reactions' to world news in the morning's paper. 
 
 For our nation it will mean emphasis upon international 
 cooperation and mutual obligation rather than upon mere 
 national exaltation. We have been all too slow in realizing 
 that we have something to learn from the Orient, from 
 Africa, from Latin America. A readiness to acknowledge 
 the values in each of the other peoples ought to be one 
 of the foundation stones of our larger internationalism. The 
 opposite policy of resting back, complacent over our own 
 standards, is what leads to national decay, while exaggerated 
 racial vanity and unfounded national pretension form the 
 very atmosphere of war. And if as a people we have any- 
 
 43 
 
[II-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 thing to give to other nations, we will succeed better by- 
 fixing attention not on their weaknesses but rather on their 
 capacities for growth. Surely modern philanthropy has 
 worked out one lesson that must be taken over by the world 
 workers — that if we would do good to another, whether 
 an individual or a nation, we must see in that one a brother, 
 and must emphasize that brother's possibilities. Not to be- 
 lieve in another people and give to them the resulting chance 
 leads to imperialism and autocracy. We shall make little 
 progress toward a world democracy until nations body forth 
 an attitude of mutual respect and sympathy and confident 
 expectation toward one another. 
 
 For the Church it will mean the popularization of the 
 evidences of racial capacity amongst our citizens. Just as 
 it was necessary for the Moravians in the early eighteenth 
 century to prove to the Church that Negroes could be up- 
 lifted, so now is it necessary for the Church to show the 
 world that backward peoples may become "new creatures." 
 As long as men of big business have the underlying convic- 
 tion that these peoples are really not worth while, how can 
 we expect them to be interested in serious efforts for their 
 rehabilitation? The facts of the social and religious results 
 of missions must be popularized by the Church. The Church 
 should make every effort to bring the press of Christian 
 nations up to this Christian standard of the international 
 mind. The papers should faithfully mirror the finest spirit 
 and ideals of other peoples. They should be bridges across 
 the Pacific and tunnels under the Atlantic, by means of 
 which the highest interchange possible may eagerly be sought. 
 
 But it is not enough to refrain from dwelling on our inter- 
 national dislikes, nor even to become the dispensers of inter- 
 racial admirations. As Christians with a fundamentally 
 religious conviction of the gifts with which each member is 
 endowed, v/e have a still more imperative duty. We must 
 call forth and use every worthful faculty in fellow-members 
 of the great society. Still more, as Christians in our cor- 
 porate capacity as a Church, we must elicit and utilize the 
 national gifts of other peoples, however despised and ignored 
 by the unchristianized public opinion of dominant Western 
 powers these peoples may now be. The Church should 
 help the nations to see how many and how varied are the 
 members that go to make up a body and how vital for the 
 
 44 
 
RESPECT FOR OTHER PEOPLES [II-c] 
 
 common good are aptitudes which we do not possess. The 
 Church should fire the imagination of mankind with the 
 glorious vision of a democracy of God, into which shall have 
 been brought the life and thought and talents of every sec- 
 tion of the human race as transformed by Jesus Christ. 
 
 For the foi-eign missions of the Church, it means for some 
 a change m attitude. Phillips Brooks came to a point where 
 he saw that boys are white spotted black, not black spotted 
 white. Something of this sort of change is needed in our 
 attitude to many to whom we go as missionaries. A Japanese 
 convert, speaking to an American audience, said, "If we 
 heathen are but slightly better than gibbons or chimpanzees, 
 the Christians may give up their mission work as a failure. 
 It is because we know something of right and wrong, truth 
 and falsehood that we are readily brought to the cross of 
 ■Christ. I sincerely believe that the Christian mission based 
 upon no higher motive than pity for heathen may have its 
 support entirely withdrawn \^^ithout much detriment either to 
 the sender or the sent." More and more the prevalent atti- 
 tude of the missionary to the people to whom he goes, some- 
 times from compulsion but more often from the more Chris- 
 tian spirit of our time, is that of friend and brother rather 
 than that of patronizing superiority. 
 
 What an international opportunity the twenty-five thousand 
 missionaries have, as they travel back and forth between the 
 nations as so many shuttles weaving the fabric of good will ! 
 If they are true to their great privilege they will fill their 
 reports, addresses, and books not alone with the worst and 
 darkest aspects of the people amongst whom they live, but as 
 true friends of both East and West will also mutually inter- 
 pret the best of each to the other. It is the absence of this 
 particular mark of a Christian mind in so much of the mis- 
 sionary literature of the past that drives many a leader to 
 choose from amongst the supplementary geographical books 
 of the common schools for a wholesome impartial picture 
 of other lands. It is its presence in Miss Jean Mackenzie's 
 "Black Sheep" which makes us long for more such books. 
 Conscious only of possessing the most precious Treasure in 
 all the world, we will seek to share that Treasure. But in 
 sharing we will realize that we have this Treasure through 
 no merit of our own, and that on distinctly lesser levels than 
 that of Jesus there will be a true interchange. 
 
 45 
 
[II-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 
 
 1. What are the considerations for and against the follow- 
 ing propositions: (a) that God has given ten talents to 
 the whites but to the yellow and the black races only two 
 and one? (b) that five and two and one talent men may be 
 found fairly equally amongst all races? 
 
 2. Draw two lines, the relative length of which would 
 roughly represent your idea of the relative racial attainments 
 of Africa and America. 
 
 3. If all mankind has not the capacity for a boundless 
 appropriation of the life of God, then what is the rationale 
 of the Church's work abroad? If man has this capacity, 
 and God the will to help, what prevents the realization of the 
 ideal? 
 
 4. How would you criticize this statement: "If a people 
 be so low mentally as to be incapable of being trusted with 
 leadership at the start, it is better to abandon them for the 
 present and instead to concentrate on more strategic fields"? 
 
 5. In what sense was Israel a chosen people? 
 
 6. How would you illustrate and explain the following 
 statement: "The Spirit of Christ will find less to do along 
 certain lines in perfecting the adherents of some of the 
 ethnic religions than He discovers in many of us, the products 
 of generations of imperfectly applied Christianity"? (World 
 Missionary Conference, 1910, vol. 9, p. 167). 
 
 7. Would the missionary enterprise today be more success- 
 ful if it faced a blank and universal heathenism untouched 
 by this ever-present witness in other religions? Why? 
 
 8. Does the recognition of truth and attainments in non- 
 Christian peoples weaken or strengthen your missionary in- 
 terest? Why? ^ 
 
 9. What is there to criticize in the position that a missionary 
 should have as his ideal to learn as well as to teach? 
 
 10. Formulate a statement of the attitude a missionary 
 should take toward non-Christian religions. 
 
 11. In what specific ways may we show our realization that 
 our work amongst other peoples must be a continuation of 
 the work which the divine Spirit has already accomplished? 
 
 12. What would be the effect of introducing into the prob- 
 lems of present-day politics the recognition of distinctive 
 national gifts? 
 
 46 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Responsiveness to Human Need 
 
 - If, however, these peoples have such great gifts and contri- 
 butions as were indicated in the last chapter, why do we need 
 to do anything for them? What is the use of worrying 
 about their welfare? This brings us to the third element 
 in the mind of a world Christian — the capacity for a sympa- 
 thetic response to need. 
 
 To test one's capacity for visioning the world's great needs, 
 suppose we imagine ourselves high enough up and far enough 
 away from our little globe to see it as a whole. Let us 
 imagine we are looking back on old Earth from some dis- 
 tant point in space. Each day we could see the continents 
 brought one after the other before our vision, as the earth 
 slowly rotated beneath us. The really significant thing, how- 
 ever, would not be oceans and continents, rivers and valleys, 
 but living individualities with their joys and sorrows, their 
 aspirations and defeats, their racial attainments and deficien- 
 cies, their intergroup loyalties and their implacable mutual 
 enmities. 
 
 This week, from :uch a distant vantage-point we are going 
 to concentrate our thought in sympathetic meditation upon 
 the' human needs of the folk upon that ball. Each day as 
 the globe revolves beneath us, bearing with it its myriad 
 bits of life, we will fix our mind on one aspect of mankind's 
 deficiency. It will be found that all human need of whatever 
 kind can be comprehended under one or the other aspect 
 of this sevenfold survey.^ But while perforce in the few 
 lines given to each day we must deal in generalizations, let 
 us not forget to look closely and see the real flesh-and-blood 
 men and women and children to whom these needs are sadly 
 the poignant realities of their lives. No attempt has been 
 made to give concrete illustrations in this chapter. The 
 object is rather to survey the scope of human need. If we 
 
 iSee Albion W. Small, "General Sociology." 
 
 47 
 
[III-i] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 are to become world Christians we must increasingly study 
 other peoples, their conditions and needs. To this end we 
 need outlines into which we can fit our information and 
 which will give perspective. 
 
 May God help us to look down upon the world more nearly 
 with the tender compassion that he must feel ! And as we 
 run over in outline its varied need, and lay our lives along- 
 side those of other lands, let us ask continually: Do I care? 
 Could I help? Have I anything in my experience to meet 
 such conditions? Would Jesus have? 
 
 Third Week, First Day : The Healing of the Nations 
 
 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and tell 
 John the things which ye hear and see: the blind receive 
 their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, 
 and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and th« 
 poor have good tidings preached to them. And blessed 
 is he, whosoever shall find no occasion of stumbling in 
 me. — Matt, ii : 4-6. 
 
 Have you ever stopped to think how much of the Bible 
 is taken up with concerns of health? Over one-fortieth of 
 the Old Testament is absorbed in careful rules regarding 
 sanitation, contagion, disinfection, the disposition of refuse, 
 quarantine, uncleanness, and the enjoining of rest. Health 
 was by no means a matter of disregard. Furthermore, it has 
 always been a comfort to see what compassion Christ had 
 for the physical needs of men. Four-fifths of his recorded 
 miracles had to do with the relief of men's bodies. We, too, 
 must have the Old Testament's passion for prevention and 
 Christ's faith to cure. 
 
 And now, as from our distant vantage-point we lock down 
 upon the world, our attention is directed to one favored 
 continent. We can see dotted everywhere over its expanse 
 health resorts, athletic sports, gymnastics, physical culture, 
 hospitals, dispensaries, ambulances, first aid, instructed police, 
 and doctors within ready call of any who need. The labor 
 day has been shortened ; domestic science departments have 
 been added to the schools ; garbage is removed ; parks and 
 playgrounds, baths and waterworks systems abound. Acci- 
 dents are safeguarded, dangerous occupations are protected, 
 contagious diseases are quarantined, and public and private 
 
 48 
 
RESPONSIVENESS TO HUMAN NEED [III-i] 
 
 sanitation is enforced. We, possibly begin to wonder at the 
 achievements of mankind in promoting heaUh. 
 
 But wait. Old earth is turning down there and bringing 
 other continents into view. And now what a difference ! 
 Here is a land crowded with some four hundred millions, 
 here another with over three hundred millions, and over 
 there a big dark continent, not so crowded, but most desolate 
 of all. Only with the closest looking can we detect any of 
 the things we saw at first. We know they long for healing, 
 for we can make out witch doctors, and medicine men, and 
 smallpox gods, and even mere pictures hung up by windows 
 to scare away the evil spirits of disease. But how does it 
 come that these people are left to fight disease with un- 
 scientific and superstitious practices, and that almost every- 
 where the majority must die without any competent medical 
 assistance? 
 
 Only here and there in these vast countries do we detect 
 brave struggles with disease made by representatives sent 
 forth by the people of more favored lands. Here, for ex- 
 ample, are whole districts where plague is raging. To the 
 people it is some mysterious and invisible specter that stalks 
 at will from house to house taking whom it chooses. They 
 gaze appalled and helpless as one after another is snatched 
 away, until as many as a million in a single year have gone. 
 How we rejoice to detect that love has begun its work and 
 under the constructive, resourceful faith of certain men and 
 women houses have been evacuated, inoculation has been 
 given, and sanitation has been started. As a result here 
 and there a village — usually a Christian village — stands un- 
 scathed amidst the decimated district — an object lesson to 
 the whole countryside. 
 
 If we should try to count the representatives of Christian 
 forces who as doctors are attempting to share their attain- 
 ments in promoting health, we would find only a thousand 
 such medical missionaries in all the non-Christian world. In 
 these isolated centers the blind receive their sight and the 
 lame walk, but why should such great expanses be without 
 any help? Surely the Maker of it all cannot desire his living 
 creatures to be born into and to live under the conditions 
 that now exist. Have you a real gospel for the sick and the 
 wounded of the world? Have you a vivid picture of the 
 world as you would like it to be? 
 
 49 
 
[III-2] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Third Week, Second Day : The World's Search for 
 Bread 
 
 Remove far from me falsehood and lies; 
 
 Give me neither poverty nor riches; 
 
 Feed me with the food that is needful for me: 
 
 Lest 1 be full, and deny thee, and say, Who is Jehovah? 
 
 Or lest I be poor, and steal. 
 
 And use profanely the name of my God. — Prov. 30:8, 9. 
 
 Give us this day our daily bread. — Matt. 6:11. 
 
 But whoso hath the world's goods, and beholdeth his 
 brother in need, and shutteth up his compassion from 
 him, how doth the love of God abide in him? — I John 3: 17. 
 
 Let us look on another aspect of world need as the earth 
 rotates beneath us today. Again we see a continent where 
 the methods and the machinery of production and accumula- 
 tion have reached extreme development. Tools and capital, 
 skill and managerial ability, the use of waste and by-products, 
 division of labor, coordination of allied industries, means of 
 storing and preserving products, all sorts of rapid transpor- 
 tation by water and by land, commercial banking, insurance 
 and saving institutions — these are some of the achievements 
 of modern nations in producing wealth. 
 
 The need on the v/hole in this great continent is not for 
 more property, but for a widespread conviction as to the 
 significance of all this material wealth. In the last verse for 
 today's reading, as well as in Jesus' parables of the talents 
 and the pounds, it is assumed that resources are a trust and 
 not absolute property. In endeavoring to develop spirits 
 like his own, God has let us have the use of these material 
 things. In learning how to use them some of the greatest 
 lessons in earth's school are to be learned. When will the 
 people of this great continent, wealthy beyond all others, 
 learn from Jesus that the highest value of material goods is 
 not in their possession but in their use in creathig love? 
 This continent's greatest economic need is to realize that the 
 value of material things lies in their power not to gratify 
 personal tastes, but to promote and deepen human fellowship. 
 
 But again, as the earth turns on and other continents come 
 into view we see great contrasts. We behold in large portions 
 of the non-Christian world the dreadful pressure under which 
 they exist, causing them to speak of so many "mouths" in 
 
 50 
 
RESPONSIVENESS TO HUMAN NEED [III-2] 
 
 their family, and in general to construe all the values of life 
 in terms of one day's bread. It is not mere depravity of 
 soul that causes those mothers in China to expose their little 
 girls ; it is in part due to the grinding, ever-present gnawing 
 of economic need. The twenty wives of that African polyga- 
 mist do not represent mere lust, but in part they stand for 
 the cheapest form of labor where known methods do not 
 permit one man with one wife economically to exist. Over 
 there in that famjne-swept province you tcan see people 
 fighting over scraps of food, dogs eating bodies in the street, 
 and a woman burying alive the child whose hungry cry she 
 can no longer bear. But men in the Yangtze Valley and 
 on the plains of India will always remain at the mercy of 
 nature until accumulation of property, is possible to insure 
 them against her irregularities. A certain amount of prop- 
 erty seems essential to personal freedom and to all higher 
 individuality. 
 
 Thus over vast areas one can see men and women and 
 children kept below the poverty line because of ignorance, 
 inefficiency, and superstition. To these ancient causes are 
 being added the more modern conditions of exploitation and 
 over-population, due to the way Western science lowers the 
 death rate without checking the birth rate, and to the failure 
 of the economically advanced nations to share their construc- 
 tive social solutions. 
 
 In most of Lhe non-Christian countries we can see industrial 
 revolution following in the wake of Western civilization. Old 
 handicraft systems are giving way to factories, thus causing 
 thousands of skilled workmen to readjust. Populations tend 
 toward cities with the development of industry, so that we 
 see the Orient facing all the evils of congestion, faulty sanita- 
 tion, hard working conditions, and low wages. Spinning 
 mills and silk filatures employ mere children by the thousands 
 every day — no age limit, no physician's certificate, no legis- 
 latures limiting hours of work. The trifling sum which 
 these poor children bear back with empty rice pails is so 
 coveted by competing youth that no complaint is made of 
 twelve-hour shifts. How can they be discontented? They 
 know no better; parents have never seen the evil effects of 
 child labor on individual and society, so that they repeat 
 industrial blunders involving physical deterioration, illiteracy, 
 industrial inefficiency, and low morals — while those who could 
 
 51 
 
[III-3] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 help stand by. Why do these more fortunate ones not share 
 the costly and invaluable lessons which have been worked 
 out in their own less cataclysmic industrial transition? 
 
 Surely one who believes in the inherent worth of human 
 personality and the equal right of each personality with 
 every other to existence and to whatever gives existence 
 human value must be profoundly moved by conditions which 
 leave vast multitudes undervitalized and in abject need. For 
 there is an economic level below whicl^ a man cannot live 
 and be what a child of God should be. A certain control 
 over material goods is essential to the appreciation of higher 
 goods. And then to realize that above and in and beneath 
 the crust of this old earth is enough for all ! 
 
 But we are not here talking about prevention and remedy. 
 The simple question is whether you have the capacity of im- 
 agination to make these contrasts vivid — so vivid as to be 
 painful. How can these differences ever be harmonized in 
 the democracy of God until earnest people in greater number 
 see and feel the pain of glaring contrasts on this earth? We 
 must see the extent and depth of poverty and the blight it 
 casts over hosts of our fellow-beings ; we must see as 
 starved personalities men meant to be sons of God; we must 
 feel their gray, monotonous existence in toil that is neither 
 life nor death. Then will be born in every Christian a 
 righteous intolerance and a faith that finds a way. May God 
 help us to see, both in the world's need and in our supply, 
 the opportunity to act seriously upon our ideal of human 
 brotherhood ! 
 
 Third Week, Third Day: Falling Short in Mental 
 Stature 
 
 And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make 
 you free. — John 8:32. 
 
 Thou Shalt love the Lord thy God . . . with all thy 
 mind. — Mark 12:30. 
 
 We believe that God desires the unfolding of all the in- 
 tellectual powers of man and that any permanent upbuilding 
 of Christian society involves the development of the mind. 
 But as we look out upon the world what tremendous problems 
 lie before us in this one realm of need! Two out of three 
 inhabitants of our globe have still to be taught how to read 
 
 52 
 
RESPONSIVENESS TO HUMAN NEED [III-3] 
 
 and write. The United States may send its hundreds of 
 teachers to the Philippines and make those islands a world 
 model for educational progress, but there are a billion more 
 who need this help. Picture to yourself all the kindergartens 
 and primary schools in the world and realize that these must 
 be trebled. Teachers must be found and trained ; methods 
 suited to each land must be worked out; educational systems 
 must be evolved, coordinated, and financed ; supervisors and 
 administrators must be developed. The long, long steps 
 both of free and of compulsory education must be taken. 
 Schooling must not be left as a prerogative of any social or 
 religious class, and the very content of education must be 
 adjusted to the varying needs and stages of differing peoples, 
 so that it will be a real training for the life they must live. 
 These are all needs which we, as believers in the democracy 
 of God, must vision and take into account. 
 
 Many of our sister nations are awakening, and this renais- 
 sance is bringing one of the most significant phenomena of 
 our times, namely, a rapid increase in the number of readers 
 in the world. This raises, however, new needs for literature 
 of the right sort — for periodicals and books, for material 
 adapted to the needs of women and children, for books 
 and printed matter for schools and colleges, for literature 
 that will guide these peoples in the construction of their 
 new world order. Where men begin to feel even the indirect 
 effect of the spirit of Christ, a host of social and economic 
 problems open out and literary material must be provided 
 to help in the solution. 
 
 The world has, furthermore, a long way yet to go in mak- 
 ing knowledge accessible. Even we in the West have by no 
 means ideal conditions, but before mankind can come to its 
 own intellectually what vast numbers of institutions must be 
 reared up in every land — high schools, colleges, universities, 
 chautauquas, extension movements, trade schools, evening 
 schools, schools for defectives, museums, libraries, improved 
 postal and telegraph and telephone facilities as factors in the 
 spread of knowledge, and the like. 
 
 But if this problem of knowledge for the whole of the 
 world seems too bafflingly large we may concentrate on what 
 the growing Christian communities need. With our accus- 
 tomed appeal to the Scriptures and insistence that each person 
 should be able to read them for himself, we cannot rest con- 
 
 53 
 
[III-4] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 tent with baptized ignorance and illiteracy. Yet of the total 
 Christian body in India, for example, only seventeen per cent 
 can read and write, and communities amongst the "mass 
 movements" may be found vvhere out of 6,000 Christian 
 children only two are returned as literate. If independent, 
 self-governing Christian communions anywhere are ever to 
 be developed, it is of the utmost importance that leaders 
 should be provided and trained — and this must be done 
 through education. Furthermore, for the promotion of 
 Christian worship, for the conduct of their Sunday schools, 
 for the interpretation of the Bible, and for the upbuilding of 
 their Christian life printed helps must be provided. 
 
 If men are to love God with all their minds these multiform 
 needs must be met. What does this. mean to you in obliga- 
 tion? In opportunity? 
 
 Third Week, Fourth Day : Lack of Harmony in Hu- 
 man Relationships 
 
 Thou shah love thy neighbor as thyself. — Matt. 22 : 39. 
 
 Even though men of all ages might agree that one should 
 love one's neighbor as one's self, the vital consideration, as 
 Jesus brought out, lies in the interpretation of what is meant 
 by neighbor and what is meant by love. He put new mean- 
 ing into these words — into love, intensively ; into neighbor, 
 extensively. Progress comes in proportion as we see in- 
 creasingly deeper, richer interpretations of this great com- 
 mand. In this connection it is noteworthy that three-quarters 
 of the teaching of Jesus had to do with man's relation to 
 fellowman. 
 
 Taking the world at large, human relationships are nowhere 
 in greater maladjustment than are those between man and 
 woman. Yet the breath of new ambitions is stirring everj'^- 
 where amongst the women of the world. It is a long, long 
 way, however, that these excluded, secluded, subjugated dis- 
 tant sisters of ours have to come ! For sixty years the re- 
 marriage of Indian widows has had legal sanction, but public 
 opinion still causes 25,000,000 of them to serve out their 
 cheerless unhappy lives. We rejoice that "golden lilies" are 
 somewhat less admired than they used to be in some parts 
 of China, but foot-binding is still one of the social evils of 
 
 54 
 
RESPONSIVENESS TO HUMAN NEED [III-5] 
 
 that land. Many a helping hand should be ready to assist 
 those women who attempt to break the way from a Hindu 
 courtyard or a Muhammadan zenana to positions of equality 
 of opportunity with men. Child marriage and child-widows, 
 polygamy and concubinage, temple-girls and arbitrary divorce 
 — these are only some of the familiar and age-long wrongs 
 of womanhood. Needs on so vast a scale can only be com- 
 passed by a thoroughgoing revaluation of personality in terms 
 of Christ. What increments of love and beauty and good 
 may we not expect when the womanhood of the world is 
 released and honored and given her democratic chance ! 
 
 Men need to learn what it means to love one another in 
 the labor world. Arbitration laws, homestead laws, checks 
 on the oppressive power of capitalistic or labor organizations 
 are needed the world around. Yet some of the sorest spots 
 are in our sister nations where exploitation of labor has had 
 n^ check. "Industrial democracy" is a phrase that must be 
 given intelligible content and definite embodiment throughout 
 the world, "beginning at Jerusalem." 
 
 Preeminently impressive in these days are the needs aris- 
 ing from lack of obedience to Christ's command amongst the 
 nations. Here privileges, rights, and obligations must be 
 worked out, a Christian ethic for nations must be evolved, 
 and foreign policies and international relations must be com- 
 pletely democratized. A problem which especially needs solu- 
 tion is that of the relation of nations in the international law- 
 group to backward and dependent peoples. What shall be 
 their status and with what motives shall they be approached? 
 
 As you face this aspect of world need, have you the faith 
 to believe in the final victory of God's social order? Are 
 you willing to help discover and then to establish that order 
 without which the greatest good cannot be realized for 
 humanity? 
 
 Third Week, Fifth Day: Arousing Response ta 
 God's Beauty 
 
 The heavens declare the glory of God; 
 
 And the firmament showeth his handiwork. 
 
 Day unto day uttereth speech, 
 
 And night unto night showeth knowledge. 
 
 There is no speech nor language; 
 
 Their voice is not heard. 
 
 55 
 
[III-5] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Their line is gone out through all the earth, 
 
 And their words to the end of the world. 
 
 In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun, 
 
 Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, 
 
 And rejoiceth as a strong man to run his course. — Psalm 
 
 19: 1-5. 
 One thing have I asked of Jehovah, that will I seek after: 
 That I may dwell in the house of Jehovah all the days of 
 
 my life, 
 To behold the beauty of Jehovah. — Psalm 27: 4. 
 
 Protestantism is not used to looking upon the esthetic 
 as comprising a realm of need in the world. Nor perhaps 
 would anyone evaluate this need as at all so vital as others 
 of the seven we are considering. And yet for completeness 
 let us realize that response to the wondrous beauty God has 
 provided or inspired is part of the conception of a saved 
 man. Ability to see God in and to worship God through 
 paintings and sculpture, music and architecture, nature and 
 literature, is certainly one element in the Kingdom. Art has 
 always helped religion by developing forms of decoration 
 and of architecture suited to the needs of worship and by 
 preserving in picture and in music suggestions of spiritual 
 experience. 
 
 But art has a rightful place in this statement of sevenfold 
 need for its own sake apart from what it contributes to reli- 
 gion. For we are vibratory instruments created for attune- 
 ment with beauty and with truth. The intellect can grasp 
 only part of experience. Impersonal analysis and inductive 
 conclusion do not give all of life. There is a realm where 
 response and sympathetic insight must be the ways for deal- 
 ing with experience. 
 
 As we think over the varied realms of beauty which God 
 has made possible, and measure attainment against man's 
 potential capacity, we realize how far short we have come 
 from God's ideal for us. The development of human capacity 
 for appreciating beauty opens out another cross-section of 
 world need. Among God's ministers are those who give 
 forms of beauty to the things we use as tools or which in 
 various ways make up our environment. The working-girl 
 witnessed to a God-given hunger when she said, "Give us 
 bread, but give us roses, too." While acknowledging that 
 there are more urgent needs, may it not be possible that 
 
 56 
 
RESPONSIVENESS TO HUMAN NEED [III-6] 
 
 with reference to beauty in library and in conservatory, in 
 picture and in building, in garden and in city, it may be said 
 to us, "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the 
 other undone" (Luke ii : 42) ? 
 
 Third Week, Sixth Day: The Tragedy of Misdi- 
 rected Souls 
 
 And even as they refused to have God in their knowl- 
 edge, God gave them up unto a reprobate mind, to do 
 those things which are not fitting; being filled with all 
 unrighteousness, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; 
 full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 
 backbiters, hateful to God, insolent, haughty, boastful, 
 inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without 
 understanding, covenant-breakers, without natural affec- 
 tion, unmerciful : who, knowing the ordinance of God, that 
 they that practice such things are worthy of death, not 
 only do the same, but also consent with them that prac- 
 tice them. — Rom. i : 28-32. 
 
 To Paul, as to every person whose judgment has been 
 sharpened through contact with Jesus Christ, the sin of the 
 world presents an overwhelming need. In this ugly fact is 
 found the world's greatest shortcoming. This has been 
 especially plain since 1914. And here we become one with 
 all the world, and in all humility are not interested in saying 
 whether the mote or the beam is most found in the eyes of 
 other peoples. When measuring one's distance from the 
 sun it little becomes the man on a mountain-peak to exult 
 over his brother in the valley. "For all have sinned, and 
 come short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). 
 
 We believe that there is such a thing as a growing, vital, 
 living, dynamic moral order for the world. We believe that 
 God is supremely interested in its growth. We believe that 
 for our understanding of this order the significance of Jesus 
 Christ is normative. Sin for every one is the placing of 
 selfish ends above the claims of love and duty. Sin for the 
 one who has known Christ is the departure from the life 
 and purpose revealed in him, whether this departure is on 
 the part of the individual or of the society. And since the 
 life of Christ is best expressed by love, and since the end to 
 be supremely sought is the reign of God on earth, the great 
 sin is the choosing of any end lower than the Kingdom of 
 
 57 
 
IIII-7] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 God. Sin for the individual means failure to realize God's 
 ideal for human nature, and brings the resulting social conse- 
 quences of misery, degradation, and death. Sin for society 
 — the group or nation — means the failure to organize accord- 
 ing to Christ's principles and to embody his spirit in every 
 relationship. 
 
 In every land we find sheer badness — deeds and lives that 
 are reprehensible and worthy of condemnation. In every 
 land we find men and women doing things which are a contra- 
 diction of the nature, the powers, the destinies of mankind. 
 In every land, whether in spite of much or little light, men 
 are making the morally inferior choice. In every land men 
 are refusing to conform unto God's will and are disobeying 
 his known commands. And these things constitute sin — 
 they make abundant life impossible. 
 
 As one goes about the world, tokens abound on every side 
 of this burden caused by sin, and the longing for adjustment 
 with the Divine. One out of every sixty in India leads the 
 fakir's life ; by actual estimate $5,000,000 was spent in a 
 single year in a certain Chinese city on idolatrous practices. 
 Bells and prayer-wheels and temple drums ; pilgrimages and 
 bathing ghats ; smoldering ashes by the Ganges and reiterated 
 cries to Amada Buddha or Sita Ram ; idols and asceticism, 
 fastings and washings ; stately mosques and rock-cut temples ; 
 spires and minarets and high pagodas — all these reveal man's 
 greatest universal need, the need of a savior from an exist- 
 ence of sin and failure to a more abundant victorious life 
 in fellowship with God. 
 
 Have mercy upon us, O God, according to thy lovingkind- 
 ness; according to the multitude of thy tender mercies blot 
 •out our transgressions. Wash us thoroughly from our 
 iniquity, and cleanse us from our sin; for zve acknowledge 
 our transgressions ; and our sin is ever before us. 
 
 Third Week, Seventh Day; Orphans in a Father's 
 World 
 
 And this is life eternal, that they should know thee 
 the only true God, and him whom thou didst send, even 
 Jesus Christ. — John 17:3. 
 
 Today let us center our thought upon the more strictly 
 religious needs of men. Once again return to that distant 
 
 58 
 
RESPONSIVENESS TO HUMAN NEED [III-7] 
 
 point in space from which we gaze down on our Httle orb. 
 This time we are not looking at continents or at bodies or 
 at schools but at the faiths of men. We make out at once 
 four great groups, each containing over a hundred million 
 people — Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Muhamma- 
 danism. And there are other faiths as well — Taoism, Shinto- 
 ism, Judaism, Jainism. 
 
 But the tremendously significant fact is that on this ball 
 nineteen hundred years ago the very face of God was uniquely 
 revealed to men, and they beheld his glory. In imagination 
 you can see a new "way" which within three centuries spread 
 about the Mediterranean basin. After a couple of centuries 
 more of assimilation, another era of expansion sent it 
 throughout all northern Europe. Finally, in m.odern times 
 a third era of Christian witnessing began anew, to share the 
 most precious experience of all history. But even now as 
 you look down on this old planet you can see trains speeding 
 over continents, ships ceaselessly conducting international 
 exchange, letters like myriads of shuttles flying between the 
 peoples — yet there remain millions, literally millions, who 
 have never heard of Him who came to be the way, the truth,, 
 and the life. 
 
 Dare one say these other faiths are good enough? All 
 but one of those mentioned above were here when Christ 
 first came. Any argument that would hold that these religions 
 are good enough for mankind now, would indicate that they 
 were sufficient then. If the revelation of God in Christ is 
 not needed by men who hold these faiths now, it was not 
 needed nineteen hundred years ago when these same faiths 
 held sway over the destinies of men. Not to see the present- 
 day need of the non-Christian faiths is not to see the need 
 of the original coming of the Christ. 
 
 In a later chapter we shall be noting with some detail the 
 actual deep-lying needs of man which these faiths fail to sup- 
 ply. Here we will only emphasize the supremeness of the reli- 
 gious hunger of mankind. For while all the needs at which 
 we have been looking this week must be met in God's ideal 
 democracy, yet we do not evaluate them as being on a level. 
 There are needs such that if they remain unmet it profiteth 
 a man nothing to gain all the rest. While firmly asserting 
 that the removal of each of these seven needs is a part of 
 the establishment of the reign of God on earth, yet we hold 
 
 59 
 
[III-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 that the moral and the rehgious needs are incomparably 
 more far-reaching and eternally vital. Pearl Mountain must 
 be reforested; but there is a growth more precious still to 
 start in China. Irrigation canals must be dug in India; 
 but there is a water of life that will bring a richer harvest 
 than canals can ever supply. Penny-posts and telegraphs and 
 telephones must be installed; but there is a quality of com- 
 munication in love that surpasses these. Health and wealth 
 and knowledge and the rest, need to be permeated with the 
 love that cometh only from God. Is there, therefore, any 
 one but Christ who taketh away the sin of the world, and 
 who, if loyally loved and fully followed, can justify and 
 ennoble and accomplish the sevenfold banishment of world 
 need? 
 
 COMMENT FOR THE WEEK 
 
 It will help to a clear intellectual mastery of world need 
 if we hold in mind two comprehensive outlines which we 
 can apply to the social attainments or needs of any person 
 or nation or race. All need may be comprehended under one 
 of the following seven heads : Needs in the realm of health, 
 needs in the realm of wealth, needs in the realm of knowl- 
 edge, of harmonizing human relations, of art, of morals, and 
 of religion. Or, in other words, all needs may be classified 
 as hygienic, economic, social, scientific, esthetic, moral, or 
 religious. We have considered these needs successively in 
 our daily studies for the week. 
 
 A second, helpful, sevenfold survey approaches the world 
 from the standpoint of the seven differentiated areas into 
 which it may be divided. Can you take these areas in suc- 
 cession and feel with them in their need? 
 
 The needs of Japan, although directly affecting only one 
 twenty-fifth of the human race, yet are urgent just because 
 of Japan's place of leadership. Her first great problem is 
 one of spiritual adjustment. Our sister nation across the 
 Pacific has no greater need than the development of a 
 spiritual basis for her great, new, surging life. Three great 
 religions are competing with the one really indigenous faith 
 for the loj^alty of Japan. But of these Buddhism and Con- 
 
 60 
 
RESPONSIVENESS TO HUMAN NEED [III-c] 
 
 fucianism have already proved inadequate to the strain of 
 the new day, as has also the indigenous faith, Shintoism. 
 Japanese are asking whether Christianity can provide that 
 foundation which they must have for the highest ideals and 
 convictions and actions. Many thoughtful leaders hold that 
 victory or defeat for Christianity here will have far-reaching 
 results for the whole of the Orient. Hence there is an 
 especial demand for able, far-sighted, sympathetic, thoroughly 
 Christian statesmen to present Christianity to this land. 
 
 A second great set of needs for Japan grows out of the 
 replacement of feudalism by industrialism, causing her to 
 face in a single generation problems which our civilization 
 has been attempting to solve for the past two hundred years. 
 The great industrial and commercial centers are growing 
 thirteen times as rapidly as the general population. . With this 
 shift of population come physical deterioration, due to un- 
 healthful surroundings, a rapid increase in woman's labor, 
 the weakening of restraints associated with old codes and 
 customs, and a new craving for excitement and vicious 
 pleasures. The very ease with which the few have become 
 millionaires has fired the imaginations of a host of young 
 aspirants for wealth, so that the trend everywhere is toward 
 a materialistic outlook on life. With this has developed a 
 "romanticism" which amongst the young has set aside many 
 of the old restraints, in order to give free play to feeling and 
 desire. 
 
 Japan's third great need arises from the fact that she 
 has been given the stewardship of subject races. Not only 
 has she become directly responsible for Formosa and Korea, 
 but the great neighboring nation of China must inevitably 
 be affected by influences going forth from Japan. If these 
 influences are full of help and inspiration, if Japan can 
 through unselfish service win the love and confidence and 
 good will of Asiatic peoples, a great leap ahead will be made 
 into magnificent national leadership. 
 
 II 
 
 Any person with a scrap of imagination must be stirred 
 by the spectacle of China in transition. Here one-fourth of 
 human folk have more or less unwillingly given up their age- 
 long policy of isolation and are being tossed and buffeted 
 by unfamiliar currents which -had their origin in an alien 
 
 6i 
 
IIII-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 civilization. Hence China needs the friendship of unselfish 
 peoples. She does not ask for charity, but simply that the 
 so-called Christian nations shall do for her what, if the 
 conditions were reversed, we would want her to do for us. 
 We can let American interests wring unjust concessions from 
 her, we can exploit her, but in doing so we shall show our- 
 selves still pagan. May the precedent of our return to China 
 of an amount of the Boxer indemnity in excess of a just 
 :sum be the mere beginning of an enduring relation of Chris- 
 tian friendship. 
 
 In order to change the mental attitude of centuries as well 
 as to build bridges and to start great mines, China needs our 
 Western science. To educate her millions China needs all 
 we can share of educational leadership. To steady China's 
 women in their movement toward larger self-realization there 
 is needed all through the land the object lesson of the Chris- 
 tian home and the sympathy and fellowship of Christian 
 sisters. For science, for history, for economics, for social 
 solutions, for religion, China must enter the world's great 
 school. The question is whether she will find friends with a 
 will to share or pirates with a will to prey. 
 
 A new industrial order is beginning to crowd out old house- 
 hold trades and alter the predominantly agricultural life of 
 the people. When this fourth of the man-power of humanity 
 turns its stream of steady, cheap, efficient labor into the 
 task of transforming China's immense natural resources, there 
 will be need for every social solution and every social ideal 
 that Christ has ever inspired in the West. Are we willing 
 to share what we .have learned and, still better, lead the 
 people of China to the only One who can inspire them to 
 their own solutions? 
 
 Perhaps the greatest need of China is for strong, able, 
 and disinterested leaders. Political revolutions have demon- 
 strated that no mere change in the type of governmental 
 machinery will heal China. Nothing less than character is 
 demanded. But Confucianism, high as its standard has 
 been for the past, is proving inadequate to the new demands. 
 An irreligious spirit spreads as reverence for old sanctions 
 passes away, and the practical genius of the Chinese gives 
 materialism an easy victory. There must be a real need here, 
 when recent events show to demonstration their readiness 
 to receive religion as well as piachinery from the West. 
 
 62 
 
RESPONSIVENESS TO HUMAN NEED [III-c] 
 
 III 
 
 In India we see a land cut up by myriad divisive forces and 
 yet struggling on under British rule, through increasing con- 
 sciousness of nationality, toward self-determination. It is a 
 double struggle. On the one hand are immense obstacles to 
 nationality to be overcome — the prejudices of Dravidian, 
 Indo-Aryan, and Mongoloid racial stocks ; the undemocratic 
 compartmental life arising from 3,000 castes ; the use of 150 
 languages; a marked tendency to break away from anything 
 like good team work; and the intense rivalry of religious 
 sects. On the other hand is the struggle which Britain must 
 fight out in her own conscience and the results of which 
 must be embodied in her policy. Shall Britain think of her 
 rule in India as a stewardship from God and launch out into 
 the task of fitting India for highest self-realization? Or 
 shall she yield only as little and as slowly as selfish expediency 
 demands? With both these great parties, which in God's 
 providence have been brought together for the working out 
 of destiny, we can have the deepest sympath3^ 
 
 But apart from this large political problem India teems 
 with social need. Foremost here would be placed the condi- 
 tions of the depressed classes, which comprise one out of 
 every six of India's 317,000,000. Beneath even the low-caste 
 Sudra are these outcastes — little better than serfs of the 
 soil, wretched in their poverty and ignorance. The induc- 
 tion of these millions into their rights and privileges as 
 spiritual beings is one of the reforms from which India has 
 hung back. But Christian missions have stirred this class 
 with hope, so that in seven well-defined areas they are placing 
 themselves in masses under Christian tutelage and leadership. 
 Before the Church is thus placed a wide-open, though possibly 
 transient, opportunity of ministering to their material, intel- 
 lectual, and religious progress and of imparting that sense 
 of the dignity and worth of life that comes from the teaching 
 and spirit of Christ. These "mass movements" and their 
 needs dominate the missionary situation in India. 
 
 And whose heart is not drawn out to the cause of enrich- 
 ing Indian womanhood? Wronged as the woman of India 
 has been through seclusion and through ignorance, yet she 
 has shown such a patient, humble, unembittered life of self- 
 sacrifice and religious devotion that her friends find them- 
 
 63 
 
[IIl-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 selves joyfully expectant of what she can mean when re- 
 leased in body, mind, and spirit. This will involve such 
 things as the education of women, for now only one in a 
 hundred can read and write ; marriage reform, for the child 
 widow and early marriage still leave their train of social 
 evils in that land ; and, above all, the recognition of her 
 dignity and worth as a child of God. The work of war relief 
 has helped to give an awakened consciousness to India's 
 women, so that the demand will soon be vastly greater even 
 than at present for an education suited to her needs and 
 for ideals which will have power to steady her in the new 
 paths upon which she is entering. 
 
 But India's deepest and saddest need is connected with 
 the spirit. India has always been characterized by a search 
 for God and those who know her best know that nothing else 
 will satisfy her. India is hungry for God. Hinduism, how- 
 ever, is tottering to its certain fall. It cannot survive the 
 impact of Western knowledge and criticism. Can we be 
 content to see religious indifferentism settle down upon this 
 vast congeries of religious peoples? Or shall we satisfy 
 the deepest longing of India's soul by helping her to get a 
 clear vision of the face of God in Jesus Christ and of 
 abundant life through him? 
 
 IV 
 
 Africa is one vast continent of teeming, complex need. 
 Within little more than a generation practically all of Africa 
 has passed under European control, bringing enormous 
 temptations to rule in the sole interest of the white race, 
 but bringing also no less enormous responsibilities for just 
 and fair Christian treatment of these backward and child 
 peoples. Most pressing of all, perhaps, is the land problem. 
 The increase of white immigration, the ruthless grasp of 
 syndicated companies, the inability of the old tribal system 
 of ownership to stand before modern conceptions of law, the 
 difficulty of establishing new systems of individual owner- 
 ship, actual laws making it a criminal offence to transfer 
 or sell land to a native, the frank conviction that a lower, 
 inefficient group should give way to a higher type of civiliza- 
 tion — these are some of the causes why the dispossessed 
 African is crying out for land. The question is whether he 
 is to become a mere serf of the white man with no chance 
 
 64 
 
RESPONSIVENESS TO HUMAN NEED [Ul-c] 
 
 to develop a self-respecting independent life of his own ; or 
 whether Christian public opinion can induce a policy that 
 will make central the welfare of the governed. 
 
 Furthermore, Africa confronts a dual labor problem. On 
 the one hand, since land has become too crowded for the 
 old herds, the pastoral stage must give way to the agricul- 
 tural. This presents the very pressing need of educating a 
 whole people in modern farming methods. On the other 
 hand, the demand of the white man for labor in mines and 
 factories, in railways and plantations, is increasingly insistent 
 It is good for the African to be stimulated to change the 
 indolent habits of the village, and the world needs the more 
 strenuous service he should be induced to render. But the 
 temptation pitilessly to exploit this half-dazed labor rather 
 than to treat it in a just and Christian way is proving very 
 hard to resist. Where great capitalistic undertakings have 
 concentrated labor, there is a very urgent call to Christian 
 forces to organize social service of the wisest, most scientifi- 
 cally constructive kind. Only by the introduction of such a 
 spirit will those tens of thousands from the primitive kraals 
 be kept from physical and moral destruction in the white 
 man's city. 
 
 Africa will long present a challenge to experts to conquer 
 disease. Hookworm, sleeping sickness, venereal disease, 
 smallpox, and tuberculosis must be controlled. And yet the 
 improved communications of modern times have served to 
 spread disease still more widely, so that the various pests 
 and fevers for man and beast are no longer confined to com- 
 paratively small areas. 
 
 From still another angle we may look out over this vast 
 continent and see old methods of social control breaking 
 down on every hand. Under the old tribal system the African 
 hardly conceived of personal rights as over against the tribe. 
 All the influx of Western civilization is removing tribal re- 
 straints, disintegrating ancient customary law, and dissipat- 
 ing that fear of taboos which provided checks on unsocial 
 conduct in the past. What a call this is for us to help prevent 
 utter collapse by sharing the higher moral bases without 
 which we, too, would go to pieces 1 
 
 The need for instilling the Christian foundations of our 
 civilization is made all the more urgent by the advance of 
 Islam. This religion, while undoubtedly giving higher social 
 
 65 
 
[III-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 standards than are now possessed by pagan peoples, yet 
 petrifies all progress beyond its level — a level that contains 
 glaring deficiencies and comes far short of the highest that 
 we know. The need at this point is all the greater because 
 it will take us ten years to win back from Islam what as 
 pagan could be won for Christ in a single year. We have 
 only to let things go on as at present and in two or three 
 decades Africa will be Moslem — and we know by humiliating 
 and discouraging experience what the winning of a Moslem 
 country means and costs. 
 
 V 
 
 Latin America has her closely-drawn caste lines, the prob- 
 lem of her great landed estates, her millions of peons 
 enslaved through debt, her unassimilated Indian tribes, her 
 varied immigrants, and a more or less feudal condition, the 
 ramifications of which run through the economic, social, and 
 religious life of the people. Because of Spain, the liberating 
 influences of the Reformation and the accompanying Renais- 
 sance were kept from Latin America for three hundred years. 
 Even yet the twenty republics have not recovered from the 
 extreme reaction in faith and morals. Probably not five per 
 cent of the 50,000 students in the South American universities 
 would admit allegiance to any church. Large numbers of 
 the educational and political leaders are contemptuously 
 antagonistic to all forms of religion. 
 
 VI 
 
 The Near East is a phrase which includes the Turkish 
 Empire, the Balkan Peninsula, North Africa, and Persia. 
 So far as this includes lands under Moslem rule we have an 
 all-too-fresh memory of what it means — ruthless deportations 
 and massacres of Armenians, famine and distress, disease 
 and suffering. One finds in these countries lack of public 
 spirit, mutual suspicion, slavery, extreme poverty on the part 
 of the many, and a tendency merely to copy tradition. 
 
 To these six mission areas one may add as a seventh group 
 the so-called Christian countries. Their needs are closer 
 to us and will not be even outlined in this rapid survey. 
 
 VII 
 How can we explain the way in which good people can 
 
RESPONSIFENESS TO HUMAN NEED [III-c] 
 
 ignore world need? William James points out an obvious 
 answer when he says that we cannot attend to all reality 
 at once — that we can be efficient at all only by selecting that 
 to which we will attend and ignoring everything else. This 
 is why there is not enough misery in India, poverty in China, 
 industrial turmoil in Japan, fatalism in Turkey, savagery in 
 Africa, or agnosticism in South America but that some people 
 can forget it. It is entirely plain how some succeed in 
 ignoring these vast realms of need ; it is by attending to 
 something else. One reason why gold flowed toward Armenia 
 during the War was that attention was arrested. The over- 
 whelming mass of human need in the non-Christian world 
 has never similarly caught the imagination of men. 
 
 A world Christian, however, is one who deifinitely turns 
 his attention to the needs of the world. He is the kind 
 of a person that will not continue oblivious to how the other 
 half lives, but will know and be moved by human need. 
 What heretofore has been characteristic of the missionary 
 mind will characterize every Christian in the new democracy. 
 Only a beginning has been made during the War in respond- 
 ing to those who are across the world from us. Such practical 
 sympathy should become a habit. 
 
 But even when attention has been turned to these great 
 v/orld needs one must fight against a tendency to think of 
 these people in mere masses. Not mankind in the mass, but 
 individual men and women and children, whose lives we 
 have come to know, grip heart and sympathy. If we fail 
 to individualize, so that we know nothing more human than 
 "the swarming millions of the East," or the "famine-stricken 
 hordes of Asia" we are not likely to see need as it really is. 
 It is because geographical magazines and moving pictures 
 and travel books leave us without excuse as to the means 
 of acquiring this nearer view that our missionary motive 
 should be so much stronger than our forefathers'. 
 . One sometimes wonders whether the "heathen" could be 
 real men and women to those who stood behind our early 
 missionary enterprise. To read the addresses of those days 
 it would seem that the heathen were little more than an 
 undifferentiated quantum called souls. There was something 
 abstract about their appeals. The fitness of Christianity to 
 be an absolute religion was considered, the plan of salvation 
 was expounded, and finally the utter ruin of all life apart 
 
 67 
 
[III-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 from Christ was forcibly deduced. The modern missionary 
 appeal, however, presents with vividness the concrete facts 
 and situations that need a Savior, Not the a priori and 
 theologically-stated necessity "is emphasized, so much as the 
 actual needs which cry out for what Christ alone can give. 
 We need to recognize that there is this transition of appeal. 
 We have ceased to think about a vague humanity which by 
 theory must be lost; and we are more and more seeing 
 actual men and women and families and nations which as a 
 matter of fact do supremely need the Christ. It is important 
 to recognize that when this transition in the basis of appeal 
 has once begun, it is necessary for it to be completed. If we 
 are going to depend for our stimulus on a presentation of 
 the actual and visible needs of men for Christ rather than 
 on their theoretical and theologically-deduced need of him, 
 then we must make earnest with the problem of creating 
 sensitiveness to facts of need. 
 
 But after the attention has been turned to the realm of 
 need, and after we have individualized rather than simply 
 thought en masse, there must be the capacity of imagination 
 to make needs stand out with vividness. A railway track 
 does appear nearer together in the distance, but most adults 
 have imagination enough to correct this optical effect. Com- 
 paratively few, however, have trained themselves to see at 
 their true enormity the remediable needs of more backward 
 peoples. Again, only a few have been so developed that they 
 can scan sets of tables telling about the amount of child 
 labor, preventable accidents, or unemployment and from these 
 columns catch the significance of the human problem or be 
 stirred to find its remedy. Not many are like Brand Whit- 
 lock, who after returning from his ambassadorship in Bel- 
 gium, said that he could never enter a restaurant and see a 
 person crumbling bread thoughtlessly on the tablecloth with- 
 out a cold shiver passing through him. The capacity vividly 
 to appreciate human need, is a distinct attainment. 
 
 We don't have so much difficulty with the needs close at 
 hand. Suppose that next door there is a little child who 
 has been grievously crippled for life by infantile paralysis 
 and is carried about from place to place each day. Sympathy 
 in this case can hardly be considered an attainment. If an 
 auto accident occurs before our own door, we respond at 
 once with our help, feel bad over it all the afternoon, and 
 
 68 
 
RESPONSIVENESS TO HUMAN NEED [III-c] 
 
 dream about it at night, whether the patient be Chinese, 
 African, or Jew. It is, furthermore, just this relative ease 
 of response to nearby need that makes the city poor more 
 generous than the country poor — the needy in a city touch 
 one another more closely and realize more vividly their neigh- 
 bors' needs. The test of capacity comes with the more 
 distant, less obvious needs of the world. The question is as 
 to whether we have developed the field glasses of our im- 
 agination so that we can see the practical slavery amongst 
 the 30,000 rickshaw coolies of Peking. Or we may be able 
 to bring close up in vision the physical hunger of the world, 
 but have no power to focus on the famished spirits of men. 
 We have learned enough from the Good Samaritan to re- 
 spond to needs that thrust themselves on our roadside. But 
 we are Levites and Pharisees with reference to people in 
 dire need some few thousand miles away from the road we 
 travel ; our money can release service in a distant hospital 
 as well as in the inn at which we stop. We hear, for example, 
 a man plead that the death rate in India is such that five 
 million more people die each year than would thus pass away 
 if the preventable diseases were looked after. Is it lack of 
 imagination that causes us to pass by on the other side of 
 his request for support in his constructive service for these 
 people? Let us rejoice that so many people have the power 
 of response which enables them to support the more distant 
 enterprises of the Church in this or other lands, although 
 they have not actually seen the places or peoples for whom 
 their resources have been enlisted. 
 
 VIII 
 
 For the missionary enthusiast at home the question must 
 arise as to whether he possesses this capacity for sympathetic 
 imagination. Is it possible that the activity of presidents 
 and secretaries and persons otherwise prominent in mission- 
 ary societies may in some cases arise from the mere joy that 
 comes from having a task and feeling that out is useful? 
 This joy in having a real part in the promotion of one of 
 the activities of the community which are acknowledged to 
 be important and respectable is perfectly right, but it is not 
 necessarily the expression of the missionary consciousness, 
 even though dealing with missionary geography and mission- 
 ary facts. The activity in this case arises from a laudable 
 
 69 
 
[III-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 motive that could be satisfied by useful leadership in any 
 other respectable branch of service. Many a time in a 
 meeting a missionary has pleaded most tenderly and earnestly 
 for the pressing, multiform needs of some people whom he 
 loves and the chairman has closed the meeting in a way that 
 makes one wonder whether imagination has taken her beyond 
 the machinery of the meeting to see the significance, in flesh 
 and blood and hearts and souls, of the message regarding 
 some group on the other side of this earth of ours. Further- 
 more, it IS possible for a person in the realm of missions, 
 just as for a man in public service, to continue his activity 
 from force of habit or because of what people will think 
 of him if he stops or fails. The Christian consciousness must 
 have as an essential element, however, an active imagination 
 which is capable of seeing needs. 
 
 For our nation this mark of an international mind will 
 mean that other lands will be looked upon not merely as 
 places where trade may be extended. Consuls will report 
 on other things than raw materials and opening commercial 
 opportunities. If our nation is to be fully Christian, it must 
 as such go forth in service. But with this must come not 
 only the establishment of precedents for national generosity, 
 but the atmosphere in which it will be natural to consider 
 the needs of other lands. Capacity for sympathetic appre- 
 ciation of need must be national as well as individual. For, 
 as the author of "The Great Society" says, it may easily 
 prove true that the least amount of love that will suffice to 
 hold together the cities and nations of the new order "may 
 be found Vb require that what school children learn of the 
 unseen millions of their fellows shall be, as far as the writers 
 of books and the trainers of teachers can make it, the 
 truth."' 
 
 "For the selfish comfort among the wrongs and sorrows of 
 men, for our ignorance and indifference concerning the lot 
 of others, for the love of ease and pleasure that has blinded 
 our eyes, have mercy upon us, O Lord." 
 
 TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 
 
 I. Explain why no amount of perfection in individual quali- 
 ties can make amends for a sub-Christian indifference to mal- 
 adjustment in the world about you. 
 
 2 Graham Wallas. " The Great Society," p. ISS- 
 
 70 
 
RESPONSIVENESS TO HUMAN NEED [III-c] 
 
 2. To what extent does the possibility of the attainment 
 of Christian character depend upon the attainment of a cer- 
 tain physical and intellectual minimum in life? To what 
 practical steps should this lead us? 
 
 3. Have you the concentration which enables you to vision, 
 beyond the actual, the ideal social order? Sketch some of 
 its main features. 
 
 4. Is it the quality of need, or the quantity of need, on 
 the mission field that distinguishes the call for service abroad 
 from that at home? 
 
 5. If the state of the non-Christian world were such as 
 entirely to obscure its need, would the Church's duty to evan- 
 gelize the world still stand? Explain. 
 
 6. What impulses, other than a sensitive response to need, 
 may keep one active in enterprises of helpfulness? Is the 
 absence of such an impulse creditable? 
 
 7. What is the normal Christian reaction to known need? 
 Estimate the function of religion in meeting each kind of 
 world need. 
 
 8. What needs in Christian work abroad call for laymen? 
 How would you justify reforestation as a legitimate use of 
 time by a missionary? 
 
 9. What additional thing would best enable us to respond 
 to the world need? More knowledge? More love? More 
 dynamic? Greater conviction that we have something to 
 give? What? 
 
 ID. What in your opinion is the greatest agency thus far 
 in seeing and meeting world need? What has been the 
 inspiration back of this agency? 
 
 71 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 Faith in the Pursuant Love of God 
 
 Myself, other folks, and God — so far, we have been con- 
 sidering the first two only in this triangular relationship. But 
 as we turn from the needs of the world, so vital, so varied, 
 so overwhelming, we are confronted by the question, who is 
 sufficient for such things? Would it not be madness for 
 any man to dream that his one life could cause a ripple upon 
 so large a surface and so deep an abyss? Many there are 
 who would like to see conditions bettered and needs met, 
 but would not dream of purposing to bring this about. Why 
 should any form a purpose for what seems so impossible of 
 achievement? But is there not some reason why it becomes 
 both natural and inevitable, yes, and impelling to set about 
 this great task — a reason also for confident hope of success? 
 Indeed we shall find all of these when we take into considera- 
 tion the third great factor with whom we are so indissolubly 
 knit together, and come to understand what is most charac- 
 teristic in God. 
 
 Fourth Week, First Day: The Great Attainment 
 
 One God and Father of all, who is over all, and through 
 all, and in all. . . . For it is God who worketh in you 
 both to will and to work, for his good pleasure. . . . Not 
 that we are sufficient of ourselves, to account anything 
 as from ourselves; but our sufficiency is from God. — 
 Eph. 4:6; Phil. 2:13; II Cor. 3:5. 
 
 Except Jehovah build the house. 
 
 They labor in vain that build it: 
 
 Except Jehovah keep the city, 
 
 The watchman waketh but in vain. 
 
 It is vain for you to rise up early. 
 
 To take rest late, 
 
 To eat the bread of toil; 
 
 For so he giveth unto his beloved sleep. . . • 
 
 Jehovah is my light and my salvation; 
 
 Whom shall I fear? 
 
 Jehovah is the strength of my life; 
 72 
 
FAITH IN PURSUANT LOVE OF GOD [IV-i] 
 
 Of whom shall I be afraid? — Psalm 127: i, 2; 27: i. 
 
 Be strong and of good courage, fear not, nor be 
 affrighted at them: for Jehovah thy God, he it is that 
 doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee. 
 . . . And Jehovah, he it is that doth go before thee; he 
 will be with thee, he will not fail thee, neither forsake 
 thee: fear not, neither be dismayed. . . . Have not I com- 
 manded thee? Be strong and of good courage; be not 
 affrighted, neither be thou dismayed: for Jehovah thy 
 God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. ... In all 
 thy ways acknowledge him, And he will direct thy paths. 
 — Deut. 31:6, 8; Josh. 1:9; Prov. 3:6. 
 
 Homage to personality is of the very essence of democracy. 
 It increases our reverence for God to see how in this sense 
 he may be considered as democratic. For he has carefully 
 avoided dominatmg our personalities. He does not make 
 himself so patently obvious that we are compelled to believe 
 in him. On the other hand we must, each day, newly affirm 
 our faith in God, and develop strength of spiritual life by 
 triumphing over what often seems like unreality in this realm. 
 Each of us must voluntarily choose, and voluntarily keep 
 the great attainment of a living consciousness of God, such 
 as is found in today's verses. 
 
 In our personal experience at its highest we have the 
 conviction that we have seen, known, and experienced God. 
 This conviction is strengthened by the repetition of the ex- 
 perience on our part, and especially by confirmatory testimony 
 from others in whose competence to judge we have most 
 confidence. Gradually our eyes are opened to see God as the 
 great Teacher, progressively educating both ourselves and the 
 race, in an environment partially good and partially bad, 
 but which is moving as we cooperate toward a morally per- 
 fect ideal. Furthermore, with Jesus we look on what of 
 goodness is found in man, and make the deduction: "How 
 much more your Father" (cf. Matt. 7:11). Above all, the 
 effect of the personality of Jesus makes it natural to believe 
 in God. He sends the world Christian forth, eager to launch 
 out in the greatest of all life's ventures — the daring to risk 
 everything on the assumption that we are "bound up in the 
 bundle of life with the Lord Jehovah" ; the willingness to 
 pray, to plan, to act under the inspiration, friendship, and 
 guarantee of the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 73 
 
[lY-2] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Fourth Week, Second Day : Love Taking the Initi- 
 ative 
 
 What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and having 
 lost one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in 
 the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he 
 find it? ... Or what woman having ten pieces of silver, 
 if she lose one piece, doth not light a lamp, and sweep 
 the house, and seek diligently until she find it? . . . And 
 he arose, and came to his father. But while he was yet 
 afar off, his father saw him, and was moved with compas- 
 sion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. — 
 Luke 15:4, 8, 20. 
 
 But the reality of the fact of God must be filled with con- 
 tent. One day, on the plains of India, a missionary was 
 asked: "If you were compelled to choose but one page from 
 all the Bible to reveal the heart of Christianity, what one 
 would you select?" The unhesitating answer was: "I would 
 unhesitatingly choose that page which tells of the lost sheep, 
 the lost coin, and the lost boy." Other religions tell about 
 a god who will come to save the righteous and punish the 
 wicked. But in Christianity alone has there been revealed 
 a God who cares enough to seek out and save those that are 
 lost. It used to be easy to believe in a God who would 
 destroy great portions of humanity which were thought to 
 be evil; the hard thing was even to conceive of a Deity 
 that could take trouble over the lost. Since Christ, however, 
 the easy — in fact, to those who have really known him, the 
 inevitable — thing is to believe that God cannot be less than he. 
 
 Notice in these parables how the shepherd seeks the sheep 
 uniil he finds it; how the woman seeks the coin until she 
 regains it ; how the father loves the boy lintil he comes back 
 again to the father's house. In this pursuant love of God 
 we find the climax of the revelation of the Father. The 
 aggressive, initiating love of God for man is the very core 
 of the Christian religion and in it resides our hope for an 
 eventually whole and perfect life. Not only will there be 
 joy in heaven over every successful venture of love, but God 
 is hunting and working and loving until the task is done. 
 
 Experiencing such love in his God, man must learn to love. 
 In fellowship with such a person man's self-centered nature 
 becomes transformed until he too — like his God — is charac- 
 
 74 
 
FAITH IN PURSUANT LOVE OF GOD [IV-3] 
 
 terized by a loving pursuit which stops not until the need is 
 met. 
 
 Fourth Week, Third Day: A Revolution in Values 
 
 He was despised, and rejected of men; a man of sor- 
 rows, and acquainted with grief: and as one from whom 
 men hide their face he was despised; and we esteemed 
 him not. 
 
 Surely he hath borne bur griefs, and carried our sor- 
 rows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, 
 and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgres- 
 sions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement 
 of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are 
 healed. — Isa. 53:3-5- 
 
 One of the finest products of Israel's religion was the con- 
 ception that undeserved suffering on the part of the righteous 
 might somehow make toward the saving of the wicked. 
 Other solutions had attributed all suffering to sin. The newer 
 insight perceived that some suffering could be redemptive. 
 Righteous and wicked are so bound together that the un- 
 deserved suffering of the one may be the saving of the other. 
 And so it finally dawned on the consciousness of a few 
 leaders that even the longed-for Messiah might not be a 
 worldly king restoring Israel to power, but a suffering servant 
 through whose affliction others would be saved. 
 
 This insight was one of the great revolutions in judgments 
 of values. Here man began to see that unmerited suffering 
 in behalf of others could be a characteristic of God, and hence 
 could become the divinest privilege of man. Love's greatest 
 opportunity very often involves taking on a burden that is 
 not merited. In this great passage from Isaiah we find Israel 
 'realizing that salvation is in one who was stricken, smitten, 
 and afflicted. How much vaster is the redemptive power and 
 stimulus when we see that it is not man, however exalted, 
 but God himself who becomes a suffering servant for the 
 world ! Today let this conception of what God is ready to 
 do and, in fact, is doing, dominate our approach to the world's 
 sin and suffering and need. 
 
 Fourth Week, Fourth Day : God's Readiness to Give 
 
 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; 
 knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one 
 
 75 
 
[IV-4] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and 
 to him that knocketh it shall be opened. Or what man 
 is there of you, who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf, 
 will give him a stone; or if he shall ask for a fish, will 
 give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to 
 give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall 
 your Father who is in heaven give good things to them 
 that ask him? — Matt. 7:7-11. 
 
 If ye shall ask anything of the Father, he will give it 
 you in my name. — John 16:23. 
 
 Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree' 
 on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it 
 shall be done for them of my Father who is in heaven. — 
 Matt. 18: 19. 
 
 It was just as simple as this to Jesus: "If ye being evil 
 know how to give — how much more your Father — ." The 
 absolute readiness of God to respond was a fundamental 
 conception to Jesus. That which needed correction was man's 
 reluctance to ask, his refusal even to formulate desire. 
 
 At the ordinary level or potential of our lives we make 
 demands upon God and get the response of the ordinary laws 
 of nature. Gravitation works whenever called upon; magnets 
 draw, electricity does its marvels, steam drives. At this 
 level all of us ask, and receive according to our faith from 
 what is really God. What Jesus seemed so eager to have 
 us believe is that there is a higher potential or level of faith 
 at which we can live, to which God's response will be as 
 wonderfully rich and just as "natural" and inevitable as on 
 the more common level. In other words, the response is 
 according to our real demand upon God. Ordinary demand 
 receives ordinary response. But mountains can be removed 
 when there is even a little of that faith which is based on. 
 the assured character of God and his readiness to give. 
 
 True, Jesus gave us conditions for prayer, certain relation- 
 ships which must be right. But instead of impressing his 
 disciples with the fact that to pray is difficult, he seemed 
 consumed with longing that they should realize a still more 
 fundamental truth — how eager the Father is to give to those 
 who really ask. 
 
 With a world about us needing reconstruction, should we 
 not make it our serious prayer that God will give us the 
 confidence in his character that Jesus had, so that wonders 
 may be worked in answer to our faith? 
 
 76 
 
FAITH IN PURSUANT LOVE OF GOD [IV-5I 
 
 Fourth Week, Fifth Day : An Ever-Working God 
 
 The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth 
 the Father doing. . . . My Father worketh even until 
 now, and I work. — John 5: 19b, 17. 
 
 In answering the criticism of pious legalists, Jesus opens 
 up one of those beautiful windows of his soul through which 
 we catch a rare vision of his conception of his Father. To 
 Jesus God is one who never rests from an active outgoing 
 of service to rfiankind. Even on the Sabbath day God con- 
 tinues his beneficent work for his children. With absolute 
 certainty we may count on him every minute, since rest for 
 God does not involve inactivity in love's expression. To 
 Jesus the unceasing activity of God for good was a great 
 reality. 
 
 Rev. G. A. Johnston Ross tells how he was standing with 
 John MacNeill one day in Edinburgh watching the procession 
 incident to the opening of the General Assembly of the Na- 
 tional Church. In connection with this annual event the King 
 sends a Lord High Commissioner who is conducted to the 
 assembly hall by a great pageant. The Lord High Commis- 
 sioner and his staff, the Moderator, and other officials are 
 seated in splendid carriages, drawn by milk-white horses, 
 gaily caparisoned, with outriders, trumpeters, banner-bearers 
 — a gorgeous spectacle. As the pageant swept by that day, the 
 whole business impressed Professor Ross as so absurd in its 
 pompous irrelevance to anything Christian, that he said to 
 his friend, "MacNeill, what do you suppose the Lord Jesus 
 thinks of this?" For a moment MacNeill did not reply, and 
 supposing he had not heard the question. Professor Ross 
 looked at his face and saw that he was gazing up into the 
 skies, his eyes suffused with tears. Then lapsing into Scotch, 
 he said, "He's thinkin' naethin' ava' ; he's ower thrang! 
 (He's thinking nothing at all; he's too busy)." 
 
 May there not come over us, as over these two men. the 
 overwhelming thought that God is busy in a great purpose? 
 He does not work merely in us and through us. In ways that 
 are beyond us and without us God has been silently and 
 peacefully doing his work. Would that we could catch his 
 great perspective in aim and accomplishment, so that the 
 petty would at once be sensed by us as microscopic in con- 
 trast with things of supreme worth! 
 
 77 
 
[IV-6] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Fourth Week, Sixth Day : How Omnipotence Is Set 
 Free 
 
 Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good 
 pleasure to give you the kingdom. — Luke 1*2 : 32. 
 
 Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impos- 
 sible, but not with God: for all things are possible with 
 God. — Mark 10:27. 
 
 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why 
 could not we cast it out? And he saith unto them, Be- 
 cause of your little faith : for verily I say unto you, . If 
 ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say 
 unto this mountain. Remove hence to yonder place; and 
 it shall remove. — Matt. 17: 19, 20. 
 
 Notice the succession of thought in these three statements 
 of Jesus: God desires to establish the perfect social order; 
 for him nothing is physically impossible; but, being the 
 kind of God he is, he cannot give his choicest gifts nor make 
 his highest response where there is distrust. God has always 
 been ready to give us the Kingdom, and will actually do so 
 just as soon a.s we learn to know and trust him. It was be- 
 cause Jesus was one who thus knew and trusted God that in 
 him the Kingdom could actually start to come. Jesus' faith 
 enabled God to respond to him in a kingdom way. 
 
 Early in his life Jesus must have realized that no one 
 else had a consciousness of God and a trust in Him such 
 as he himself had. If only others would develop this trust, 
 the Kingdom would be here! And so he began a revelation 
 of what kingdom trust is; he yearned to instill a knowledge 
 of and a confidence in the Father. By miracle, by word, by 
 unhesitating acceptance of death that looked to most like 
 utter failure, he was leading people to catch his faith in the 
 absolute trustworthiness of God. In the life he lived we get 
 a glimpse of the way in which the omnipotence of God is 
 set free in the one who has unlimited confidence in His 
 character and resources. 
 
 What might we not be and do if we had Jesus' conviction 
 as to the availability of God! Isn't it just possible that we 
 might catch from Jesus faith at least as large as a grain of 
 mustard seed? Putting this to the test, that faith could grow. 
 Is there really anything better that we can do to prepare our- 
 selves for taking a Christian's place in a world of need, than 
 acquiring an ever-deepening conviction of the character of 
 
 78 
 
FAITH IN PURSUANT LOVE OF GOD [IV-7] 
 
 God? It will mean a constant return to the one who so 
 perfectly manifested the filial spirit, it will mean prayer, 
 communion with God, and the daily living out the trust in 
 the laboratory of life. The world Christian must get the 
 faith that Jesus had, if he would do the works that Jesus 
 places upon him. 
 
 Fourth Week, Seventh Day : Reenforcement for the 
 Seemingly Impossible 
 
 And when the servant of the man of God was risen 
 early, and gone forth, behold, a host with horses and 
 chariots was round about the city. And his servant said 
 unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do? And he 
 answered. Fear not; for they that are with us are more 
 than they that are with them. And Elisha prayed, and 
 said, Jehovah, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. 
 And Jehovah opened the eyes of the young man; and 
 he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and 
 chariots of fire round about Elisha. — II Kings 6: 15-18. 
 
 The horses and chariots and the great host about Dothan 
 were real facts that had to be taken into consideration. But 
 there were forces of strength and support to which Elisha's 
 servant was blind. Even so today, to waken up to the 
 enormous needs of this world is a terrible thing unless we 
 also awaken to see the divine reenforcement that is at hand. 
 We need some Elisha to open our eyes that we may see. 
 Hope and courage will come with the discovery of God. To 
 the new world consciousness we must bring a new God con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 There have been times with tasks so small that we were 
 tempted to believe that we could clear them off in our own 
 unaided strength. Not so these days. Miracles are needed. 
 Let us thank God for tasks so large that we must open our 
 eyes to see the resources that are with God. 
 
 COMMENT FOR THE WEEK 
 I 
 
 If we could get a steady deep insight into the character 
 and purposes, the desires and resources of our God, then 
 unquenchable hope, invincible courage, unhesitating obedi- 
 
 79 
 
[IV-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 ence, and absolute loyalty would be the spontaneous expres- 
 sion of our lives. Especially do we need to lay hold of the 
 truth that God is preeminently characterized by forth-going, 
 self-sacrificing, resourceful, constructive love. We have come 
 to see that this divine solicitude takes within its grasp not 
 only the individual, but the organized life of man. 
 
 And all this loving outreach of our God is made in such an 
 unpretentious way that we are not forced to notice it. Every 
 day he pours his blessings upon us. "He maketh his sun to 
 rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just 
 and the unjust" (Matt. 5:44). Yet this wealth of gift is 
 so unobtrusively made our own that for many there is a 
 certain unreality in the religious life. No doubt in this also 
 there is a great love-purpose for us. If it were all too over- 
 whelmingly plain, there would not be room for that most 
 beautiful belief that friend may have in friend. God is will- 
 ing that his hovering love should be unobtrusive, so that there 
 may be room for faith, for complete and unwavering confi- 
 dence in him. 
 
 And yet there has been one supreme expression which has 
 challenged the attention of the world, and will ever pre- 
 eminently embody to us the self-giving character of our God. 
 The little child named it when in the twilight he came run- 
 ning to his mother saying, "O mother, God has just put out 
 his service star." Yes, his single star — for God so loved the 
 world that he g'ave his only begotten Son. By the inner neces- 
 sity of his nature God is ever loving. He is the kind of a 
 God that could not refrain from manifesting himself in 
 Jesus, and being found in the form of man could not but 
 accept the cross. It is in the cross that we catch such a 
 vision of our God and his ways that ever after life's meaning 
 and possibilities seem transformed. 
 
 II 
 
 Let us not forget how unique in the thought of men this 
 conception of God's character is. Suppose that in contrast 
 we try to express in a single word the most characteristic 
 thing in the world's great religions. For Muhammadanism, 
 we would choose the word submissiofi. In fact, this emphasis 
 has given to this great religion one of the names by which 
 it is known, "Islam," which means submission. When Mu- 
 
 80 
 
FAITH IN PURSUANT LOVE OF GOD [IV-c] 
 
 hammad, at forty years of age and before the beginning of 
 his pubHc career, was meditating on a mountain height, the 
 hollowness of all idolatry burst in upon him and in contrast 
 the greatness of God made a profound impression on him. 
 "Allahu Akbar," that is, God is great, became the watchword 
 of his new faith. Before this greatness of God man is as 
 dust. If a painter could have one picture only for represent- 
 ing Muhammadanism, he would very probably depict a man 
 kneeling with his forehead in the dust, betokening submis- 
 sion, surrender. 
 
 If we were given but a single word in which to sum up 
 Hinduism we would choose karma, for this word stands for 
 India's solution of the great problem of suffering, and it has 
 dyed her very thought through and through. Karma teaches 
 that if one suffers here it is because of evil done in some 
 former life ; if one is blessed here it is because of good done 
 before this life was entered. ' In short "life, in quality as well 
 as in quantity, is the accurately meted and altogether fitting 
 expiation of the deeds of previous existence."^ 
 
 Buddhists say that their conception of the highest is 
 serenity, poise, and freedom from desire, and perhaps for 
 them Buddhism could be best summed up in nirvana, that con- 
 ception which hovers between rest and extinction, and may 
 best be thought of as passionless peace. 
 
 Confucius himself gives us reciprocity as the single word 
 which best describes the system that has held for centuries 
 so many millions in China. 
 
 As Christians, however, we are convinced that God is 
 characterized by love. If only one word were allowed with 
 which to sum up Christianity, love would be chosen by all to 
 body forth the conception that comes nearest to the heart of 
 what they hold to be truest and highest in God and man. 
 And when one really sees this, he bows in reverence before 
 that which is for him above all things else divine. We give 
 the allegiance of our lives to a Being who not only has 
 power but purposes to use that power in service; who, 
 although sinned against and neglected, nevertheless tenderly 
 hovers over his children with an exhaustless love which wins 
 them back to him. The fact is, we have a missionary God. 
 We cannot truly think of him as revealed in Christ without 
 
 iP. Deussen. "System des Veddnta," p. 381. 
 
 81 
 
[IV-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 finding that the missionary idea is dominant in our con- 
 ception of him. God is love — love for all — and love that 
 costs. Unlike the non-Christian religions, we find the prin- 
 ciple and power of recovery from moral evil at the very 
 heart of the Christian God. 
 
 Such has not always been man's conception of deity. Men 
 long bowed down before the whirlwind, the earthquake, and 
 the fire ; only here and there a prophet waited for the still 
 small voice. But since Christ came, that which compels men 
 to bow in deepest reverence is no longer mere invincible 
 power or omnipresence or all-inclusive knowledge. We 
 might dread the power, but before we fall down in worship* 
 we would want to know the purpose of the One we call God. 
 Before we give our reverence, we want to know the aims 
 of this stupendous power back alike of the planet in its orbit 
 and of the electron in its tiny flight. It is not the quantity 
 of this power but its quality, its direction that is most vital 
 to us. 
 
 Ill 
 
 There have been times amidst the attainments of modern 
 days when men did not feel the need of God, since they 
 found so much that apparently they could do themselves. 
 Housing conditions could be bettered, child labor controlled, 
 amusements could be censored, preventable accidents could 
 be reduced. A whole list of evils that once seemed abso- 
 lutely inevitable has been eliminated. The very success of 
 social amelioration and of scientific investigation of causes 
 and conditions has turned some away from God to a confi- 
 dence in human might and power. 
 
 But sooner or later we find that there are tasks that do 
 not lie so much on the surface. We find our limitations in 
 meeting these deeper needs — "needs of inward renewal, of 
 the transformation of character, of deliverance from selfish- 
 ness and pettiness and the tyranny of habit; the need of 
 inner contentment and peace, of a larger outlook, of a more 
 satisfying ambition." It is when we are face to face with 
 these deeper needs in trench or counting-house, in hospital 
 or congested quarter that we become painfully conscious of 
 our own limitations and are driven to God himself. 
 
 But in still other ways God has been opening up before 
 us tasks so prodigious that even the social and philanthropic 
 
 %2 
 
FAITH IN PURSUANT LOVE OF GOD [IV-c] 
 
 attainments of yesterday are not able to give courage for 
 them. The nations of the world are to be bound together in 
 spite of bitterness, injustice, and racial prejudice. Inter- 
 nationalism is to become an attainment, even though national- 
 ism be more than ever emphasized. War is to be outgrown. 
 Our own lands are to be Christianized, with all the searching 
 social and economic -adjustments that this will involve. The 
 Church is to be reconstructed. A seventh of the human race 
 is still to be reached by the Christian message in parts of 
 the world as yet unoccupied, and the so-called occupied 
 fields are to be manned and worked in a worthy manner. 
 Men and women, sufficient in number and adequate in gifts 
 and grace, must be found, trained, and sent forth to our 
 own and other lands. Money must be raised and harmony 
 must be preserved amongst the various forces. 
 
 New conviction as to the character and sufficiency of our 
 God is the ultimate foundation for a faith large enough to 
 reconstruct a world. The faith Jesus had in the God he 
 knew is the only faith big enough for these great tasks. But 
 in the presence of his conviction there can be nothing im- 
 possible in the reconstruction of the world. There can be 
 no disparity between aims and means when we include within 
 the means the resources of a God who has a will to serve 
 even at cost to self. 
 
 IV 
 
 As a matter of fact, it is just this conviction as to the 
 character and the purpose, the desire and the resources of 
 our God that has been back of the Christian enterprise of 
 missions. Only as men come to understand this character 
 will the missionary idea gain its deepest hold. The world 
 may laugh at the fact that a cobbler started the modern 
 missionary movement, but the union of a consecrated cobbler 
 and a God who works for good, made one of the most 
 notable life histories the world has ever had. And how can 
 the present missionary force of only 25,000 men and women 
 dare go forth to change a world? It is because they have 
 the deep-laid confidence that all peoples are the objects of 
 God's love; that their uplift is in line with his fundamental 
 purposes ; and that therefore every stroke toward that end 
 is work that has eternal significance. That is why thousands 
 have gone forth to spend their lives working with God. It 
 
 83 
 
[IV-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 is because of their consciousness that God is at work with 
 them that they are enabled to bear isolation and privation 
 and homespun toil for the more backward of the earth. 
 
 Many a time a missionary might be tempted to give up 
 before indifference or opposition on the field, but this confi- 
 dence that God purposes a perfected world gives him strength 
 and courage to go ahead. When Morrison was scoffingly 
 asked whether he expected to make any impression on the 
 vast Chinese Empire, he replied: "No, sir, but I expect God 
 will." Morrison could wait seven years for his first convert 
 in China; Carey could work for eight years before baptizing 
 Krishna Pal; Bush and Matoon saw no visible results for 
 six years in Bangkok. It was, however, the conviction that 
 the unchanging purpose of a mighty God of love was behind 
 them that sent them unhesitatingly on. They knew that they 
 did not have to work out the world's salvation alone. If 
 that were the case they might well have despaired. In such 
 disappointing circumstances, however, they could know that 
 God was not only divinely reenforcing all the good that 
 they had ever visioned for these lands, but God had pre- 
 ceded them, and now at last men were faintly sharing in his 
 yearning, 
 
 Mary Slessor, who went forth, self-educated, from a Scot- 
 tish weaving shed to Africa, had this faith in God. When 
 she went to live in a tribe for whom all previous efforts had 
 failed, the chief scoffed at the idea of being helped by a 
 woman in their midst. "In measuring the woman's power," 
 she answered, "you have evidently forgotten to take into 
 consideration the woman's God." 
 
 David Livingstone had this faith when he said, "Nothing 
 earthly will make me give up my work in despair." Once 
 when one of Africa's savage tribes seemed about to put 
 Livingstone to death he wrote in his diary: "Felt much tur- 
 moil of spirit in view of having all my plans for the welfare 
 of this great region and teeming population knocked on the 
 head by savages tomorrow. But I read that Jesus came and 
 said, 'All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. 
 Go ye therefore and teach all nations, and lo, I am with 
 you alway, even unto the end of the world.' It is the word 
 of a gentleman of the most sacred and strictest honour, and 
 there is an end on't." To modern prophets, as well as to 
 Isaiah, God's voice is heard saying: "Remember ye not the 
 
FAITH IN PURSUANT LOVE OF GOD [IV-c] 
 
 former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold 
 I will do a new thing" (Isa. 43: 18, 19). 
 
 Now every Christian's life should create the impression 
 that he is a personal representative of the great Father God, 
 who has done marvelous things in the past, and who is eager 
 to do still more wonderful things in the future. Have we 
 such absolute confidence in the character of God that, with 
 Livingstone, we could stake our lives upon its truth? Are 
 we even retelling to the rising generation the story of the 
 triumphs which have been won by those who have dared 
 to take risks in the service of God? 
 
 V 
 
 But some may ask why, if God's character and resources 
 are so sufficient, more is not accomplished. Christ gives 
 the answer when he said we have not because we ask not. 
 In the light of our professed belief in God's readiness to 
 give and in view of the experience of prayer, nothing is 
 more astounding than the way in which we do not ask. Even 
 those who would be regarded by most as unquestionably 
 Christian do not keep before themselves big things for which 
 they are asking. It is so possible to perceive intellectually 
 God's designs and desires and even to be aware of the needs 
 of men without actively making God's aims one's own. It is 
 because of this lack of cooperation in us that God is blocked. 
 
 Even after all the centuries since Christ showed to us the 
 heart of God, how slight a grasp we have of the truth about 
 God ! We find it hard to believe in his essential goodness. 
 We have not habituated ourselves to place our first reliance 
 on the great fact that God is far more deeply and truly inter- 
 ested and engaged in the advancement of every good of 
 mankind than are we. Yet we are in an ocean of intelligent, 
 personal life and love, above us, below, and all around ; and 
 this life and love are permeating us, both mentally and bodily, 
 and all other beings as well. "If ye have faith as a grain 
 of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove 
 hence to yonder place ; and it shall remove ; and nothing shall 
 be impossible unto you" (Matt. 17:20). We live and move 
 and have our being in One who is infinite in potential re- 
 sponsiveness and who only waits to be called into activity 
 b>i our recognition and appropriation of his sufficiency. With 
 a world which, as we saw in the last chapter, has a doubly 
 
 85 
 
[IV-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 sevenfold need, what more colossal blindness is there than 
 our lack of faith that God is really Christ-like? 
 
 Can we not get behind these words so that their unique 
 significance sinks in upon us? Can we not launch out in a 
 supreme adventure, and demonstrate to the world that Christ's 
 thought of God is really true and that it brings results? 
 What would it not m.can to the world if even little nuclei of 
 people here and there should be dominated by the conviction 
 that the ultimate Center of our whole universe — the living, 
 personal God — is willing wondrous goals for this old earth, 
 and that he is blocked simply by our lack of appropriation 
 and response. The world Christian can make no greater 
 contribution to his generation than faith in the living, loving, 
 serving God. Mere fraternity is being urged by men who 
 do not take the name of Christ. Socialists and international- 
 ists of many kinds are striving for the fact of brotherhood. 
 But back of the fact of brotherhood is the still more signifi- 
 cant fact of Fatherhood, and it is faith in this that Christ 
 instills. It is this faith, furthermore, that men supremely 
 need. They face the stupendous task of social reconstruc- 
 tion. Some are starving on their own resources. Chris- 
 tianity's incomparable gift to man is that it opens up un- 
 fathomed resources of moral renewal, wisdom, energy, and 
 love. 
 
 What does the world need more than a contagious con- 
 viction of the character of our God? What would bring 
 courage and confidence and hope into any field of construc- 
 tive effort more than this deep-lying consciousness that at 
 the very center of things is Someone who knows and cares, 
 is ready to help, and is in fact already working for the best? 
 And what greater or more distinctively Christian contribution 
 can you make to your fellowmen than to live in this con- 
 sciousness, and by your very confidence make it easier for 
 others to believe in him; to act on the conviction that he 
 has already taken the initiative in meeting your every need 
 as well as those of the world ; and to be stirred with a quiet 
 hope because you know that aspiration after the good, the 
 beautiful, the true is in line with the power and resources 
 of God himself? 
 
 "Verily, verily I say unto you. The Son can do nothing 
 of himself, but what he seeth the Father doing: for what 
 things soever he doeth, these the Son also doeth in like 
 
 86 
 
FAITH IN PURSUANT LOVE OF GOD [IV-c] 
 
 manner" (John 5: 19). What do you see God doing in these 
 days? 
 
 TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 
 
 1. What are the things which as a matter of fact give hope 
 and courage to those who are working for a better world? 
 
 2. Amongst these, what hypothesis, if it were thoroughly 
 accepted, would in your opinion give mankind greatest confi- 
 dence and assurance that progress is both possible and prob- 
 able? 
 
 3. What motive led Jesus to do so many works of healing? 
 Was it the spontaneous impulse of pity, was it to demon- 
 strate the resources and goodness of God, or was it some- 
 thing else? 
 
 4. If God is like Jesus, why is progress not more sure 
 and definite? What is the matter? 
 
 5. How would you answer the contention that conditions 
 in non-Christian lands today indicate that God's presence and 
 love must be inadequate? 
 
 6. What is your deepest reason for believing in an aggres- 
 sive participation by the Church in the formation of a new 
 world order? 
 
 7. What elements in the conception of God are unique in 
 the Christian religion? 
 
 8. Put in a sentence your conception of the character of 
 God. 
 
 87 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 The Impulsion of a Great 
 Experience 
 
 Some who have read thus far may say, granted that these 
 distant peoples have many and great needs ; granted, too, 
 that we must become like God in outgoing, generous love 
 and service, what have we to give to them? As we read of 
 the physical, economic, educational, and other social needs 
 of other peoples, we acknowledge that the West possesses a 
 knowledge of the technique of civilization that others do 
 not have. We can tell them a good bit about sanitation, about 
 the application of steam and electricity, about increased pro- 
 duction through cooperation and organization. Of course, 
 any fairly humanized person must feel a certain obligation 
 to share these things. But this is far from the passion and 
 intensity of the forth-going impulse of the world Christian. 
 Why so much fervor and immediacy about his highest effort 
 in world friendship? The answer to this question leads 
 us to the very heart of our study: The ultimate dynamic 
 empowering the ivorld Christian is the inevitable impulsion' 
 that arises from experiencing the priceless treasure that is 
 found in Jesus Christ. It is this above all other things 
 which leads to the determination, heroism, and sacrifice that 
 must characterize the Christian enterprise of world friend- 
 ship. 
 
 Fifth Week, First Day: Twin Springs 
 
 So the woman left her waterpot, and went away into 
 the city, and saith to the people, Come, see a man, who 
 told me all things that ever I did: can this be the Christ? 
 They went out of the city, and were coming to him. . . . 
 And from that city many of the Samaritans believed on 
 him because of the word of the woman, who testified, He 
 told me all things that ever I did. — John 4:28-30, 39. 
 
IMPULSION OF GREAT EXPERIENCE [V-2] 
 
 The woman of Samaria certainly knew the needs of the 
 people of Sychar; she also had had a wonderful experience 
 with Christ. These two things made the testimony inevitable. 
 So it has always been. Right down through the ages you 
 will find great missionary awakenings when you have the 
 conjunction of these two factors — some fresh vision of the 
 world, opening up vast areas of human need, and with this 
 a spiritual awakening which makes one vividly conscious 
 of a Source that can satisfy that need. The modern mission- 
 ary movement, 'for example, had its rise on the one hand in 
 an enlarged world brought close through the records of great 
 voyagers, the political expansion of Great Britain, and a 
 marked increase in commercial relations with non-Christian 
 nations. On the other hand, it was preceded by the sharpen- 
 ing of the national conscience through the bitterly opposed 
 but finally successful movement for the abolition of slavery, 
 and by the revival led by Wesley and Whitefield which 
 brought in a tremendous spiritual awakening. 
 
 What is true of great corporate movements is, in this case, 
 true of the individual. If we feel no impulse to take part 
 in a great giving to the world, is it because we do not know 
 the world — that is, are ignorant? Or is it because we have 
 never really met Jesus Christ on life's wayside, and have 
 never actually found in him significance of unparalleled de- 
 gree — that is, are not fully Christian? Shall we not ask 
 ourselves this week whether we have ever been sufficiently 
 alone with Jesus Christ to permit his life to make its rightful 
 impress on our lives? 
 
 Fifth Week, Second Day : The Satisfaction of Five 
 Great Needs 
 
 I am the way, the truth, and the life. ... In him was 
 life; and the life was the light of men. . . . Grace and 
 truth came through Jesus Christ. — John 14:6; 1:4, 17. 
 
 Read over these verses and note the five outstanding things 
 which Christ meant to the writer. Name these items over 
 thoughtfully and arrange them in the order of your own 
 personal appreciation of them. These were incomparable 
 values to the writer of this gospel and expressed for him 
 the significance of Jesus Christ. 
 
 89 
 
[V-3] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Suppose you face the question whether you would have 
 been wiUing to live and die without knowing the Source of 
 these five great blessings. What actual difference would it 
 have made if you — and your children — had been born amongst 
 millions who never heard of Christ? Only by vividly pictur- 
 ing to yourself what life for such millions is, can you grasp 
 something of the immeasurable loss that deprivation of the 
 Christ-life would have meant. Refusing to be a world Chris- 
 tian means inflicting this immeasurable loss upon others who 
 have capacity as great as yours for appreciation of these 
 values. For what he has done for you he can do for all. 
 
 But no merely theoretical conception of the Christ will 
 send men forth to a world in need. Unless Christ means 
 something vital in your living experience, you will lack 
 convincing zeal and warmth. Think a moment; then honestly 
 answer these two questions : What personal knowledge have 
 I of Christ? Has fellowship with him any definite warm 
 content in my experience? 
 
 Fifth Week, Third Day: The Unsearchable Riches 
 of Christ 
 
 Yea verily, and I count all things to be loss for the 
 excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: 
 for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count 
 them but refuse, that I may gain Christ, and be found 
 in him, not having a righteousness of mine own, even 
 that which is of the law, but that which is through faith 
 in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith: 
 that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, 
 and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed 
 unto his death; if by any means I may attain unto the 
 resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already ob- 
 tained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if 
 so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was 
 laid hold on by Christ Jesus.- -Phil. 3:8-12. 
 
 The dominating fact in the life of Paul was the magnifi- 
 cently transforming experience of contact with Christ. In- 
 evitably the riches of His glory became the witness of his life. 
 For the living Christ had appealed to his soul and Paul 
 had responded with absolute devotion. In Christ Paul found 
 all that made life significant, triumphant, and joyous. Peace 
 for the past, power for the present, and hope for the future 
 
 90 
 
IMPULSION OF GREAT EXPERIENCE [V-4I 
 
 had come to him through Christ. Through him had come 
 the assurance of the forgiveness of sins. It was through 
 Christ's energizing spirit that he experienced a definite de- 
 liverance from a deep-rooted tendency — "for the good which 
 I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I 
 practise" (Rom. 7: 19). It was a momentous thing to be in 
 touch with a spiritual power that made life victorious against 
 passion and self-will. A great joy over a new freedom and 
 harmony that was his with God throbbed within his breast, 
 so that witness to" its source was as spontaneous as for 
 sparkling water to issue from a pure spring. 
 
 Furthermore, in the death of Christ, Paul saw the supreme 
 disclosure of God's mind and heart toward an unreconciled 
 world, and the conviction sank in upon Paul that in spite of 
 sin man can count upon God's love to the uttermost. Hence- 
 forth amongst life's certitudes were the divine and limitless 
 resources available for the recovery of mankind. Paul could 
 no more keep silent about this great conviction and experi- 
 ence than could Jeremiah keep God's word in his heart un- 
 spoken to the world. "If I say, I will not make mention of 
 him, nor speak any more in his name, then there is in my 
 heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I 
 am weary with forbearing, and I cannot contain" (Jer. 20:9). 
 The trouble is that while men hold the truth of the unique 
 treasure in Jesus Christ, that truth does not hold them. 
 Make a list, if possible, of what vital forces in your life 
 have been afifected by Christ. That which was Paul's glorious 
 experience should be yours and mine. 
 
 Fifth Week, Fourth Day: Limitless Responsibility 
 Resulting from Priceless Privilege 
 
 I am debtor both to Greeks and to Barbarians, both 
 to the wise and to the fooHsh. So, as much as in me 
 is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you also that are 
 in Rome. 
 
 For I am not ashamed of the gospel: for it is the 
 power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; 
 to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. — Rom. i: 14-16. 
 
 Can anyone imagine a person having such a transforming 
 experience as Christ brought to Paul without also having an 
 impulse to share this treasure with the world? PauKs was 
 
 91 
 
[V-4] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 no isolated experience. The peace, the power, the hope that 
 had come to him were surely meant to be the birthright of 
 every child of God. In Christ, God was in a new way 
 yearningly manifesting his very self to men. "God was in 
 Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" (II Cor. 5:19). 
 And since the bestowal of God's friendship depended on no 
 conditions of race or merit, Paul's experience was equally 
 available for all the world. Possessing the secret of abun- 
 dant life, he felt that he was debtor to Greek and to bar- 
 barian, to the wise and to the unwise, until he had shared 
 it with them. "For necessity is laid upon me; for woe is 
 unto me, if I preach not the gospel" (I Cor. 9: 16). 
 
 "I am debtor alike to the Jew and the Greek, 
 
 The mighty apostle cried. 
 Traversing continents, souls to seek. 
 
 For the love of the Crucified. 
 Centuries, centuries since have sped : 
 Millions are perishing: we have Bread; 
 But we eat our morsel alone." 
 
 The greater the consciousness of wealth of life received 
 through Christ, the greater normally is the impulse to bring 
 others into his presence. David Livingstone, in offering him- 
 self to the directors of the London Missionary Society, wrote : 
 "My desire is to see the kingdom of my Savior established 
 in the hearts of all those who are now in that state in which 
 I myself once was." Hudson Taylor tells how, soon after 
 his conversion, he felt the obligation which accompanies true 
 gratitude : "I retired for communion with God, again and 
 again confessing grateful love to him who had done every- 
 thing for me. I besought him to give me some work to do 
 for him, as an outlet for love and gratitude. - Well do I 
 remember, as in unreserved consecration I put my life, my 
 friends, my all upon the altar, the deep solemnity which 
 came over my soul with the assurance that my oftering was 
 accepted." Such always has been the spirit of those whom 
 Christ has touched; the possession of a blessing is the rea- 
 son for conferring blessing on others. As Henry Martyn 
 said, "The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of missions, and 
 the nearer we get to him, the more intensely missionary must 
 we become." 
 
 92 
 
IMPULSION OF GREAT EXPERIENCE [V-5] 
 
 Fifth Week, Fifth Day: One of the Sources of a 
 Fruitful Life 
 
 For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus 
 judge, that one died for all, therefore all died; and he died 
 for all, that they that live should no longer Hve unto 
 themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and 
 rose again. — II Cor. 5:14, 15. 
 
 I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer 
 I that live, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which 
 I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is 
 in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up 
 for me. — Gal. 2 : 20. 
 
 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one 
 another. — I John 4: 11. 
 
 Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving 
 each other, even as God also in Christ forgave you. — 
 Eph. 4:32. 
 
 Another motive at work down through all the ages has 
 been gratitude to Jesus Christ, as distinguished from a sense 
 of duty or responsibility as found in yesterday's reading. 
 "Who loved me and gave himself for me" — this is what 
 moves countless lives to give themselves to the utmost. One 
 reason why more do not feel the impulse to go forth to 
 others is because they have no sense of gratitude expressing 
 itself in service. 
 
 Listen to these passionate words of personal devotion to 
 the Christ : "I hear the voice of my Conductor ; east and 
 west, north and south all are indifferent to me so that I 
 may but advance the glory of our Lord." Thus spoke Francis 
 Xavier, one of the greatest of Catholic missionaries, who in 
 ten short but intense years proclaimed his Afaster's glory 
 in India, in Japan, and in China. 
 
 An early martyr in Japan wrote: "I die full of security and 
 joy, trusting to the merits of Jesus Christ my Saviour, who 
 died for me and for whose presence I yearn with all my 
 soul — Father Paul Navarro, who in a few hours will be 
 burnt for Jesus Christ." 
 
 Similarly Father Ovieda, missionary to Ethiopia, in reply 
 to the Pope's suggestion that he should return, on account 
 of the frightful hardships of his life, wrote: "Whatever may 
 be the tribulations which surround us, I ardently wish to 
 
 03 
 
[V-6] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 remain on this ungrateful soil, in order to suffer, and per- 
 haps to die, for Jesus Christ." 
 
 Polycarp, in his noble answer to the Roman magistrate, 
 voiced the same spirit of gratitude and devotion: "Fourscore 
 and six years have I been His servant, and He hath done 
 me no wrong. How then can I blaspheme my King who 
 saved me?" 
 
 Have we a place in that noble succession who have not only 
 felt, but by deeds have expressed, gratitude to our Savior? 
 It is entirely possible for interest in Christian work abroad to 
 spring from other motives. The enterprise has now become 
 so large and its results so demonstrably great that an intelli- 
 gent man can hardly in self-respect be ignorant of them. But 
 this may be merely the interest of the well-informed man 
 who wants to know what is going on in the world, and not an 
 interest which comes from the consciousness of great in- 
 debtedness to Christ. On the other hand, many a simple 
 woman in an obscure village has this mark of a v/orld Chris- 
 tian. She may not know enough to picture a world in need ; 
 she may have little appreciation of the capacities of other 
 peoples; her actual expansion of interests may be most limited, 
 but she gives, and gives as the widow in the temple, because 
 she does have this mark of a world Christian — gratitude to a 
 Lord and Master and Savior. 
 
 Fifth Week, Sixth Day: Practical Experience and 
 the Primacy of Christ 
 
 And I, brethren, when I came unto you, came not with 
 excellency of speech or of v^^isdom, proclaiming to you the 
 testimony of God. For I determined not to know any- 
 thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. — 
 I Cor. 2:1, 2. 
 
 In approaching the Corinthians, Paul did not attempt to 
 introduce a new philosophy, although they would have enjoyed 
 such discussion. He did not use large and impressive lan- 
 guage about the destiny of man or the unity of the race. His 
 central message was the person, Jesus Christ. 
 
 It is interesting to see how this same decision is reached by 
 modern workers amongst other religions. A veteran leader 
 in India says : "For years after I became a missionary in 
 India I supposed it necessary to prove the truth of Chris- 
 
 94 
 
IMPULSION OF GREAT EXPERIENCE [V-7] 
 
 tianity. Nowadays I do not attempt that. I only seek to 
 help men to see Christ as he was and spoke and is, that is, 
 I try to exhibit his excellence, his betterness, his way of life."^ 
 After almost two score years of missionary service another, 
 a well-known author and scholar, says : "The missionary mes- 
 sage today must, with definiteness and distinctness, be cen- 
 tered in Christ Jesus. He is not only the author of our faith, 
 he is also its substance. To know him adequately and to 
 understand the work which he has wrought for humanity, 
 and to interpret in simple forms his divine word and wisdom — 
 this is not only tlje fullest message the world has known, but 
 is all-sufficient as a gospel for man under all conditions."^ 
 
 Few things were more striking in the many replies from the 
 field to the inquiries of the great Edinburgh Missionary Con- 
 ference than the constant reiteration of the answer that the 
 most potent of the living forces of Christianity is the his- 
 torical Jesus of the gospels. 
 
 For our own families, our own communities, and our own 
 nation, have we learned the lesson that came to Paul, and that 
 has been ever since coming to our representatives abroad and 
 to students of comparative religion? Have we learned to 
 place first things first, and act on the primacy of Christ for 
 ourselves and for the world? 
 
 Fifth Week, Seventh Day : The Second Touch 
 
 And they come unto Bethsaida. And they bring to him 
 a blind man, and beseech him to touch him. And he took 
 hold of the blind man by the hand, and brought him out 
 of the village; and when he had spit on his eyes, and laid 
 his hands upon him, he asked him, Seest thou aught? 
 And he looked up, and said, I see men; for I behold them 
 as trees, walking. Then again he laid his hands upon his 
 eyes; and he looked stedfastly, and was restored, and saw 
 all things clearly. And he sent him away to his home, 
 saying, Do not even enter into the village. — Mark 8:22-25. 
 
 The blind man after Jesus' first touch saw "men as trees, 
 walking." After the second touch, he saw "every man 
 clearly." 
 
 Through the work of the China Forward Evangelistic 
 
 R. A Hume, "Missions from the Modern View," p. lOi. 
 J. P. Jones, "The Modern Missionary Challenge," p. 131. 
 
 95 
 
[V-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Movement, this incident has become symbolic, to Chinese and 
 foreign workers alike, of the source of the passionate impul- 
 sion of a Christian worker. Many Christians have received 
 the first touch ; they see men as trees walking — enrolments, 
 adherents, additions, classes, unions, statistics — a forest of 
 men. They see men in the mass, but fail to see every man 
 clearly. Their need is for the second touch with Christ which 
 opens one's eyes to see men one by one, with their individual 
 needs and potentialities, failures and successes, joys and 
 fears. 
 
 "Lord Christ, Thy second touch our hearts demand, 
 Each* separate soul to see, his wounds to salve. 
 His wants to understand, and lead him home to Thee." 
 
 COMMENT FOR THE WEEK 
 
 In the last analysis, the measure of our Christian outreach 
 to the world is the measure of our valuation of Jesus Christ. 
 If conviction and experience do not acclaim him as the world's 
 great good, then of course there is not the urge that comes 
 with the consciousness of news superlatively good. But if 
 in him we feel we have found a treasure of inestimable worth, 
 then the impulse to witness is spontaneous. It is not surpris- 
 ing that Zinzendorf, the founder of the great Moravian mis- 
 sionary movement, was able to say : "I have but one passion 
 and that is Christ." That Chinese was right who drew the 
 inference: "If you had really believed in what you tell us 
 is the Christian message, you would have been here long ago." 
 For, the more we possess of "the riches of the glory" of 
 Jesus Christ, the more shall we feel impelled to witness to 
 them. Before we can share Paul's high estimation of the 
 privilege of telling others of him, we must, with Paul, know 
 "the unsearchable riches of Christ." 
 
 It is because other solutions have been tried and found 
 wanting, that men of broad interests, who are pondering over 
 the welfare of the world, are turning with conviction cleansed 
 through sad experience to Jesus Christ as the one hope of 
 this weary world. Not from any narrow proselytism, but 
 from a sober judgment as to the only ultimate solution of 
 problems which face the individual and the world, do these 
 men justify Christian missions in modern times. Confidence 
 
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IMPULSION OF GREAT EXPERIENCE [V-c] 
 
 grows that, if men will only do sustained and progressive 
 thinking illuminated by Christ's interpretation of man's being 
 and of God's purpose for mankind, both the individual and 
 the social complex in which he finds himself enmeshed will 
 experience growth of the fullest, richest kind. 
 
 Plainly, what is of such universal value must not be, through 
 indifference or selfishness, kept for ourselves alone. "It is 
 the sincere and deep conviction of my soul," says Phillips 
 Brooks, "when I declare, that if the Christian faith does not 
 culminate and complete itself in the effort to make Christ 
 known to all the world, that faith appears to me to be a 
 thoroughly unreal and insignificant thing, destitute of power 
 for the single life and incapable of being convincingly proved 
 to be true." If Christianity is to have any serious significance 
 in my life or the lives of my children, then it ought to have 
 significance for every man and for every man's children all 
 around the world. 
 
 The difference between the Christian and the non-Christian 
 attitude toward Jesus is not the difference of more or less, 
 or of better or worse, but the difference of life and death, A 
 vivid and deep sense that in him we have something wonder- 
 ful and incomparable makes a provincial man into a world 
 Christian. , 
 
 II 
 
 The pricelessness of the treasure found in Jesus Christ often 
 becomes most apparent when we see what religion is where 
 there is no knowledge of him. Some people fail to have a 
 zealous enthusiasm for him simply because they have never 
 vividly realized any situation or condition where his life and 
 spirit was not dominant. Brought into the presence of such 
 conditions, they at once become aware of the blessings that 
 have come to them through Christianity. 
 
 Such was the experience of a young man fresh from college, 
 who went out to the mission field for a term of three years 
 only. He had been brought up in a Christian home, and had 
 been so environed that he hardly knew what it was not to 
 be a Christian. It was not until he arrived in a non-Christian 
 land and saw what Christianity is not, that the full enthusiasm 
 came over him for what Christianity is. It was the realization 
 of the uniqueness of the Christian experience, purpose, and 
 dynamic that changed him from a "short term" man to a 
 
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[V-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 regular missionary. He saw more clearly than he had ever 
 done in America that his religious experience of faith, de- 
 pendence, and love toward the God of righteousness and love, 
 as well as the ethical expression in human relationships to 
 which this experience led, were peculiarly Christian phe- 
 nomena. Submerged as we are here in what is relatively a 
 Christian environment, we may easily miss the stimulus to 
 our sense of values that comes from contrast. 
 
 A look at four of the greatest religions will deepen our 
 sense of the riches in Jesus Christ. 
 
 I. Hinduism is so protean that 'beliefs as variant as atheism 
 and theism, as polytheism and monotheism may rest unchal- 
 lenged within its fold. That, however, which no Hindu may 
 disregard and still remain a Hindu, is caste. In the past, 
 caste has had its use in furnishing certain moral restraints, in 
 providing for a certain division of labor, in enabling people 
 to unite and cooperate within certain narrow limits, and in 
 making poor-laws to some extent unnecessary ; but its three 
 thousand marriage-tight compartments, its separative tend- 
 encies, its limitation of social responsibility to the smaller 
 group, its unsocial restrictions make it a terrible handicap in 
 attaining any kind of nationalism and practically preclude a 
 democracy. 
 
 The most pervasive belief of Hinduism is that man is in- 
 volved in a series of rebirths, each successive birth determined, 
 however, so inexorably by what has gone before, that moral 
 renewal has no place. There is no provision for grace to 
 come into the system, so that even the stimulus to go out in 
 loving helpfulness to others is cut out at its very root. Popu- 
 lar Hinduism furthermore, as one sees on every hand in 
 India, means idolatry and polytheism. 
 
 In vedantic thought, on the other hand, Hinduism at its 
 highest sets before the soul as the goal of realization such an 
 identity with the Supreme that no place is left for individu- 
 ality, for freedom, and for responsibility. This supreme is 
 the inscrutable "Brahma" of which nothing can be said except 
 "neti, neti (not this, not that)." For Brahma cannot be de- 
 scribed or known. Thus it happens that, while it may be said 
 that the Hindus know better than we that God is, we through 
 Christ know better than they what God is. Hence it is not 
 strange that the most common prayer rising from the reli- 
 gious heart of India is: "From the unreal, lead me to the 
 
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IMPULSION OF GREAT EXPERIENCE [V-c] 
 
 Real; from the darkness, lead me to the Light; from death, 
 lead me to Immortality." 
 
 From the heart of India, hungry with its long search for 
 God, comes marked testimony to the riches she finds in Christ. 
 One of the most distinguished Brahmans in South India says 
 that "Jesus Christ upon the cross represents the highest type 
 and noblest ideal of life that India has ever known." Protab 
 Mozamdar, the distinguished leader of the Brahmo-Samaj, 
 testifies that "Christ is a tremendous reality. The destiny of 
 India hangs upon the solution of his nature and our relation 
 to him." Surely Christ must have meant much to Keshab 
 Chandra Sen, one of India's greatest reformers, to cause him 
 to burst forth in this glowing tribute : "It is Christ who rules 
 British India, and not the British government. None but 
 Christ, none but Christ, none but Christ deserve this bright, 
 this precious diadem, and Jesus shall have it." 
 
 As a final testimony to Christ from India let us hear the 
 witness of one of the leading Brahmans of Western India, 
 a man who has been knighted by the British Government, and 
 made a judge. In answer to the question, "What is Jesus 
 Christ to you ?" he said : "There in my bedroom hangs the pic- 
 ture that is the greatest inspiration of my life, the picture 
 of Christ crucified on the cross, that I may see it night and 
 morning. Every night before I go to bed I read the Bible. 
 I have not only read it through, but have read it again and 
 again. My favorite passages are John's gospel and Paul's 
 practical epistles to the Corinthians. Every morning from 
 six to seven I spend in meditation and prayer and hymns be- 
 fore I go out for the day, and I draw my inspiration from Jesus 
 Christ, and his power to uplift the outcast and the depressed. 
 None other has inspired such social consciousness. I am a 
 Christian — though not baptized, not on the records of the 
 Christian Church. The Kingdom may not be coming as 
 you would like it, but it is coming nevertheless. The ideas 
 that lie at the heart of the Christian Gospel are permeating 
 every department of Hindu thought and society, and the 
 Kingdom is coming in India." 
 
 2. Buddha, with marked insight, taught that the self-seeking 
 grasping life is unsaved, and that death produces no essen- 
 tially moral change. The cause of man's misery is within 
 himself, and it is not necessary for him to look elsewhere for 
 salvation. But Buddha's only remedy was the negative one 
 
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[V-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 of suppressing all desire — a process which forever focuses 
 thought on self. Not in nobly giving out the self in some 
 objective venture as Christ would have us do, but in quench- 
 ing all such outreach does Buddha find salvation. There is thus 
 a fundamental pessimism at the bottom of his message, for 
 he held that misery is inevitably connected with life in every 
 form. In the absence of all constructive optimism and in 
 its failure to emphasize the worth and dignity of man, Bud- 
 dhism fails to furnish that dynamic without which Buddhist 
 lands will never rise. 
 
 Buddha, furthermore, had no message concerning God. In 
 this practical ignoring of the existence of deity he left his 
 followers with one of their deepest needs unmet. Nothing 
 could show more plainly than the history of the development 
 of Buddhism how agnosticism and atheism fail to satisfy 
 mankind. For the humbler among Buddha's followers even 
 now have their animistic worship of demons and nature- 
 deities ; while others erect images to Buddha himself, as God 
 or an incarnation of God, in order to satisfy the natural 
 impulse to worship. In one way or another through the cen- 
 turies the people have tried to bring God back into their 
 religion, but always the agnostic spirit of Gautama has been 
 a heavy drag. Buddhism even in its highest form makes 
 Amida either one amongst many gods, or else a mere idea 
 of an ideal personality, since Buddhists hold that it is beyond 
 man's power to know whether there is really a personal God. 
 In Buddhism at the highest we have an idea of a savior, but 
 no historic savior. 
 
 In the light of these facts with reference to Buddhism, 
 how inevitable is the witness of converted Buddhists to what 
 they find in Christ ! An active modern Christian says : "I had 
 looked upon Shinto as an ethical system : and as for Buddhism, 
 though one can conquer the desires of the world through it, 
 yet I felt it did not help me in my longing for the Infinite. 
 On taking up the study of Christianity I more and more 
 realized the ideal personality of Christ, and at last I had the 
 joy of feeling that through the living personality of Christ, I 
 came in touch with the Truth. The personality of Christ be- 
 came to me as the longed-for light of the sun. If I could 
 only gaze on it, surely even my miserable self would be 
 drawn upwards." Another, a Japanese lecturer, on hearing 
 of the new teaching, sent to Shanghai, secured a copy of the 
 
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IMPULSION OF GREAT EXPERIENCE [V-c] 
 
 gospels in Chinese, and read it eagerly. "He was amazed ; in 
 all literature he had never met with such a character. Both 
 brain and heart were stirred. He fell in love with Jesus, 
 the Christ. Without seeing a missionary or knowing of a 
 church, he became a Christian." 
 
 3. Confucius did not give a religion to the Chinese. What 
 he did give was a national, agnostic system of ethics. Hold- 
 ing in a most commendable way that human nature is essen- 
 tially and potentially good, Confucius does not impart inspira- 
 tion for and expectation of the improvement of that nature. 
 Attention is not directed to a gloriously progressive future, 
 but minds are saturated with the adage, "Let today be like 
 yesterday." 
 
 Furthermore, Confucius had nothing to teach the common 
 people with reference to God. Shang-Ti or High Heaven was 
 an impersonal transcendent power that did not concern ordi- 
 nary folk. Hence worship and communion with a supreme, 
 personal God had no part in the message of Confucius. The 
 aspiring human being must be self-sufficient, for no help is 
 assured from Shang-Ti. Reverence of ancestors, whose con- 
 tinued influence cannot be neglected, takes the place of reli- 
 gious worship. 
 
 Confucianism still retains a tremendous hold on the con- 
 science and the practice of the entire Far East, but thoughtful 
 leaders recognize that it is proving to be inadequate for 
 twentieth century civilization. The fundamental fivefold rela- 
 tionships of life come out of an autocratic era, and Confucian- 
 ism does not possess the springs of life and progress that can 
 transform and enlarge these into the democratic relationships 
 necessary for today. Yung Tao, the pioneer of modern social 
 reform in North China, joins the Christian Church because 
 he finds there the abiding inspiration of genuine social re- 
 form. Chang Po Ling, an acknowledged leader amongst 
 China's modern educationalists, turns to Christ for the ethical 
 basis of the education China needs. 
 
 4. In Muhammad we find what was for his time a great 
 reformer and religious leader. In an age when a man might 
 take any number of wives, he limited the number to four. He 
 alleviated the condition of slaves, gave certain legal rights 
 to women that they had not had before, and introduced a 
 spirit of brotherljness toward fellow-believers that dissolved 
 the feud spirit of the time. But at their best, Muhammad's 
 
 lOI 
 
[V-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 ethical teachings do not rise above those of the Old Testa- 
 ment, and no serious student would hold that in spiritual in- 
 sight and loftiness of ideal they even approach the teachings 
 of Jesus. Tying up his religion inextricably with the legalistic, 
 detailed directions of the Koran, Muhammad doomed it to 
 static unprogressiveness. Acknowledgedly an advance on the 
 conditions of his time — conditions of idolatry, slavery, 
 polygamy, and divorce — the authoritative revelation of Mu- 
 hammadanism does not permit nor inspire the progressive 
 advance that man must make. The modern world has little 
 to learn from Muhammad. 
 
 Muhammad himself had undoubtedly qualities of character 
 and temperament which drew people to him with intense 
 loyalty; but the days following the Mecca period show a dis- 
 tinct degeneration of character. Autocracy, vindictiveness, un- 
 scrupulous assumption of political power, hard-heartedness 
 and cruelty to enem.ies, sensual propensities which claimed 
 divine sanction for wives far in excess of the number allowed 
 to common man — these are not elements we need for the 
 world today. 
 
 Religiously, his intense conviction of the oneness and 
 sovereignty of God is an emphasis of permanent worth, as 
 is also his inculcation of the habit of prayer and of surrender 
 to God. But Muhammad has done m.ore to deny the existence 
 of other gods than to enrich the conception of the character 
 of his one God. It is monotheism without the Christ of God, 
 and therefore without the God revealed in Christ. The very 
 sovereignty of God has been interpreted as Kismet or fate, 
 leading on the one side to the zealous abandon of the fanatic, 
 or on the other to indolence and lack of initiative. It is a far- 
 off, transcendent apotheosis of power that Muhammad gives 
 us. But where force is the chief characteristic of God, it is 
 not surprising that force should be exalted in social and 
 political life. 
 
 Islam leaves the heart unsatisfied with its far-off potentate 
 as God. It is highly significant that this religion, whose 
 bitterest reaction is against the deification of Christ or of any 
 man whatsoever, nevertheless has been driven in self-preserva- 
 tion to satisfy man's longing for a divine-human mediator by 
 an anti-Islamic adaptation. A convert from Islam, distin- 
 guished for devoutness and insight into his former religion, 
 holds that "the life and history of Islam afford the strongest 
 
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IMPULSION OF GREAT EXPERIENCE [V-c] 
 
 psychological argument and the mightiest historical proof of 
 the inmost irrepressible yearning of the human heart after 
 Christ." 
 
 The further one pursues the comparative study of religion 
 the more one is convinced of the uniqueness of Christ. No 
 other religion has a life comparable in significance with his. 
 No other religion has been able to impart life and progress 
 and power to the same degree. In that remarkable fourth 
 volume of the Report of the World Missionary Conference 
 at Edinburgh, where the various non-Christian faiths are so 
 sympathetically yet discriminatingly surveyed, the final sum- 
 mary asserts that "along with the generous recognition of all 
 that is true and good in these religions, there goes also the 
 universal and emphatic witness to the absoluteness of the 
 Christian faith. This very charity and tolerance, on the other 
 hand, makes more impressive the agreement as to the absolute- 
 ness and finality of Christ."" 
 
 Ill 
 
 If from a more familiar angle we note what Jesus Christ 
 means to us, we gratefully acknowledge that it is he who 
 enables us to believe that the character of God includes the 
 element outlined in the last chapter. The unique effect of 
 the life of Christ on a person is not merely to impart an idea^ 
 but also to instill a conviction concerning the existence and 
 love of God — something far more difHcult. And as amidst 
 life's strain we return to him, we find an inward renewal 
 of that mdubitable assurance of the character and nature of 
 God. The world did not really grasp that conception of God's 
 essential nature until Christ lived, and taught, and died. For 
 as Christians we do not first get our conception of God from 
 philosophy or from science, and then, looking at Jesus artd 
 comparing the two, say, "Jesus is God." As Christians we 
 come to God through Jesus Christ. The conception gained 
 through him is normative for our religious life. If science 
 or philosophy should seem to give returns as to what God is, 
 differing from what we find through Christ, we would still, if 
 Christian, hold to his God and Father. From this standpoint 
 Christianity may be said to be Christ; or perhaps better, it is 
 the mind, the heart, the will of the man who has learned to 
 
 3 " World Missionary Conference, igio," Vol. IV., p. 268. 
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[V-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 worship as God the being revealed in Jesus Christ. It is be- 
 cause God is such a one as we see in the face of Jesus Christ 
 that we know he must be for all the world. 
 
 But the treasure we possess does not consist in the par- 
 ticular conception of reality we obtain through Jesus Christ; 
 that is, we do not first find God in Jesus Christ and then 
 having thus possessed him impart this knowledge to other 
 lands. Our treasure is Jesus Christ himself. Inspiration in 
 Christianity comes not from a creed but from a person. The 
 eftect of his personality on us is what Christianity is in 
 America ; the unfettered effect that his personality will have 
 in China is what we want Christianity to be in China. The 
 gift we bear to China ought not to be our Western Chris- 
 tianity, but the Christ who produced our Christianity. "No 
 more doctrine," a Japanese pastor said to Drummond, "Japan 
 wants Christ." These nations want Christ because they, too, 
 are beginning to realize that 
 
 "Men as men, 
 Can reach no higher than the Son of God 
 The perfect Head and Pattern of mankind. . . . 
 The ultimate symbol of Divinity 
 How can we dream of? We have got no sense 
 Whereby to seize it: but in Him we touch 
 The ultimate symbol of Humanity, 
 Humanity that touches the Divine . . . 
 For God has other Words for other worlds. 
 But for this world, the Word of God is Christ." 
 
 — "The Sermon in the Hospital." 
 
 Nothing is more certain than that the Christian experience 
 continues to be rooted in the personality of Christ. "He that 
 hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9). "No one 
 cometh unto the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). "No one 
 knoweth the Son, save the Father ; neither doth any know the 
 Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth 
 to reveal him" (Matt. 11:27). 
 
 If, then, we wish all people on the earth to think of God 
 as forth-streaming, self-sacrificing, resourceful, constructive 
 love, we must make it possible for them to come into contact 
 with the personality who incarnates this character, and who, 
 as a matter of fact, in land after land, has made it easy for 
 
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IMPULSION OF GREAT EXPERIENCE [V-c] 
 
 men to accept his conviction concerning the Father. If we 
 are interested in building up a world society of men and 
 women who will embody toward their fellows the disposition 
 of outgoing service that God manifests towards us, then we 
 must enable them to come into fellowship with him without 
 whom we acknowledge we would utterly fail. 
 
 IV 
 
 It is not God alone, however, that we see in Jesus Christ. 
 We get our conception of man throilgh him and in him find 
 the only hopeful solution of the relationship of man to man. 
 If we select the forces that are making toward the betterment 
 of our civilization, and realize how many of these owe their 
 strength to his impulse, then we are thankful that our lives 
 and those of our wives and children have been placed in a 
 country that has to some extent come under his influence. 
 To the extent that we vividly appreciate our indebtedness to 
 him do we feel impelled to share this blessing with lands 
 where people face life and death without the help that Christ 
 brings to your life and mine. Gratitude that principles are 
 at work in our civilization, which will eventually enable us 
 to take our highest place and attain our noblest mission as a 
 people, should have one sure corollary — and that is a generous 
 determination that other peoples shall have the privilege of 
 evolving under the transforming influence of these same 
 principles. 
 
 Jesus has brought a higher estimate of human worth and 
 capacity. The boundless possibilities of man stand revealed 
 in him. The' character of the God of whom we are assured 
 in Christ is guarantee for growth of an endless kind. To 
 him we owe a new understanding of and faith in humanity, a 
 new vision for society, the greatest impulse toward the demo- 
 cratic equality of man and woman, the truth which makes 
 man free, the freedom not of servants but of friends, and 
 the inward impulsion to service which is the highest expres- 
 sion to which freedom can be put. It is because he has re- 
 vealed the possibilities of a perfected humanity that we can 
 never be content to leave any of earth's groups without this 
 knowledge. 
 
 V 
 
 But let us see clearly that our treasure does not consist 
 105 
 
[V-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 merely in ideas and ideals. It is not primarily the principles 
 of Christian ethics which convince us we have a message for 
 the world. Other systems have ideals and moral formulae. 
 
 Confucius, for example, three times enunciated the golden 
 rule — though in its negative form, "Do not unto others what 
 you would not have them do to you." Laotze came close 
 to the highest reach of the Sermon on the Mount when he 
 described the way of a good man : "He will make himself 
 correct and (so) transform others. He will pity orphans, 
 and compassionate widows ; he will respect the old and cherish 
 the young. Even the insect tribes, grass, and trees he should 
 not hurt. He ought to pity the malignant tendencies of 
 others; to rejoice over their excellencies; to help them in 
 their straits ; to rescue them from their perils ; to regard their 
 gains as if they were his own, and their losses in the same 
 way ; not to publish their shortcomings ; not to vaunt his own 
 superiorities ; to put a stop to what is evil, and exalt and 
 display what is good ; to yield much, and take little for him- 
 self ; to receive insult without resenting it, and honor with an 
 appearance of apprehension ; to bestow favors without seek- 
 ing for a return, and give to others without any subsequent 
 regret; this is what is called a good man." 
 
 In fact v,-e are told by missionary scholars that practically 
 every Christian doctrine we can mention may be found some- 
 where in the scriptures of India. No, it is the dynamic that 
 they need, and that they find in Jesus. Amidst these high 
 truths of the non-Christian world comes the sad lament of 
 their choicest souls, embodied, for example, in the words of 
 a Hindu, a man of rare religious nature, whefn he laments 
 to his Christian friend : "Would that I had some one as 
 you have to enable me to attain to my aspirations." Many 
 of the leaders in China's confused political world are saying 
 with the late President Yuan Shi-Kai : "Confucianism has 
 given us valuable principles ; Christianity gives us power." 
 
 From Japan comes the same testimony. A few years ago 
 Count Okuma said : "The origin of modern civilization is to 
 be found in the teaching of the Sage of Judea, by whom 
 alone the moral dynamic is supplied." Mr. Kanzo Uchimura, 
 a Buddhist convert, and one of the foremost Christians of 
 Japan, testifies : "Indeed I can say with truthfulness that I 
 saw good men only in Christendom. Brave men, honest men, 
 righteous men are not wanting in heathendom, but I doubt 
 
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IMPULSION OF GREAT EXPERIENCE [V-c] 
 
 whether good men — by which I mean those men, summed up 
 in that one English word 'gentleman' which has no equiv- 
 alent in any other language — I doubt whether such are pos- 
 sible without the religion of Jesus Christ to mould us. The 
 Christian, God Almighty's gentleman — his is a unique figure 
 in this world, indescribable, beautiful, noble, and. lovable." 
 
 Simply as a matter of fact it is found the world around 
 that the personality of Jesus Christ is the greatest asset man- 
 kind has. Power to attain is found in him. Intelligent con- 
 verts testify that what they value most in Christ is the dynamic 
 actually to embody ideals. 
 
 Over and over again missionaries find that no amount of 
 loving teaching about the Father, taken alone, will change the 
 lower-leveled life about them. Many have had the experience 
 of the missionary who testifies: "I have seen people greatly 
 moved when they heard of the Father's tender love, but I 
 have never induced a single one to act any differently until 
 he had learned something of Jesus Christ." 
 
 Expressing it psychologically, one may say that mankind is 
 by nature capable of becoming what we call Christian, and 
 that Christ is the stimulus which above all things else draws 
 forth this kind of life. The prize we want to share with 
 others is this unique stimulus — the person of Christ. We 
 tell others about our experience and share with them the 
 explanations of our experience (that is, our theology), only 
 that they may reasonably be induced to subject themselves 
 to the influence of Jesus Christ, to put themselves steadfastly, 
 receptively, and obediently in his presence, to let his life 
 play upon theirs, transforming, infilling, giving rebirth. 
 
 VI 
 
 Notice the experience of a Confucianist who at the sugges- 
 tion of a Christian friend bought a copy of the New Testa- 
 ment and began to read it. At first he thought, "This Jesus 
 is a sage. Of course he is not the equal of Confucius. But 
 he is worthy to rank as a sage." "Then," he says, "I read 
 again and again the life and teachings of Jesus as recorded 
 in the gospels, and I compared them with the life and teach- 
 ings of Confucius. Confucius did not fall in my estimation. 
 On the contrary, the more I studied him the more I admired 
 him. But Jesus rose even more. His teaching and his charac- 
 ter took hold of me. It increased until I was forced to the 
 
 107 
 
[V-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 belief that Confucius is a sage, but that Jesus Christ is God, 
 and I want to dedicate my life to his service." 
 
 It is that last sentence that is significant. This Chinese 
 convert had an inward impulsion to dedicate his life to his 
 new Master's service. If you do not feel passionately exultant 
 over the treasure you have in Jesus Christ, is it because you 
 have never reflected on his significance in your life? Is it 
 because you have never studied about the faiths of other 
 lands, in contrast with which the value in Christ comes out 
 like a negative in the developer? Or is it that you are merely 
 a nominal Christian, and are really not fulfilling the known 
 conditions for obtaining the results of association with him 
 and with the Father to whom he is the Way? 
 
 Our answer to the call of need will depend upon the state 
 of our own inner bank account. If we have gained a life 
 companion — a savior from dark forebodings, despair, and fear 
 — we are quick to know that others must have him, too. If 
 in the trammels of sinful habits we have found a Power to 
 save, not only to reenforce the will but to change the affection, 
 w-e are alert to tell of this wonderful Savior, of the dynamic 
 which reenforces human efforts, and of the transforming 
 power of the Spirit of God. If there have been deserts in 
 our own experience, where we cared not for things above the 
 sordid round of the day's toil, and if these deserts have been 
 made to blossom, we will naturally want the same blessing 
 to reach others. 
 
 In fact, each great world need is a test of our own 
 spiritual temperature, revealing the degree in which we possess 
 understanding and quick response. One can speak to cultured 
 audiences of college-trained men and women and find a stony 
 heart On the other hand, simple-minded factory girls have 
 shown the most marvelous spirit of responsiveness when told 
 the same facts of need. Does one wonder why this is? Re- 
 sponse is not guaranteed by intellect, culture, travel, or the 
 scientific spirit. Neither will an elaborate ethical system 
 assure one of sympathy that results in action. There is but 
 one thing which makes unfailingly for this world passion, 
 this identity of interest, this outgoing, self-giving life — and 
 that is contact with Jesus Christ. With the distinctive Chris- 
 tian experience lacking how can there be enthusiasm? 
 
 When, then, we pause to be receptive and to weigh intelli- 
 gently his meaning for the world, we can say, with Henry 
 
 io8 
 
IMPULSION OF GREAT EXPERIENCE [V-c] 
 
 Churchill King, that Jesus Christ is the most significant person 
 in all history ; that his life and teachings have more light 
 than any other fact of history to throw upon God, upon man, 
 upon all the varied relations of God and man, and so upon 
 the practical problem of daily living in its deepest aspects; 
 that therefore the all-inclusive, indispensable need of men 
 is to know him ; and that the one supreme wisdom is to give 
 this greatest of all persons his full opportunity with every 
 human being and every aspect of organized society. 
 
 TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 
 
 1. What do we in America need more — new moral ideals, 
 or more moral dynamic? What do non-Christian lands most 
 need? 
 
 2. What are some of the sources for a great dynamic for 
 highest world service? Arrange these in the order of their 
 effectiveness upon you. 
 
 3. Choose some one religion and try to outline in a brief 
 paragraph what allegiance to it would mean to you. 
 
 4. How has Christ influenced the civic laws of our country 
 as compared with the laws of non-Christian lands? 
 
 5. Why do actual converts often exhibit more missionary 
 zeal than the second or third or sixty-third generation of 
 converts ? 
 
 109 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 Zeal for the Manifestation of God 
 
 Great as is the Good News of a Savior of Alankind, it is 
 not sufficient for the world Christian merely to spread this 
 message of Jesus. He must embody the message in his ozvn 
 life and in society. Jesus taught that all life must proceed 
 from within outward. The individual must first prove that 
 he has a great Gospel by what it can do in his own heart. He 
 must be a living witness to God's power to save from sin 
 day by day in prosaic, practical realms. No man will listen 
 to words if the character and daily walk behind the words 
 belie the speaker's testimony. Emerson was right when he 
 said, "What you are speaks so loud I cannot hear what you 
 say." 
 
 And coordinate with the manifestation in the individual 
 there must be the corporate embodiment of the message. 
 Christians must live together and in relation to all others in 
 such a way that the truth of God can manifest itself in human 
 love. The great ideal which Jesus brought into the world 
 was a way of living together which should be God-like. It 
 was not simply a way of living, mark you, but a way of living 
 together. This ideal he called the Kingdom of God — the 
 Kingdom of Heaven. 
 
 Sixth Week, First Day : "The Glory of God" 
 
 And he said, Show me, I pray thee, thy glory. And 
 he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee, and 
 will proclaim the name of Jehovah before thee. . . . And 
 one cried unto another, and said. Holy, holy, holy, is 
 Jehovah of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. . . . 
 And I will set a sign among them, and I will send such 
 as escape of them unto the nations, to Tarshish, Pul, and 
 Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the isles 
 afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen 
 
 no 
 
ZEAL FOR MANIFESTATION OF GOD [VI-2] 
 
 my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the 
 nations. . . . For the earth shall be filled with the knowl- 
 edge of the glory of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea. 
 . . . And blessed be his glorious name for ever; 
 And let the whole earth be filled with his glory. 
 Amen, and Amen. — Exodus. 33; 18, 19; Isa. 6:3; Isa. 66: 19; 
 Hab. 2:14; Psalm 72:19. 
 
 We sometimes think of man's glory as residing in the out- 
 ward tokens of his prosperity, such as silver or gold or attire. 
 In ancient times a nation's glory consisted in its warriors as 
 indications of its might. In what way shall we think of the 
 glory of God? Is it the aggrandizement of your communion, 
 or of any human institution? Is it the majesty, the splendor, 
 the magnificence of a king or potentate? 
 
 In the verses for today Israel's prophets conceive God's 
 glory to be the manifested perfection of his character. This 
 glory may be exhibited in his "handiwork," "his mighty acts," 
 "his marvelous works," "his righteousness," and in the natural 
 world itself. But the supreme manifestation of his excellence 
 is found in personality — "in the face of Jesus Christ" and in 
 perfected human nature as found in other individuals and in 
 nations. Zeal for the glory of God is, then, an enthusiasm 
 for God's manifestation in human life. Down through the 
 ages a holy ambition to forward this manifestation has stirred 
 the souls of men. Let the beauty and the grandeur of this 
 life purpose capture our hearts today. 
 
 Sixth Week, Second Day : God's Method in a World 
 Task 
 
 He was in the world, and the world was made through 
 him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his 
 own, and they that were his own received him not. But 
 as many as received him, to them gave he the right to 
 become children of God, even to them that believe on his 
 name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the 
 flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word 
 became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we beheld his 
 glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father), 
 full of grace and truth. — John i : 10-14. 
 
 God chose as his method that of the incarnation. The most 
 unique and perfect expression of this method was in his in- 
 
 III 
 
[VI-3] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN ; 
 
 carnation in the Man of Galilee. But the manifestation of \ 
 the divine in human life is a method God is always using. If j 
 we would learn for ourselves what is the supremely effective 
 expression of the Christian consciousness we must turn to 
 God himself. How did he express himself most significantly? 
 Through human life. So must we. We cannot surpass the ! 
 wisdom of God. Just as God is the ultimate source of the ] 
 Christian motive, so from God we discover the ultimate i 
 method of its expression. In fact, Christianity may be said 
 to be the perpetual incarnation of God in humanity. , 
 
 God's greatest gift to us was not something which he did i 
 for us, but a revealing of himself to us. Just showing us i 
 what he is, and making it possible for us to come into trans- 
 forming association with him, will forever be his greatest 
 contribution to mankind. Self-revelation, and in particular \ 
 the Incarnation, is God's great missionary method. And we 
 are to be workers with him in the same method. 
 
 Sixth Week, Third Day: The ObUgations of vSon- i 
 ship " 
 
 These things spake Jesus; and lifting up his eyes to 
 heaven, he said, Father. . . . My Father and your Father. 
 
 . . . For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these , 
 
 are sons of God. . . . But as many as received him, to i 
 
 them gave he the right to become children of God. ... ; 
 
 Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed ; 
 
 upon us, that we should be called children of God; and \ 
 such we are. . . . For ye received not the spirit of bondage 
 again unto fear; but ye received the spirit of adoption, 
 
 whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself beareth \ 
 
 witness with our spirit, that we are children of God. .... ; 
 
 And because ye are sons, God sent forth the Spirit of his ^ I 
 Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So that thou 
 
 art no longer a bondservant, but a son; and if a son, then i 
 
 an heir through God. — John 17:1; 20: 17; Rom. 8; 14; John ■ 
 
 1:12; I John 3:1; Rom. 8:15, 16; Gal. 4:6, 7. 1 
 
 i 
 
 Jesus brought into the world a wonderful and new con- ' 
 
 sciousness of sonship to God. Behind this consciousness was \ 
 a profoundly new experience of God, and also a revolutionary 
 
 appreciation of the values in every human Jife. Jesus wanted ' 
 
 to share this experience with others — in fact he placed no ' 
 limit upon the degree to which we might share his experience. 
 
 112 
 
ZEAL FOR MANIFESTATION OF GOD [VI-4] 
 
 And in an extraordinary way he has been able to develop 
 this same consciousness of sonship in his followers. 
 
 But sonship to Jesus involved being about his Father's busi- 
 ness, doing what he saw the Father doing, and this meant 
 manifesting a character like God's. He had to become a 
 Savior. Do we sufficiently reflect that this is what sonship 
 must involve for us, too? We are genuinely saved only as 
 we enter into the experience Jesus had. 
 
 Now the manifestation of God in this world of ours is 
 conditioned upon man's cooperation. It is not a' completed 
 and finished world into which man has been introduced. 
 God's glory is only in process of being revealed, and he waits 
 for full-grown sons to help him. As we see how nature 
 waits to be scientifically controlled in behalf of such things 
 as production, distribution, and good health ; as we see how 
 forms of physical beauty await embodiment in useful things 
 and houses and community life, one can almost join in Paul's 
 rhapsody when he says that ''the earnest expectation of the 
 creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God," and 
 that "the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain to- 
 gether until now" (Rom. 8:19, 22). We are to be joint 
 workers with God in manifesting the beauty of the world and 
 of a society of personalities like God. Life is to be environed 
 by all that God-like, creative good will in men can do to make 
 nature beautiful and helpful. 
 
 Sixth Week, Fourth Day: The Value of the Ob- 
 viously Practical 
 
 And there arose also a contention among them, which 
 of them was accounted to be greatest. And he said unto 
 them, The kings of the Gentiles have lordship over them; 
 and they that have authority over them are called Bene- 
 factors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is the greater 
 among you, let him become as the younger; and he that 
 is chief, as he that doth serve. For which is greater, he 
 that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that 
 sitteth at meat? but I am in the midst of you as he that 
 serveth. — Luke 22:24-27. 
 
 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into 
 his hands, and that he came forth from God, and goeth 
 unto God, riseth from supper, and layeth aside his gar- 
 ments; and he took a towel and girded himself. Then he 
 
 113 
 
[VI-4] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 poureth water into the basin, and began to wash the 
 disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel wherewith 
 he was girded. — John 13:3-5. 
 
 Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, 
 that ye should follow his steps. — I Pet. 2:21. 
 
 For I have given you an example, that ye also should 
 do as I have done to you. — John 13: 15. 
 
 Another reason why we in our day must seek the embodi- 
 ment of the spirit of Jesus, is because the masses always 
 question the practicability -of any advance in moral standards 
 beyond the ordinary level. The teaching of Jesus is wonder- 
 fully inspiring, but as never before men are challenging the 
 possibility of its practical application to industry, to commerce, 
 and to international affairs. Is it possible, for example, to 
 love your neighbor as yourself? Would it be advisable if one 
 could .^ Can a nation maintain itself on that principle? 
 
 We find it hard to believe unless we see. The average man 
 needs the higher level to be embodied — incarnated — before 
 him. Understanding our need, God gave us Christ. And his 
 dynamic lies not simply in the message he proclaimed, but 
 in the fact that he actually lived out that highest ideal for 
 man. The glory of God in our own day will be shown as 
 we live out the spirit of Jesus, which was ever one of service, 
 sacrifice, and love. And he who strives to be a world Chris- 
 tian will endeavor to show by his own life — in his college, his 
 church, his community, his nation — the practicability of the 
 new level to which he bids men come. A Christian must carry 
 his message in his face, in his acts, in his home, in all his cor- 
 porate life. A missionary's effort is largely in vain unless he 
 brings to the new land a fresh incarnation of the Christ spirit. 
 
 Have you ever read how Peter Claver stationed himself at 
 Cartagena, where the misery-laden slave ships came in with 
 their human freight? He met the slaves, followed them to 
 their quarters, and later to their plantations. He comforted, 
 fed, and loved them. He visited the lepers. He nursed those 
 stricken by smallpox; he taught them of God and of love. 
 And they believed that which they saw in him. Is it any won- 
 der that before his death a Christian church had been estab- 
 lished, showing how naturally life comes from life? 
 
 Whether it is the unchurched laboring man in America or 
 the Hindu in India, what he demands is reality in the one who 
 
 114 
 
ZEAL FOR MANIFESTATION OF GOD [VI-5] 
 
 comes with help. All could join with Mr. Kano of Japan 
 when he says : "We are tired of preaching. We want mission- 
 aries who can appeal to the eye gate as well as to the ear 
 gate." Isabella Thoburn's life was so winsome in its embodi- 
 ment of the Christ spirit that her distinguished pupil, Lilavati 
 Singh, wrote: "Now the cry of my heart is, make me a little 
 like ■'her, that people when they see me may say, the spirit of 
 Miss Thoburn doth rest upon her." Whoever makes the 
 Christian life seem practicable is cooperating with God in the 
 manifestation of his life. 
 
 Sixth Week, Fifth Day: The Value of a Call to 
 Fellowship 
 
 And passing along by the sea of Galilee, he saw Simon 
 and Andrew the brother of Simon casting a net in the 
 sea; for they were fishers. And Jesus said unto them. 
 Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers 
 of men. And straightway they left the nets, and followed 
 him. And going on a little further, he saw James the 
 son of Zebedee, and John his brother, who also were in 
 the boat mending the nets. And straightway he called 
 them: and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with 
 the hired servants, and went after him. — Mark i : 16-20. 
 
 Another great advantage of the personal embodiment of a 
 message is that it enables one to invite others to a fellowship, 
 rather than to depend on exhortation. We always respond 
 more readily to a leader who says "come" than to an officer 
 who says "go." Fellowship is one of the deepest hungers 
 of our life. And especially as we strive upward for a higher* 
 level of life, we crave more than the abstract ideal. We cry 
 out for a companion to take the step with us. God, who knows 
 the needs of the human heart, gave us Jesus to have fellow- 
 ship with us in all our aspirations for the perfect life. It 
 would indeed be a lonely task, if we had to struggle after 
 some ideal, feeling that no one had gone before. The incarna- 
 tion enables us to hear the word "come." 
 
 Now in our lesser way we should embody our message, so 
 that we can say to others, "Come." We should be able so to 
 live that we can say that "fellowship with us is fellowship with 
 the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ" (I John i :3, Wey- 
 mouth's translation). 
 
 115 
 
[ VI-6] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Sixth Week, Sixth Day: Known and Read of All 
 Men 
 
 Even so let your light shine before men; that they may 
 see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in 
 heaven. . . . Therefore by their fruits ye shall know them. 
 . . . Having your behavior seemly among the Gentiles; 
 that, wherein they speak against you as evil-doers, they 
 may by your good works, which they behold, glorify God 
 in the day of visitation. . . . By this shall all men know 
 that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. 
 ... Ye are our epistle, written in our hearts, known and 
 read of all men. — Matt. 5:16; 7:20; I Pet. 2:12; John 
 13:35; II Cor. 3:2. 
 
 The world reads the Bible very little compared with the way 
 it reads the lives of Christians. For most persons the docu- 
 ments of Christianity are human people. The open page of 
 every Christian life is read by all who pass. The gospels 
 are not four, but "ten thousand times ten thousand, and thou- 
 sands of thousands.'" In China they say: "There goes the 
 Jesus-man !" George Grenfell's boat, "Peace," on the Congo, 
 became known as "God's boat" because it offered violence to 
 none. 
 
 Christ made no provision for written testimony, but insisted 
 that the sure witness to himself be through living personalities. 
 "Let your light so shine . . . that they may see . . . and 
 glorify your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16). He 
 planned for the embodiment of love to be his great apologetic. 
 Paul, fully grasping this truth, warned and stimulated the 
 Christians of Corinth by the words, "Ye are our epistle, writ- 
 ten in our hearts, known and read of all men" (II Cor. 3:2). 
 
 On that day in China when Dr. Eleanor Chestnut stood 
 upon the temple steps awaiting her turn at death from the 
 mob who had just murdered her fellow-missionaries, she 
 noticed a little lad in the crowd with an ugly gash on his head. 
 There was just time for her to call him to her side, tear off 
 a piece of her skirt, and making of it a bandage, bind up his 
 wound. It was the last touch of self-forgetful love, before 
 they stabbed her and threw her body into the river. Can any 
 doubt that this v/as a page from the real gospel, seen and read 
 by all that neighborhood? It was similar to the Master's, 
 
 See T. R. Glover, " The Conflict of Religions in the Roman Empire, ".p. 140. 
 116 
 
ZEAL FOR MANIFESTATION OF GOD [VI-7] 
 
 "Suffer ye them thus far" (Luke 22:51) when, bound and 
 ready to be led forth to death, he stretched out his hand to 
 heal the wound which Peter had inflicted on his persecutor. 
 
 Someone has said "Preaching is a breathing." If preaching 
 could always be a natural self-revelation instead of elaborate 
 theories eloquently worked out for special occasions, the pro- 
 fession of the pulpit would take on its old-time significance. 
 Back of the profession of lips must be the strength of a con- 
 sistent life. One Christian worker made it a habit of his life, 
 whenever he was asked to deliver a convention address, to 
 prepare it three weeks ahead and to live it out first. Thus 
 he was able to see whether he was honestly embodying his 
 message. 
 
 How often we would like to put the burden of the world's 
 recovery on a sacred book, or on fundamental proofs, or on 
 God — on something quite external to the life we lead — but 
 we cannot avoid the responsibility Christ puts upon us. "Ye 
 are my witnesses." 
 
 Sixth Week, Seventh Day: The Influence of a 
 Christianized Community 
 
 We give thanks to God always for you all, making men- 
 tion of you in our prayers; remembering without ceasing 
 your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope 
 in our Lord Jesus Christ, before our God and Father. . . . 
 And ye became imitators of us, and of the Lord, having 
 received the word in much affliction, with joy of the 
 Holy Spirit; so that ye became an ensample to all that 
 believe in Macedonia and in Ajchaia. For from you hath 
 sounded forth the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia 
 and Achaia, but in every place your faith to God-ward is 
 gone forth; so that we need not to speak anything. For 
 they themselves report concerning us what manner of 
 entering in we had unto you; and how ye turned unto God 
 from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait 
 for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, 
 even Jesus, who delivereth us from the wrath to come. — 
 I Thess. 1:2, 3, 6-10. 
 
 The way in which a despised and neglected little group — 
 called in derision "Christians" — could in three centuries win 
 to their standard the Roman Empire has always stirred us. 
 Historians agree that one of the strongest factors in this 
 
 117 
 
[VI-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 process was the love, actually embodied in the little Christian 
 communities, and not merely talked about. Lucian said : "They 
 become incredibly alert when anything occurs that affects their 
 common interests. On such occasions no expense is grudged." 
 Tertullian quotes from hostile testimony the remarks, "See 
 how they love one another," and "See how they are prepared 
 to die for one another." When. plague raged, Cyprian ex- 
 horted his flock to assist the heathen as well as the household 
 of faith. And Eusebius, writing of a similar epidemic, said, 
 "Then did they show themselves to the heathen in the clearest 
 light." Besides attending to the dead, the Christians "gath- 
 ered in one spot all who were afflicted by hunger throughout 
 the whole city, and gave bread to them all. When this became 
 known, people glorified the Christian God." 
 
 Christianity overcame because the Christian beat the pagan 
 in living, in dying, and in thinking — he out-lived him, out-died 
 him, and out-thought him. It is just as true today that wher- 
 ever Christians incarnate the power and love of God in their 
 own lives, Christ's Kingdom makes sure advance. 
 
 COMMENT FOR THE WEEK 
 I 
 
 It is not enough that we should examine into the character 
 of God, and admire and appreciate and talk of the wonder of 
 his nature revealed most fully in Jesus Christ. Nor is it 
 enough that we gather from him new courage and hope for 
 ourselves. // God in his essential being is characterized by 
 forth-going, serving love, thi^ necessarily determines the char- 
 acter ivhich must progressively be incarnated in us. Salva- 
 tion means becoming like God ; means making God's cause 
 our own. The future of our religion depends upon the extent 
 to which those who call themselves Christians recognize the 
 obligations in this fact. Not the mere recital of "Lord, Lord," 
 but the actual doing of the Father's will is what Christ taught. 
 He never regarded life as a vessel merely to be selfishly filled, 
 but as a power to be used. It is not, therefore, a matter of 
 indifferent choice whether we enter into a life of self-sacrific- 
 ing service. It is a part of salvation itself. For it is only 
 by becoming like God in character that there is any blessed- 
 ness in store for us. We may as well face the fact that we 
 shall never become completely saved men and women until we, 
 
 ii8 
 
ZEAL FOR MANIFESTATION OF GOD [VI-c] 
 
 too, have learned to love in a self-giving, unrequited way. 
 This involves the development of an attitude and disposition 
 toward our fellows of God-like, active love. "To be saved is 
 to become a savior." 
 
 This truth was touchingly grasped by that old woman, men- 
 tioned by Pastor Hsi, who shrank from baptism although she 
 clearly was a believer. Her reason for not being baptized 
 was that being a Christian meant to go into all the world and 
 preach the Gospel to every creature. She was, as a matter 
 of fact, doing all she could to tell others of Christ, but she 
 felt too old "to go into all the world." This simple Chinese 
 woman, however, saw that enthusiasm for an outgoing life 
 is no elective that can be chosen or rejected by the Christian 
 It is the concern of every man. For us, as for that old 
 woman, to be a Christian and not to be interested in love that 
 goes to the ends of the earth should be a contradiction in 
 terms. 
 
 In almost every mission field, with notable exceptions such 
 as Korea, there has been difficulty in stimulating the propaga- 
 tion of Christianit}' apart from foreign initiative — in getting 
 the new Christian communities to see that the Gospel is theirs 
 to pass on. May this not, in part at least, be due to a pre- 
 sentation of salvation as resulting from correct belief? The 
 emphasis in some places has been placed so heavily on 
 ecclesiastical affairs and on the acceptance of theological 
 orthodoxy, that all too many converts have been introduced 
 into a Christianity of mere machinery and creeds and dogmas. 
 God's great work for man, for example, is thought of as a 
 juridical procedure transacted entirely apart from the indi- 
 vidual, the benefits of which are secured merely by the con- 
 fession of faith in Jesus Christ. Men have failed to emphasize 
 sufficiently that Jesus is the zvay — the way to man's becoming 
 perfect as God is perfect. Three centuries of emphasis on 
 salvation as correct belief, with reference to an operation by 
 God from outside upon a world dwelling apart from him, 
 have failed to make our country what a Christian land should 
 be. Can one expect any better results from the same mis- 
 taken emphasis, when taken to a non-Christian land? What 
 the people of those lands need, and what we need, is a more 
 vivid realization of the character of God, of salvation as be- 
 coming like him, and of Jesus as the Savior in that he makes 
 that kind of life possible. 
 
 119 
 
IVI-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 We like to say that man was made in God's image. As 
 an account of our origin this statement is meager and barren. 
 It is not so much a theological proposition to be accepted, as 
 a practical program to be realized. Mankind needs a pro- 
 found faith that human life can exhibit God's image here 
 and now. We must respond to the great fact of God's indwell- 
 ing in human life — of which fact the incarnation in Jesus 
 was the supreme example. 
 
 II 
 
 The embodiment of the character of God in the common life 
 of man has always had immense transforming power. It is 
 when the mind of Christ is actually expressed in action that 
 power is manifested. All over the world this truth is working. 
 
 One day a missionary was making his way up from the hot 
 plains of India to a hill station. He had not gone far when 
 he heard the old coolie behind him complain in panting voice, 
 •'Sahib, I am about to die. The load is so heavy." "All right," 
 said the missionary, "I'll take your load, and you take mine." 
 They had not gone far this way until a sniffling was heard 
 from behind. "What's wrong, bhai?" "Why, Sahib, have 
 you done this? No one ever took the heavy load for me be- 
 fore." It was not hard, as they sat down by the roadside, to 
 touch the old coolie's heart by the story of the One who 
 for love's sake always takes the heavy end. 
 
 A young man from Afghanistan had for years scorned all 
 Christian preaching, and had argued bitterly against Chris- 
 tianity. Finally a woman doctor visited Peshawar, met the 
 youth, and immediately felt led to work and pray for his con- 
 version. She made no attempt to argue with him, but through 
 acts of kindness at last melted his heart. As a Christian 
 worker at the present time he says, "My people are hungry 
 for such love — everything is gained by love." 
 
 In another part of India a missionary was making a night 
 journey through the jungle. His only companions were some 
 Hindus and Muhammadans who were in carts ahead. All at 
 once a piercing cry rent the air. Their low-caste torch bearer 
 had been bitten by a cobra. Not a hand was raised to help 
 the outcaste by those nearest to him, as he lay writhing in 
 pain, and expecting to die. There was no time to lose — the 
 missionary washed the foot, and himself sucked the poison 
 from the wound. Is it any wonder that after this, against 
 
 120 
 
ZEAL FOR MANIFESTATION OF GOD [VT-c] 
 
 a fresh and compelling background, every audience in that 
 district listened to the story of the love of God? 
 
 Worth a dozen sermons was the simple act of a missionary 
 in Japan. While he was riding in his jinriksha one day, his 
 coolie stumbled, fell, and broke his leg. Without hesitation 
 the missionary put the coolie in the carriage and, taking his 
 place between the shafts, bore him back eleven miles to their 
 starting-point. 
 
 A Japanese student after four years in America was writ- 
 ing of what he wanted to take back to Japan: "I feel we 
 must still look to the West for personality in its beauty and 
 magnitude. I have seen some examples of lofty personality 
 and through them have caught a vision of the high ideal to 
 which we may attain in our character-building. This demon- 
 stration and this vision of personality, which I have seen in 
 America, is the first thing I would bring back to Japan." 
 Similarly a Chinese student, speaking of the kind of worker 
 needed for China, said : "You see we Chinese are not v/on to 
 Christianity by the philosophy of religion, but by the evidence 
 of religion." It was this same truth, only put more explicitly, 
 that another Chinese addressed to a missionary physician : 
 "You come out here and preach Christianity and hold up 
 your motto, 'Salvation for all men.' You run up your Red 
 Cross flag over your hospital, and forget all personal danger 
 or fatigue as you vitalize this motto, and actually before our 
 eyes save men. It grips our hearts, especially when we are 
 the ones saved. And I tell you," he went on, "you are going 
 to win this city. You are going to win China." 
 
 This practical incarnation of Christ's spirit is appreciated 
 not only in Japan and China. A soldier said to a manifestly 
 professional "religious worker," "We- don't need you now. 
 That woman is putting Jesus into our coffee." And a Muham- 
 madan soldier in France, after having thoughtfully noticed the 
 way the Christian forces were following the armies, finally 
 exclaimed : "Where has Buddha been ? Where is Muham- 
 mad? We know where Jesus is; he is by our side." 
 
 All this means one thing. The world Christian must stand 
 for a man who not only knows his message about a Life, but 
 is himself embodying that Life. He will seize hold on love 
 until it lives in him and can, therefore, he caught by others. 
 There is no mightier, more significant force for character 
 transformation than Christ-like personality. The impress and 
 
 121 
 
[VI-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 reflection of the love of God on human character is the best 
 apologetic. The most fundamental missionary method, there- 
 fore, is the introduction of the kind of life that is desired. 
 "Your talk is fair and good," said old Red Jacket, the Indian 
 Chief, to those who wanted to preach to his tribe. "But T 
 propose this. Go try your hand in the town of Buffalo for 
 one year. They need missionaries, if you can do what you 
 say. If in that time you have done them any good and made 
 them any better, then we will let you com.e among our people." 
 We may well shrink before the obligation and pause before 
 the high responsibility that is placed upon us. But we are 
 driven, through failure in other ways, to see that there is no 
 shorter cut than actual embodiment to the effective stimulation 
 of the God-life in another. Response comes most readily to 
 the manifested ideal. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Of all the activities of the Church, foreign missions exhibits 
 this aspect of the world Christian in its purest form. The 
 principle of forth-going love has nowhere found more charac- 
 teristic embodiment than in this outreaching service of the 
 Church. Her ambassadors are paid not on the basis of their 
 market value, nor even of salary, but on the basis of a living 
 wage, so much so that in most missions the living allowance 
 is of necessity adjusted to increase or decrease of family, to 
 sickness, or even to study on furlough. Unquestioned com- 
 pensations come to the missionary in his life and work, but 
 these are not what draw him on, and he goes forth ready 
 for far greater sacrifices than usually come to him. There is 
 no unwholesome courting of self-abnegation, but if the spirit 
 of forth-going service must be at the cost of self, that price 
 is unquestioningly paid. Family, country, friends, are left 
 behind ; later, and hardest of all, parent and child or husband 
 and wife live for years with a world between them, that love's 
 expression to men and women of other races and other faiths 
 may be perfected. 
 
 In still other ways this enterprise, more "than ever before, 
 is requiring for its best success a real kenosis — a real emptying 
 of one's self), the becoming a servant in very fact as did Christ 
 himself. For many, it was easier to love in those old days 
 when assumptions of racial and intellectual superiority enabled 
 them to think of the peoples of mission lands as inferior be- 
 
 122 
 
ZEAL FOR MANIFESTATION OF GOD [VI-c] 
 
 ings. They find that love is not so easy when the unruly 
 phenomena of adolescence appear — and in many a mission 
 station growing self-assertion, initiative, and resentment of 
 patronage on the part of the people make large demands on 
 patience. Greater still is the demand on love when daughter 
 churches seek their independence, and when foreign leadership 
 is no longer taken for granted as the natural and obvious 
 thing. Harder for many a man of conscious resource and 
 power than leaving native country, is the willingness to de- 
 crease that those to whom he ministers may increase. And 
 yet even at this most difficult point of love, modern missions 
 are embodying the mind of Christ. 
 
 But the missionary is most God-like when, conscious of the 
 pricelessness of life about him, he cries out: 
 
 "Only like souls I see the folk thereunder 
 Bound who should conquer, slaves who should be kings," 
 
 and follows this vision of man's supreme need with the long- 
 ing which a poet has put into the mouth of Paul : 
 
 "Then with a rush the intoleiable craving 
 
 Shivers throughout me like a trumpet-call, — 
 Oh to save these ! to perish for their saving, 
 Die for their life, be offered for them all !" 
 
 —Frederick W. H. Myers, "St. Paul." 
 
 The present-day manifestation of the God-life in non-Chris- 
 tian lands does not, however, stop with the missionaries them- 
 selves. For, indeed, their very purpose in going is that this 
 kind of life may find rootage where they go. One of the most 
 inspiring impressions of a world trip is to find place after 
 place where the Christian God is getting a foothold in the 
 lives of the people. From such people a church is being raised 
 up that will know that it is better to give than to receive, 
 and that the very meaning of the Christian life involves serv- 
 ice. In just so far as the spirit of helpfulness is found in 
 the rising churches abroad will our work there be adjudged 
 successful. For the church that we are trying to establish 
 abroad is the kind of a church we ought to have here — a 
 church which, itself being a servant of the people, is there- 
 fore fitted to train up leaders in personal and community and 
 national helpfulness. Some day when we better understand 
 
 123 
 
[VI-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 the mind and character of God as revealed in Christ, we shall 
 have a church that reveals in the whole life of its members 
 the spirit of him who came not to be ministered unto but to 
 minister. When the Church around the world in openminded 
 sincerity seeks to be the servant of life, men will demand from 
 her no other token of authority. 
 
 IV 
 
 That we should cooperate in manifesting the God-life has 
 been seen clearly, but narrowly, in connection with giving 
 the Gospel to other lands. As a result the very word "mis- 
 sionary" usually suggests China or India or Africa — some- 
 thing far away. But that business man was not missionary- 
 minded who overlooked his Christian duty to his own em- 
 ployees even though he inserted a leaflet on foreign missions 
 in every business letter he sent forth. To be interested pri- 
 marily in what is far away may be easier and more romantic 
 than to grapple with facts at one's doors. 
 
 Foreign missions, however, are simply the expression toward 
 certain distant people of the distinctively Christian attitude 
 toward all need. The missionary attitude toward the Chinese 
 is simply the Christian attitude toward life expressed in the 
 locality of China. The missionary consciousness is not a 
 matter of geography. Whether it is a row of lepers beside 
 the Ganges or an Italian community across our railway 
 tracks ; whether it is the famine orphans of India or the 
 undernourished children of our crowded city blocks ; whether 
 it is factory conditions in Japan or munition workers in our 
 neighboring home town, the disposition to go out in loving 
 service is a manifestation of the same spirit. 
 
 What we need to do is to universaUzc this attitude of help- 
 ful and brotherly living. It must be brought into the family, 
 the community, the nation. Where organization is necessary, 
 we must effect it so that every needed means may be provided 
 for practicing the social faith we have. There must not be 
 merely a group within the Church with the missionary con- 
 sciousness ; the Church itself must be pervaded with the 
 character of God, expressing itself in a thousand little, as well 
 as larger, ways. The Church must be thought of not so much 
 as a place where men gather together to become saved as 
 where they go to get dynamic to save others, where rest is 
 obtained that work may follow. 
 
 124 
 
ZEAL FOR MANIFESTATION OF GOD [VI-c] 
 
 The conviction of the innermost nature of God as pursuant 
 love and of the inevitable consequence that if we are ever to 
 be fully saved we must in this respect be like him, should 
 color all the acts and personal relations of daily life. Through 
 habit, through prayer, through ever-renewed fellowship with 
 him, it should become the natural expression of a transformed 
 life. 
 
 Have you not seen the people at the end of a railway 
 carriage touched and inwardly cleansed by some little act or 
 look of simple kindness that had this God-mark on it? Have 
 you not gone away from some crowded bargain counter feel- 
 ing that it was easier to believe in God because someone did 
 just the right thing for the tired mother with a baby in her 
 arms, or spoke with sympathetic insight to the overworked 
 saleswoman? Insignificant things? Never! It is in the petty 
 round of daily tasks that we may most surely gain that 
 mastery of the God-like that will enable us to apply this dis- 
 position with insight to larger things. 
 
 It immensely diminishes the effectiveness of any witness to 
 love and power in non-Christian lands when the countries 
 which send forth their Christian witness are filled with social, 
 industrial, and racial conditions which belie the Gospel's 
 power. Non-Christian nations often see more plainly than we 
 do the glass houses in which we live. To their capitals the 
 world news is wired each day and circulated in a hundred 
 papers, revealing to them that the dynamic and spirit which 
 has been manifested in foreign missions has not grappled 
 with lynchings, industrial relations, and immigration diffi- 
 culties in our own land. In the case of government students 
 who have come from China to America, and who had been 
 but little under the influence of Christianity in China, the 
 transition to this land creates a good effect. But in a group 
 of eight students who had been brought up in mission schools 
 in China and had later studied in the United States, not one 
 was willing to say that his estimate of Christianity had been 
 improved by his stay in America. It is startling to have a 
 leader among foreign students say that he could name forty 
 Chinese Christians who had renounced Christianity while in 
 America. It is still more humiliating to have it authorita- 
 tively stated that among the many Oriental students in 
 America more renounce Christianity on seeing conditions here 
 than are led through residence here to accept Christianity. 
 
 125 
 
[VI-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 The Church today must make earnest with many duties, 
 but certainly none more vital than to arouse its constituency 
 to the obligation to embody the fruits of the Spirit. For the 
 Church is not meeting its obligations by placing a halo about 
 certain men and women called missionaries and sending them 
 out into the world. Not until everybody, individually as well 
 as corporately, is reaching . forth in redemptive, constructive 
 service in cooperation with the pursuant love of God will the 
 Church have attained this aspect of its goal. And it is only 
 out from a church that is embodying this attitude in all its 
 human relationships that the passion and conviction will 
 come that can evangelize a world. 
 
 V 
 
 Nations also must cooperate in manifesting the God-life. 
 The larger social order will not be Christianized until each 
 member of the family of nations, like their common Father, 
 finds its essential reality in purpose — purpose that is God-like 
 in its will to serve, asking nothing in return. The world is 
 hungry for the avowal by the stronger nations that they 
 have disinterested obligations toward their weaker sisters. 
 The removal of barriers between nations must be accompanied 
 by the creation of positive conditions of friendship. The 
 more backward races are waiting for the distinctive charac- 
 teristic of the Christian God to be manifested in the races 
 more advanced. And signs are not wanting that this aspect 
 of the missionary consciousness is making progress amongst 
 the nations. 
 
 One of the finest examples on a national scale of the em- 
 bodiment of the Christian motive was America's unselfish 
 entrance into the World War with the purpose, at whatever 
 necessary cost of blood or treasure, to make democracy avail- 
 able to every people who desire it, and to ensure to the 
 smallest nation the opportunity for self-realization and free 
 development. "We have no selfish ends to serve," wrote 
 President Wilson, "We desire no conquest, no dominion. 
 We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensa- 
 tion for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one 
 of the champions of the rights of mankind." 
 
 This action of America was in reality a magnificent expres- 
 sion of the missionary spirit, and yet so conventional has our 
 religious thinking become that many never thought of 
 
 126 
 
ZEAL FOR MANIFESTATION OF GOD [VI-c] 
 
 America's action as having religious quality or as involving 
 religious values. When we begin more thoroughly to incar- 
 nate our Gospel, and to relate it to the actual problems that 
 press for 'solution in every realm of life, such a national 
 commitment will be seen to have been a religious act. 
 
 America's relation to the Philippjnes has embodied Chris- 
 tian principles. Ex-President Roosevelt could say : "I believe 
 that I am speaking with historic accuracy and impartiality 
 when I say that the American treatment of and attitude 
 toward the Philippine people, in its combination of disinter- 
 ested ethical purpose and sound common sense, marks a new 
 and long stride forward in advance of all steps that have 
 hitherto been taken along the path of wise and proper treat- 
 ment of weaker by stronger races." It was this spirit that 
 sent over to those long-suffering islanders five hundred teach- 
 ers to begin the establishment of an agency which, next to 
 religion, has proved to be the choicest gift we had for them. 
 Individuals and groups and private corporations may have 
 fallen short of the nation's high ideal, and through their 
 selfish exploitation marred the clearness of the national mis- 
 sionary spirit, but the American people as a whole have never 
 wished the unexpected relationship with these islands to be 
 other than an unselfish service for humanity. 
 
 It is because the Christian spirit is so seldom embodied 
 nationally that the chancelleries of Europe scoffed at the 
 very thought of Cuba's ever becoming independent after the 
 United States had once laid her hands upon it. They thought 
 the insincerity of America's pretence at giving independence 
 was being brought to light each time she interfered with 
 turbulent factions in the population, even though at con- 
 siderable cost to herself. And yet today Cuba is politically 
 free. 
 
 It was this spirit that led the United States to give back to 
 China the Boxer indemnity, part of which the Chinese happily 
 invested in endowments for an annual stream of Chinese 
 students to America. The same spirit breathes in modern 
 Britain as it thinks out toward China and toward India. Dur- 
 ing the recent fateful years we have been seeing the birth- 
 pangs of a still more universal and conscious recognition of 
 the will to serve in international policy. 
 
 On the other hand, it is not this spirit that is placarding 
 China with cigarette advertisements, and giving out free 
 
 127 
 
[VI-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 samples by the thousand to child and man alike in an effort 
 to cause China to substitute the cigarette habit for opium. It 
 is not this spirit that encourages the morphine trade with 
 China, or allows increased prohibition at home to be balanced 
 by increased exportation of liquor to backward peoples. It 
 is not this spirit that inspires the merciless exploitation of 
 the weaker amongst earth's peoples. National God-likeness 
 would involve sharing the best, and acting the brother, and 
 winning loving friendship through constructive good will. Is 
 it not strange that war is practically the only way, at present, 
 by which one nation can spend money to help another? Na- 
 tional cooperation in the manifestation of the God-life will 
 make it not only legally possible, but natural, for a nation to 
 use money in befriending another nation. It would involve 
 enacting legislation that would enable us to keep our promises 
 to protect aliens ; it would seek, even at heavy cost, to dispel 
 Mexican suspicion, and to win a larger measure of confidence 
 from the twent}^ sister-republics to the south of us. It would 
 inspire all colony-holding powers to secure the development 
 in human well-being of their subjects and the availability for 
 the service of mankind of the potentialities of an undeveloped 
 region. 
 
 We note, however, that Christ's dictum, if any man would 
 be first let him be the servant of all, is increasingly being used 
 to test a nation's greatness. Men are asking, with Frederick 
 Lynch, whether that nation is not greatest "which can forget 
 its self-interest occasionally and go out ; which can be the 
 friend and helper of weaker nations ; which can demand that 
 justice be done in the world; which can have the sense of 
 mission, of being sent to seek, not its own only, but to bless 
 others ; which can learn that it is giving which makes a nation 
 great, as it is giving and serving which makes men noble."" 
 
 As we take a long look over the past we can see spiritual 
 advance in international practice and ideals. At one time the 
 fate of the weaker races was extermination or slavery. Later 
 their fate was alleviated to that of becoming a tributary 
 people. Still later the conquering people merely subjected 
 them to industrial and commercial exploitation. Butwe are 
 catching glimpses of a more Christian stage, where the 
 weaker people is the object of self-sacrificing service given 
 
 2 " What Makes a Nation Great," p. 8i. 
 128 
 
ZEAL FOR MANIFESTATION OF GOD [VI-c] 
 
 in the spirit of friendship. Into the development of this new 
 spirit of internationaHsm all the driving power of Christianity 
 should be put. What is most characteristic of God must be 
 made characteristic of the nations. If individual salvation 
 means nothing unless it issues in service and sacrifice, this 
 same principle must hold for nations also. National salvation 
 involves of necessity international service and sacrifice for 
 the world. Nations no less than individuals are saved to 
 serve. Mutuality of service will be the evidence that Christ 
 has come to the larger group. 
 
 Those who are working for a super-national organization 
 realize that some kind of an embodiment of the God-relation 
 is needed in the realm of peoples. The establishment of a 
 league of nations that will have as its object not simply the 
 negative one of preventing war, but the positive one of over- 
 seeing, obviating, or adjusting clashes of interest through 
 organization, will be one of the conditions which will make 
 Christian international morality possible. We feel we have 
 a right to expect individuals to be moral because the social 
 organization in which the individual is placed makes moral 
 expression possible. The modes of associated life in which 
 the individual finds himself confer powers and impose re- 
 sponsibilities upon him. 
 
 Now if there were a social organization for nations, that 
 defined and established their rights and duties, they would 
 the more easily develop a consciousness of the moral standard 
 for nations. We need God to become flesh and dwell among 
 us in the form of an international organization, not simply 
 that certain known moral obligations may be effectively en- 
 forced, but that new moral obligations and regulations may 
 come into existence. The world Christian will not simply 
 ask that the highest individual morality should be adopted by 
 nations but will work to establish that form of organization 
 which will be the first big step toward making the ideal 
 possible. 
 
 We do not mean by this to glorify mere organization. For 
 diplomacy and balance of power, treaties and alliances, arma- 
 ments and preparation, financial solidarity and the community 
 of labor — all these devices have failed. Count Okuma knew 
 that these, alone, were not the solution when, in substance, 
 he said to his countrymen incensed over California's anti- 
 Japanese legislation : "This problem can't be settled by diplo- 
 
 129 
 
[VI-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 macy, by anti-American legislation, by war, or even by threats 
 of war. The only possible solution is by an appeal to Ameri- 
 can Christians to apply to these problems the principles of 
 their Christian faith — the brotherhood of man." It is not 
 organization as such, but organization that is breathed through 
 with Christian principle and Christian spirit that is needed. 
 
 This embodiment of Christian attitude in international rela- 
 tionships is increasingly necessary if non-Christian peoples 
 are to be drawn to the way of Christ. They are no longer 
 dependent on the mere testimony of missionaries as to what 
 Christianity is ; the practice of the West is now an open book 
 that all may read. In so far as we shape our national policies 
 so as to embody the spirit of Christ in our relations with the 
 non-Christian peoples shall we make effective the faithful 
 preaching of the Word. The spirit of Christ has been glar- 
 ingly flouted at times by the nations ; let the Church not 
 rest until his spirit is so markedly embodied in national ex- 
 pression that the remotest parts of Asia and of Africa shall 
 hear a great "good news." The honor of Christ in many 
 lands is depending on the sincerity and the vigor of the protest 
 which forces called by his name shall make to unchristian 
 factors in social and national life. The greatest opportunity 
 thus far in all history for the incarnation of the Christ came 
 at the close of the Great War. Are Christian forces travailing 
 with yearning love for the continuous increase of this new 
 revelation of God? 
 
 TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 
 
 1. Discuss the truth of such statements as the following: 
 "It is because you Christians are not like your Christ that 
 your religion does not advance more"; "the Muhammadans 
 are not converted because we are not converted." What 
 analogies to these statements may be found in the Scriptures? 
 
 2. Is Christianity a theory or a practice? Or is it both? 
 If so, which is more needed today, better preaching, or better 
 practice? For what reason? 
 
 3. What would you say it means to be a Christian? 
 
 4. Show (a) from the prophets and (b) from the teach- 
 ings of Jesus that religion is not a mysterious something that 
 one is to "get," or to "have," apart from righteousness. 
 
 5. Where does Jesus teach us that we are to be like him- 
 
 130 
 
ZEAL FOR MANIFESTATION OF GOD [VI-c] 
 
 self? Like God? In what points, if any, are we taught that 
 a lower quality of life is expected of us? 
 
 6. What is involved in being like Jesus? Like God? 
 
 7. Bring out from Christ's words what difference in obliga- 
 tion for the recovery of the world belonged to him as com- 
 pared to us. 
 
 ' 8. The Moravians . over a century ago inserted in their 
 instructions to their missionaries the direction that "until the 
 Brethren shall be able to express themselves intelligently to 
 the heathen, they must be contented with preaching by their 
 walk and conversation only." What are some of the ways 
 in which you could show what is meant by brotherhood to a 
 person who does not understand your tongue? What are 
 the results of putting too much dependence on the tongue- 
 method? 
 
 9. Name several important social forces in the order of 
 their importance. Where in this list would a discerning 
 visitor to our land place the actual embodiment of Chris- 
 tianity ? 
 
 10. In what ways may the God-life be incarnated in the 
 twentieth century? 
 
 11. Discuss the truth of the following statement: "God only 
 works for men in so far as he works through men." 
 
 12. What would be the loss to the Church and to Chris- 
 tendom if none of the missionaries of the nineteenth century 
 had lived? 
 
 131 
 
CHAPTER Vn 
 
 Courage for World Purposes 
 
 There have been times when religioiKS leaders had as their 
 greatest good the winning of the martyr's crown. Charles 
 Spinola, as he led forth to the Martyr's Mount a group of 
 over fifty missionaries and Japanese Christians to give up 
 their lives for Christ, said : "I know not to what I can 
 attribute my happy lot, except to the goodness of my Saviour, 
 who wishes to manifest the riches of his mercy upon his 
 unworthy servant." During the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries there was an "Association of Martyrs," the purpose 
 of which was "to strengthen those who were hourly exposed 
 to a cruel death, by teaching them to consider martyrdom as 
 the highest earthly joy." Under such influence there was little 
 solicitude over what, to most, would seem to be an uncalled- 
 for waste of life. 
 
 Such days of forlorn hopes and hairbreadth escapes and 
 dramatic martyrdoms have largely passed. And with them 
 has passed the longing for their particular ideal. It is not 
 enough for a life to be harmless, or even to yield itself in 
 martyrdom; it must be effectual. To see the truth is not 
 enough ; that truth must be made prevalent. It does not 
 satisfy to know the cause of social wrong; those causes must 
 be removed. Service must be delivered, and increased happi- 
 ness in others actually brought about. One mark of a world 
 Christian is, therefore, the passion of a great purpose, the 
 belief that God is glorified in the bearing of much fruit and 
 the ardent desire to make one's life count for the very utmost 
 in world-reconstruction. It is the belief, not only that there 
 are great tasks to be accomplished, but that one must join 
 with God in completing them. Let us see if we cannot enter 
 the fellowship of those who have had great world aims. 
 
 Seventh Week, First Day: The Master in World 
 Purpose 
 
 I came that they may have life, and may have it abun- 
 dantly. — John 10 : lo. 
 
 132 
 
COURAGE FOR WORLD PURPOSES [VII-2] 
 
 Only as we ourselves grow can we see the greatness of the 
 life purpose in this verse. As wide as the world, as deep as 
 human nature, as limitless as the unfathomed resources of 
 God is the abundant life Jeaus came to bring. And when 
 we pause to think over the content he put into this life pur- 
 pose, we cannot but kneel in reverence. "Never has a human 
 will been set on ends so lofty and sublime. What object of 
 human endeavor can be compared with the purpose of Christ 
 to redeem human life from the evils that assail and corrupt 
 it, to establish a kingdom resting, not on force, but on the 
 free service of converted wills, to bring it to pass that the 
 will of God should be done on earth as it is done in heaven, 
 to destroy the unbelief in men's hearts and make them the 
 children of the Father in heaven? As the explorer goes out 
 to discover new lands, as the adventurer sets forth to find or 
 build a kingdom, Christ calls his followers to explore the 
 undiscovered treasures of the spiritual world, and to labor 
 for a kingdom of everlasting splendor, a kingdom of truth 
 and righteousness and love, whose builder and maker is God."* 
 
 Let us who profess to follow him not think that discipleship 
 is summed up merely in correct belief with reference to his 
 person or his mission — centering, that is, on something intel- 
 lectual. Following Jesus means taking up his program and 
 expanding our narrow grasp of heart and will until we have 
 committed our lives to his great world-transforming purpose. 
 Shall we not learn from him? 
 
 Seventh Week, Second Day: Living Up to Christ's 
 Ideal for Us 
 
 Verily, verily, I say unto you. He that believeth on me, 
 the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works 
 than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father. — 
 John 14: 12. 
 
 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; 
 and so shall ye be my disciples. — John 15: 8. 
 
 Not only did Jesus have a great world-purpose, but his 
 aspiration was that the lives of his followers should eventuate 
 in results of eternal value. Are they doing it? Let us turn 
 to one of the most characteristic expressions of the Church 
 for answer. 
 
 1 J. H. Oldham, in " The Missionary Motive," edited by W. Paton, p. 32. 
 133 
 
[VlI-3] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Speaking of the organized efforts of the Church in modern 
 times to express the highest type of Christian world friend- 
 ship, one of our most popular speakers to students said, 
 "Foreign missions are the most effective movement in human 
 history." A professor in the University of Chicago speaks 
 of them as "the most significant and serious of all twentieth 
 century enterprises." The editor of the British quarterly. 
 The East and the West, writes : "The task on which missions 
 are engaged, whether viev/ed from a spiritual, a moral, or an 
 educational standpoint, is the greatest which men have essayed 
 to undertake." The senior secretary amongst our American 
 foreign missionary boards speaks of this enterprise as "the 
 most profound and difficult problem that is moving over the 
 face of the earth." A much-valued British author holds that 
 "the missionary enterprise is no longer a romance, it has be- 
 come a great epic — the greatest the world has yet produced." 
 
 Those who take the trouble to become informed see this 
 movement promoting democracy, spreading liberty, diffusing 
 education, elevating womanhood, glorifying childhood, healing 
 sickness, improving living conditions, recreating communities, 
 destroying social abuses, overcoming moral abominations, and 
 proving everywhere the power of God unto salvation to every 
 man and nation that believeth. And incidentally, one may 
 note that an impartial witness like Dr. Simon Flexner, who 
 made investigations for the China Medical Board of the 
 Rockefeller Foundation, can state that "there is no organiza- 
 tion in the world, either philanthropic or business, which is 
 getting as large returns out of the money it spends as the 
 various boards of foreign missions." 
 
 Evidently there are Christians who have dared to work 
 for world results. In nation after nation one may see the 
 silent march of an unseen Power. But this is because world 
 Christians have made great ventures. In these days, when 
 one of the most powerful convictions operating among men 
 is the belief that the world can be made better, shall we not 
 suffuse our minds with the largeness of Christ's expectation 
 for us? 
 
 Seventh Week, Third Day: Making Known the 
 Love of Christ 
 
 For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from 
 whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that 
 
 134 
 
COURAGE FOR WORLD PURPOSES [VII-4] 
 
 he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, 
 that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit 
 in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts 
 through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and 
 grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend v/ith all 
 the saints what is the breadth and length and height and 
 depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth 
 knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of 
 God. — Eph. 3: 14-19. 
 
 That men should know the love of Christ, and hence be 
 filled with all the fulness of God — this was the great ideal 
 for men for which Paul prayed and worked. To a great 
 extent the young men and women even of our own country 
 are not only out of touch with Christianity, but do not know 
 what Christianity is. Or else they think they can grasp its 
 significance without serious study, and can comprehend its 
 full meaning in a shallow understanding of love to God and 
 to fellowmen. Read over these verses and realize the im- 
 mensity of the work that God must do in the hearts of men 
 before this prayer for the youth of our own and other nations 
 can be answered. 
 
 From some standpoints it would seem a simple matter to 
 tell about Jesus to those who know him not. A missionary in 
 India actually spent his time in going on horseback through 
 the villages proclaiming his good news. But no Paul Revere's 
 ride through the universe will serve the purpose ; no mega- 
 phone, however powerful, will accomplish this high end. Far 
 too much is involved in making the message understood. 
 Sometimes it seems almost impossible to deliver a direct and 
 simple message that will find its way home. But now let 
 us read these verses over and over again, making them and 
 the realities for which they stand so vital in our lives that 
 the great attempt with God's help to make them true in 
 others' lives will be the inevitable outcome of rich experience 
 and deep gratitude. 
 
 Seventh Week, Fourth Day : A Task of Unrivalled 
 Potentiality 
 
 There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were 
 called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, 
 one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, 
 and through all, and in all. . . . For the perfecting of the 
 
 135 
 
[VII-4] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building 
 up of the body of Christ: till we all attain unto the unity 
 of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto 
 a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the 
 fulness of Christ. . . . From whom all the body fitly 
 framed and knit together through that which every joint 
 supplieth, according to the working in due measure of 
 each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto 
 the building up of itself in love. . . . Wherefore, putting 
 away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neigh- 
 bor: for we are mem.bers one of another. — Eph. 4:4-6, 
 12, 13, 16, 25. 
 
 So far do many of our churches come from the ideal of 
 these verses, that many people are restless with the Church 
 as an institution, and question whether it should figure in 
 a real world program. We remember, however, the place 
 it held in the program of the greatest world Christian after 
 Jesus. In a little more than ten years Paul had established 
 churches in four provinces of the Roman Empire, selecting 
 important centers of Roman administration, Greek civiliza- 
 tion, Jewish influence, and large trade. Over a score of 
 churches are mentioned in the New Testament — Antioch, Asia, 
 Babylon, Cenchreae, Caesarea, Cilicia, Corinth, Ephesus, Ga- 
 latia, Galilee, Jerusalem, Joppa, Judaea, Laodicea, Pergamos, 
 Philadelphia, Samaria, Sardis, Smyrna, Syria, Thessalonica, 
 and Thyatira. Certainly one of the very definite proximate 
 aims of this great worker was the establishment of churches. 
 
 And if you should lay aside the Church as a social institu- 
 tion you would have to bring back something else, not unlike 
 what the Church can be, in order to realize your vision of the 
 Christian social ideal, and to foster that attitude of expectant 
 faith without which visions do not come. The Church needs 
 constructive criticism, but it has potentialities as an institution 
 for human welfare to which we are just awaking. 
 
 It is not strange, then, that world Christians of our own 
 day have made one of their most definite of aims, the estab- 
 lishment of self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propa- 
 gating churches in every land. But note what really gigantic 
 problems are involved. Instead of creeds which are merely 
 reminiscent of struggles that have been real and valid for the 
 West, the thinkers of these churches must formulate on the 
 one hand what a Christian ought to believe with reference to 
 
 136 
 
COURAGE FOR WORLD PURPOSES [VII-5] 
 
 those things which have exercised the earnest rehgious thought 
 of their own lands, such as karma, transmigration, and ances- 
 tor worship ; and on the other what a Christian should believe 
 with reference to those realms of religious thought which 
 their lands have neglected, such as moral renewal and the 
 character of God, polygamy, and household slavery. Before 
 each of these churches lie the vast problems of an unevangel- 
 ized nation, the task of raising up strong native leadership, 
 the education of the illiterate, the provision of Christian 
 literature, and the working out of a special Christian approach 
 to the non-Christian philosophies and systems of their land 
 after having assimilated the moral principles of the Gospel 
 for all. These churojies must find a place in the national and 
 social life of their own lands, and learn to apply the social 
 teachings of Jesus to their own peculiar problems. Surely in 
 helping in an enterprise fraught with so many difficulties 
 and dangers, one needs to pray for powers commensurate 
 with the task. One would not need to pray for a larger or 
 more significant task. 
 
 Seventh Week, Fifth Day: The Length of a Lever 
 That Can Remove America's Load 
 
 • But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is 
 come upon you: and ye shall be my witnesses both in 
 Jerusalem, and in all Judaea and Samaria, and unto the 
 uttermost part of the earth. — Acts i ; 8. 
 
 In spite of the world outreach of the Christian impulse, 
 found both implicitly and explicitly in the New Testament, 
 there are those who would have us limit our aim at first to 
 Christianizing America. As long as there is so much that 
 needs attention in our own land, why enter upon a program 
 that looks out "unto the uttermost part of the earth"? 
 
 As a matter of fact, however, the weight right here at home 
 is such that a lever that would move it must be long enough 
 to reach to China. Only the faith that dares set itself to the 
 purification and enrichment of a whole world's life will have 
 dynamic enough to deal effectively with the situation at one's 
 door. Our own land will not become thoroughly socialized 
 without great sacrifice; but no goal less than the ennobling 
 and uplifting of all humanity will be big enough to elicit 
 
 137 
 
[VII-6] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 the sacrifice and the loyalty demanded even by our own 
 needs. 
 
 Moreover, as we saw in Chapter II, there are elements in 
 Christianity which must be emphasized and brought to light 
 through the reactions of India and China and Japan. Can 
 anything less than a Christ who is manifestly meeting the 
 needs of every land be adequate even for our own? 
 
 Still further, as we saw in Chapter I, we are so interlinked 
 and involved with other peoples in the shrunken world of 
 today, that we can not perfect ourselves alone. The social 
 order in America will never be Christian through and through, 
 if Africa and South America and the Near East lag far 4 
 behind. ^ 
 
 But most of these considerations, which we have just been 
 mentioning in favor of the adoption of a great world program, 
 have a selfish tinge about them, when surely God's plan has 
 unselfishness at the heart of it. As we saw in Chapter VI, the 
 group that sets before itself the end of self-salvation first 
 has missed the very conception of what salvation is, and will 
 possess no inward vitality that will cause it to prevail. Only 
 a forth-going people can have infilling fellowship with a 
 God who loves. 
 
 Seventh Week, Sixth Day: Empowered for a Task 
 
 And when the multitude saw what Paul had done, they 
 lifted up their voice, saying in the speech o£ Lycaonia, 
 The gods are come down to us in the likeness of men. 
 And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercury, 
 because he was the chief speaker. And the priest of 
 Jupiter whose temple was before the city, brought oxen 
 and garlands unto the gates, and would have done sacri- 
 fice with the multitudes. But when the apostles, Barnabas 
 and Paul, heard of it, they rent their garments, and sprang 
 forth among the multitude, crying out and saying, Sirs, 
 why do ye these things? We also are men of like pas- 
 sions with you, and bring you good tidings, that ye should 
 turn from these vain things unto a living God, who made 
 the heaven and the earth and the sea, and all that in them 
 is. — Acts 14: 11-15. 
 
 We must not reject a world citizen's purpose and obliga- 
 tion because they seem too great for us. Paul and Barnabas 
 refused to be considered as greater in themselves than other 
 
 138 
 
COURAGE FOR WORLD PURPOSES [VII-7] 
 
 men. In like manner Peter answered the men who were 
 astonished at an exceptionally wonderful evidence of power 
 in himself and John : "Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at 
 this man? or why fasten ye your eyes on us, as though by 
 our own power or godliness we had made him to walk?" 
 (Acts 3:12). These great leaders of the early Church did 
 not attempt to undertake to Christianize the Mediterranean 
 world in their own strength ; they khew how to continue in 
 touch with resources that empowered them above their natural 
 selves. 
 
 And so today we must guard against placing missionaries 
 on pedestals as superior beings, lifted above the tests and 
 criticism to which other mortals must be subjected. They 
 have a big purpose, and are drawing heavily on God's suffi- 
 ciency, but only as j^ou and I can do. A trip of ten thousand 
 miles across the seas does not in itself exempt them from 
 human frailties. The Source of their faith and hope and 
 fruitage is as open to you as to them. God is calling you 
 to partnership in a great task. Are you willing to be em- 
 powered, as were Paul and Barnabas, Peter and John? 
 
 Seventh Week, Seventh Day : The Great Handbook 
 for World Tasks 
 
 Let the peoples praise thee, O God; 
 Let all the peoples praise thee. 
 O let the nations be glad and sing for joy; 
 For thou wilt judge the peoples with equity, 
 And govern the nations upon earth. 
 Let the peoples praise thee, O God; 
 Let all the peoples praise thee. 
 The earth hath yielded its increase: 
 God, even our own God, will bless us. 
 God will bless us; 
 
 And all the ends of the earth shall fear him. — Psalm 
 67:3-7. 
 
 The book which contains the greatest stimulus to world 
 outreach is the Bible. In the Old Testament there are to 
 be found magnificent sweeps of world-embracing thought, 
 such as the unity and power of God in the first chapter of 
 Genesis ; the revelation of the universal purpose of God 
 (Gen. 9: 15; 12: 1-3; 28: 13, 14; 49: 10) ; the glorious exalta- 
 tion of Jehovah as reigning in righteousness to the ends of 
 
 139 
 
[VII-7] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 the earth (Psalm 33:5-15; 72:8-20; 96; 98; 117); and the 
 internationalism of prophecy (Isa, 11:1-10; 40:1-8; 42:1-7; 
 45:1-8; 49:1-7; 55:1-5; Jer. 31:31-34; Joel 2:28; Micah 
 4:1-3; Hab. 2:14; Zech. 9:10). We may see in Ruth a 
 marked example of a non-Israelite being admitted through 
 fitness of character to the circle of the elect; or in Jonah, a 
 call to foreign evangelism as against narrow exclusiveness. 
 
 But our greatest inspiration for world interest from the 
 Old Testament comes from taking a large historical view 
 of the trend of Israel's whole development. We can see the 
 way in which God trained a people, racially and religiously 
 the most persistently exclusive that the world has ever known, 
 until their most prophetic spirits triumphed over national 
 provincialism and selfishness. An exclusive cult became the 
 channel through which a religion meant for all the world was 
 developed, preserved, and distributed. No one interested in 
 a Christian world view can afford to neglect the grand, sweep 
 of Israel's history. 
 
 Similarly the missionary character of the New Testament 
 does not reside in a few quotable texts such as John three, 
 sixteen and seventeen, or the Great Commission. It pervades 
 its very fabric. In the gospels we find the clearest statement 
 of the principles of the Kingdom, the ideals of universal 
 brotherhood and world-wide service, and the greatest per- 
 manent source for getting back to the great Giver of the 
 world's good news. 
 
 Most of the New Testament was written by men who were 
 engaged in the same work as missionaries of the present day. 
 They, too, were grappling with the chains of custom, preju- 
 dice, and unbelief which bound their converts under the sway 
 of an immemorial past. Instead of ''Acts of the Apostles" we 
 might read "Deeds of Missionary Saints," or "Some Deeds 
 of Those Who Were Set Apart and Sent Forth." Of all 
 the books of the Bible this is the most unfinished, with glorious 
 chapters being added every year. Since the word "mission- 
 ary" is the Latin equivalent for the Greek "apostle," both 
 words meaning "one who is sent," it is interesting to make 
 the substitution in such passages as Luke 6:13; 22:14; I 
 Cor. 15:9; II Pet. Z'-2- 
 
 The writings of Paul are the letters of a missionary : Ro- 
 mans, a message to Christians at the heart of the Empire 
 from the heart of a missionary who longed to visit them; 
 
 140 
 
COURAGE FOR WORLD PURPOSES [VII-c] 
 
 Corinthians, the Gospel for converts left without instruction 
 in a heathen port ; Galatians, a letter to country districts about 
 to be Judaized; Ephesians, an epistle from an imprisoned 
 missionary to Christians in a heathen cathedral city; Philip- 
 pians, a letter to a typical Roman colony where resided the 
 missionary's first converts in Europe ; and the pastoral epistles, 
 instructions to missionary lieutenants. 
 
 COMMENT FOR THE WEEK 
 
 "Christianity is a religion that expects you to do things.'* 
 So runs a Japanese saying. And while we know what a high 
 call comes to us to be, yet we recognize the validity of Carey's 
 famous summons : "Expect great things of God, attempt great 
 things for God." We have been looking at some of the great 
 tasks of a Christian; let us see in what other ways the 
 Christian must have a high aim for life investment. 
 
 I 
 
 The progressive development of Christian personality is 
 one of the greatest ventures that enlist the faith of a world 
 Christian. He will want to cooperate in the great adventure 
 of peopling the world with men and women who have re- 
 leased God's image, and who may therefore be trusted with 
 moral creativity. 
 
 At the furthest extreme from this attainment are the 
 women of many of the tribes of Africa. They have been mere 
 property so long, so used to being ordered, so little used to 
 initiative of their own, that the expression "creative per- 
 sonality" hardly seems applicable to them at all. Not many 
 decades ago Christian leaders in more than one non-Christian 
 land who were inaugurating women's education had to hear 
 the taunt: "They will want to educate our cows next." Pro- 
 fessor Nitobe, President of the new Union Christian College 
 for Women at Tokyo, has said for Japan : "Probably most 
 men would admit that there is such a thing as personality, but 
 they would also assert that it is entirely masculine. Women, 
 they would say, have none. Their place in our economy has 
 been entirely derivative. Christianity cuts directly across this 
 idea, laying stress upon individual responsibility and freedom. 
 Christianity has given us a new valuation of women." 
 
 141 
 
IVlI-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Now what Professor Nitobe says is true. For, a careful 
 comparison of the social results of the various religions shows 
 that at no point is there greater contrast betiveen Christian 
 and non-Christian systems than in the treatment of woman, 
 and in the development of her personality. One would will- 
 ingly stake judgment as to the power of Christianity on this 
 one point alone. It will be found that in Christendom there 
 has been a tendency toward a continuously progressive de- 
 velopment of the individuality of women. The introduction 
 of love rather than property as the basis for marriage, mo- 
 nogamy in the place of polygamy and concubinage, abandon- 
 ment of arbitrary divorce, ideals of domestic purity, woman's 
 increased sharing in the rights and privileges of domestic, 
 social, and political life — these are movements that have been 
 fostered by the fundamental principles of Jesus. Since so 
 great a change is wrought through contact with Jesus Christ, 
 it is not strange that great souls have had the high ambition 
 to improve the status of the world's womanhood by bringing 
 non-Christian peoples in contact with him and with his 
 principles and valuation of life. 
 
 Suppose you were passing along a road in Turkey and saw 
 by the wayside a girl making a sound as of some animal. 
 And suppose on going nearer she began to curse and spit upon 
 you, would you have faith to attempt her reformation? It 
 was a world Christian in the shape of a medical missionary 
 who passed just such a girl. The people of the neighboring 
 towns had told him that if ever a devil was in a person, this 
 girl was demon-possessed. But his heart was touched. 
 Amidst her curses he caught her in his arms and by sheer 
 main force carried her along as she bit at him. She was taken 
 to a mission girls' school. The story of what happened dur- 
 ing the next six years is one full of patient, Christ-like love 
 for this girl on the part of the Christian staff. At the end 
 she was graduated along with others, and the subject of her 
 final essay was "The Love of God." After completing her 
 education she said : 'T want to go to some hard place — a place 
 to which another will not go." In this spirit she was sent 
 to a very needy village. After a year a petition, signed by 
 all the prominent men of that village, came asking for more 
 workers. "She has been an angel of light. She has trans- 
 formed this village. Send some one to teach the men as she 
 has been teaching the women." 
 
 142 
 
COURAGE FOR WORLD PURPOSES [VII-c] 
 
 Glance at any land in which Christ has had a chance, and 
 you will find women released and ever more and more free. 
 In Japan, for example, you will find a good example of Chris- 
 tian personality in Madame Hiroaka, one of the richest 
 women in Japan, and daughter of the distinguished Mitsui 
 family. In Japan's recent evangelistic campaign she went 
 from one end of the Empire to the other, speaking about 
 Christ in every large town, in hall and theater. Surely here 
 is no lack of personality. 
 
 Is it any wonder that very touching gratitude is expressed 
 by those who have been thus helped by Christ? The mother 
 of Mr. Yamanouchi, one of the oldest evangelists in Japan, 
 every night of her life after her conversion, slept with her 
 face toward America. "For in the West is America, and from 
 America came my great light." 
 
 II 
 
 But the attempt to develop Christian personality has not 
 stopped with women. For the whole social system in many 
 lands has overemphasized the corporate spirit so that indi- 
 viduality has been under-developed. The East has thought 
 in terms of the group. For example, in India caste has not 
 permitted individualism to come to its own, so that the tend- 
 ency is for people to act in masses. The communal spirit 
 makes the caste so dominant that members of the caste can 
 hardly be persuaded to act on their own initiative or convic- 
 tions independently of their neighbors. In matters of con- 
 version they wait until a strong party or a whole village can 
 come over to Christianity. This lack of developed indi- 
 viduality is taken into consideration by Christian workers, for 
 they recognize that they must either see that the whole com- 
 munity of the convert comes over with him, or else take 
 special pains that the new convert shall soon be incorporated 
 into the new community. It is a psychological necessity that 
 the convert should be conscious of a group environment. 
 
 Similarly in Africa, morality is the morality of the tribe, 
 the sept, or the clan. The individual, as such, has hardly 
 awakened to consciousness. The average custom of the 
 group is the law for the individual. For the Burman hillmen, 
 the South American Indians, many of the castes of India, as 
 well as for the tribes of Africa, loyalty to custom and the 
 
 143 
 
[VII-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 desire to follow the ways of their fathers are the virtues of 
 cardinal importance. Individual dissatisfaction with old be- 
 liefs or customs hardly has a chance to show itself. This 
 feeling of solidarity with one's group makes it almost im- 
 possible for the individual to choose for himself when a 
 new religion is presented. For him, religion is an affair of 
 the tribe. Hence it seems almost a miracle when the first 
 few influential ones do step out and become Christians. When 
 once the movement has been started, however, the very feeling 
 of oneness leads others to follow. Amongst them are those 
 who frankly acknowledge that they have become Christian 
 because their neighbors took the step, or "because they wanted 
 to follow the elders." 
 
 There have always been those who have laughed to scorn 
 the high faith that each human being has a personality to be 
 developed — is, in fact, a potential son of God. Sometimes it 
 is gross self-interest, sometimes lack of vision, sometimes the 
 ingrained teaching of religion, that lies back of this practical 
 denial of souis to men. All of these reasons were doubtless 
 operative in that Hindu landlord who, as he beat the Chris- 
 tian teacher and drove him from the pariah converts, cried 
 out : "And if ever you come into my village again and open 
 a school for these Christians, I will kill you! Can pigs learn? 
 Can dogs read? You get out and stay out." But the same 
 attitude was found in that Christian Boer who sneered at 
 Robert Moffat. When Moffat, stopping at a comfortable home 
 in South Africa, wanted the Hottentot slaves called in to 
 evening prayers, the farmer scornfully said: "Hottentots I Do 
 you mean that, then? Let me go to the mountains and call 
 the baboons, if you want a congregation of that sort. Or 
 stop, I have it; my sons, call the dogs, that lie in front of 
 the door; they will do." 
 
 But one does not need to go to the Hindus of India, or to 
 the subjectors of the Negro race, to find lack of faith in the 
 project of the development of sincere Christian personalities. 
 "Rice Christians" may be secured, of course. All are willing 
 to acknowledge this. But how, say all too many, can there 
 be more than a certain change of external forms, and the 
 adoption of certain pious words and phrases, in connection 
 with religion which is a matter of centuries of tradition? 
 
 Let such doubters watch a certain line of Chinese students. 
 The Boxers have surrounded the school, and closed all but 
 
 144 
 
COURAGE FOR WORLD PURPOSES [VII-c] 
 
 a single gate. A cross is placed in front of this single outlet, 
 and word is sent that any who trample upon the cross may 
 go unhurt, but that whoever steps around the cross shall be 
 killed at once. The line starts out the gate. The first seven 
 trample upon the cross, and go absolutely free. The next, 
 a girl, kneels before the cross ; and then, rising, passes to one 
 side to be shot down by the persecutors. Not another in that 
 long line of a hundred students falters, but each passes to one 
 side and is killed. When 30,000 Chinese could face death in 
 1900 rather than deny their Master, when the Christians of 
 Uganda could brave the fires of a thousand martyrdoms, when 
 results are attested by life and the giving of life, the expecta- 
 tion of great things from God is justified. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The world Christian will attempt great things in the Chris- 
 tianization of the social order. This is the reason why the 
 China Continuation Committee, representing all the Protestant 
 missions in China, has an official sub-committee on "Social 
 Service." This is why you find a "Social Welfare Committee" 
 reporting to the Federated Missions of Japan. This is why 
 the Y. M. C. A. in India has made such a definite effort to 
 mediate to every Christian agency in that land the best social 
 guidance that could be secured. 
 
 Such agencies are specialized eyes and brains for the whole 
 body of missionaries, concentrating their attention on certain 
 specific evils that should be fought (for example, in Japan, 
 licensed prostitution, the geisha system, the liquor traffic, and 
 the overwork of women and children in the industrial sys- 
 tem) ; and focussing attention on certain positive and con- 
 structive undertakings, such as institutional churches, the 
 promotion of playgrounds, and the like. 
 
 Christian, statesmen point out in the current missionary 
 year-book for Japan that the labor movement in that land 
 cannot be met by the Government or by organized labor alone. 
 "There is an insistent call for Christian men and Christian 
 organizations to add the salt of the kingdom, which alone 
 can save laws from being mechanical and can lead both 
 laborers and employers to seek not their own advantage but 
 each other's good."" 
 
 2 " The Christian Movement in the Japanese Empire, 19 17." P- 323. 
 145 
 
[VII-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Now when the attempt is not merely the conversion of the 
 Japanese but the Christianization of Japan itself, how much 
 it rejoices one to see the Japanese themselves taking full 
 initiative in these matters. For example, when the late 
 Tsurukichi Hatano, after having squandered a fortune in 
 riotous living, is rescued in Kobe by Christian effort, and 
 reconciled to his outraged wife and family, principles are 
 instilled which later bear fruit in a most marked embodiment 
 of the Christian attitude in Japan's modern industry. For 
 this penniless prodigal introduced silk culture into his region 
 and eventually developed a silk jfilature, where 3,000 workers 
 produce the best silk thread of Japan. Is it not inspiring to 
 know that the Gunsei Silk Filature Company has regularly 
 recurring holidays for its women workers, the provision of 
 religious services, a community hospital, night and day schools, 
 a working day which does not kill, with baths and comfort- 
 able living quarters — all so unlike the harsh exploitation of 
 modern industrial Japan? And there are others — Mr. Ko- 
 bayashi, Mr. Obara, a dozen others — who are far ahead of 
 public opinion in the way in which they are introducing Chris- 
 tian standards of industrial betterment into the new life of 
 Japan. 
 
 As another example of how the Christian spirit becomes 
 indigenous, one may instance the fight against the social evil 
 in Japan. Some two decades ago a Christian missionary did 
 a monumental piece of work for Japan and for her enslaved 
 women in a great attempt for social purity. Later, a Chris- 
 tian community, led by the President of the Lower House 
 of Parliament, secured the abolishment of public houses in 
 their district. Still later Miss Hayashi, the Jane Addams of 
 Japan, backed by pastors in a vigorous forty-day campaign, 
 secured a ruling forbidding the opening of quarters in Osaka. 
 Of recent years there has been no other more marked social 
 activity in Japan than the way these Christians have carried 
 on a nation-wide campaign for purity. Through crowded 
 public lectures, through smaller church meetings, by the send- 
 ing over the Empire of many thousand small publications, and 
 by issuing 3,000 copies of an ably-edited book of 140 pages 
 on prostitution, public opinion has been tremendously ad- 
 vanced and concrete tangible results attained. The significant 
 thing here is not simply that a great measure of success has 
 been achieved against this strongly-entrenched and ancient 
 
 146 
 
 I 
 
COURAGE FOR WORLD PURPOSES [VII-c] ; 
 
 evil, but that the fight has of late been waged with Japanese \ 
 
 initiative. ' 
 
 IV '\ 
 
 China also furnishes inspiring examples of attempting great • 
 
 things for God in the Christianization of the social order. ' 
 
 The president of a mission college situated a thousand miles ] 
 
 inland was attempting great social ends for that land when, I 
 
 in addition to his longing for direct and individual conver- \ 
 
 sions in his college, he was arranging for a far-reaching : 
 
 experiment. When last in America he was negotiating with ; 
 
 a Christian shoe manufacturer, to go to China, in order to ; 
 erect and run a big shoe plant on Christian lines. Thus would 
 
 he give to that inland region a model in modern industry, , 
 vastly different from the Western methods of exploitation 
 which have set the standard inithe coast cities of China. The 
 
 call has come for other Christian business men — tanners, - 
 hatmakers, dyers, spinners — who will go out to lead clean 
 honest lives and who will stamp their Christian character, 
 
 not only on the lives of their employes, but on the whole \ 
 
 awakening industrial system of that land. ' 
 
 But again, the accomplishment of such social results by 
 
 ^foreigners is not the highest purpose even in this sphere. ^ 
 
 For to a certain extent they can attain their end through ; 
 
 giving orders and exacting obedience. Results obtained in ; 
 
 this way are as nothing compared with those where there is | 
 
 a sharing of purposes. The world Christian will not simply ; 
 
 want to accomplish a social result ; he will want to accomplish j 
 
 it in the way that is socially most educative, so that the result \ 
 
 will include lives filled with a new purpose, as well as the per- \ 
 
 formance of certain acts. It is most inspiring, therefore, to , 
 see in one part of the world after another lives that have 
 caught the Christian purpose, men and women who have 
 entered into conscious cooperation with God for the common 
 
 good. , 
 
 The Presbyterian Mission Press at Shanghai was doubtless ; 
 established to produce Christian literature for China, but no \ 
 one would regret a by-product which has surpassed the origi- 
 nal plant. Three compositors, one named Hsia and two named j 
 Bro, left the mission press to start, in a little room twelve I 
 by twelve, an establishment of their own. That was in 1891. 
 Now their plant turns out over $2,000,000 worth of printed 
 
 T47 i 
 
[VII-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 matter every year. The whole is conducted on Christian 
 principles. Day schools are provided for the children of the 
 employes and night schools for the employes themselves. As 
 the largest printing house in China, its influence is incalcu- 
 lable, for the printing business of China now has the Chris- 
 tian stamp upon it. 
 
 When Wong Kwong, the president of the Hanyang Iron 
 Works near Hankow, had erected his plant he realized that 
 fhe 1,500 prospective employes would build up some sort of 
 a settlement about his works, and so because he was a 
 Christian and because he knew some of the social solutions 
 of the West, he made a model village. His idea of being a 
 Christian in Hankow meant a school, a cooperative store, a 
 tea-house, and a swimming pool as well as a church in the 
 village of his workmen. 
 
 . W^e regard it as a mark of a world Christian that Yung 
 Tao was impelled not only to distribute 1,000 copies of the 
 Bible to his friends, but also, for example, to draft a bill 
 making unlawful the continuance of polygamy. 
 
 Promoters from the West become enthusiastic over certain 
 outcroppings which indicate vast coal or iron fields below 
 China's surface. Shall the world Christian be any less enthu- 
 siastic over these outcroppings of Christian character, reveal- 
 ing vast unworked resources of kindliness, teachableness, and 
 love? Do you not feel yourself longing that not only China 
 and Japan, but the whole globe, may be so freed from old 
 outgrown standards and so linked up with the Inspirer of 
 resourceful love that every here and there bits of heaven 
 shall be found on earth? When you begin to frame great 
 desires for this old world of ours, and when you let yourself 
 really yearn for the vision God has given you, you have most 
 surely attained one mark of a world Christian. 
 
 Furthermore, the world Christian commits himself to the 
 growth of an ideal world society on this planet. The hygienic 
 and the economic, the social and the intellectual, the esthetic, 
 the moral, and the religious relationships of mankind are to 
 be permeated with the spirit of mutual love and service and 
 good will. The report of the great ecumenical conference of 
 missionaries at Edinburgh says that "the evangelization of 
 Africa means something more than the introduction of the 
 
 148 
 
COURAGE FOR WORLD PURPOSES [VII-c] 
 
 Gospel, with existing forms of social life. It means the intro- 
 duction of education and letters, of agriculture and industry, 
 of Christian marriage, and of due recognition of the sanctity 
 of human life and of property. The problem before the 
 Church is the creation of a Christian African civilization."^ 
 Shall we balk before this huge task as though we had no God? 
 
 In aiming at this sevenfold penetration of earth's whole 
 life with Christian attitudes, nothing is foreign to the world 
 Christian. Everything has an interest to him, since everything 
 bears upon this greatest of enterprises. He has been able 
 to grasp the whole globe, so that whatever affects the relation 
 of man to man or nation to nation is his concern. 
 
 And hence we always find among the Church's ambassadors 
 to other lands men who have been true statesmen. Dr. W. A. 
 P. Martin rendered a conspicuous piece of international serv- 
 ice in introducing China to international law — a concept new 
 to the Eastern mind. Guido Verbeck, within ten years of his 
 arrival in Japan, was called to Tokyo to found the Japanese 
 educational system ; through his cooperation, the first Japanese 
 students ^ere sent to America; in 1872 he proposed that 
 epoch-making Japanese World's Commission ; he had the 
 Government place its medical college under German leader- 
 ship ; and with his advice the French legal code was introduced. 
 For a long time he was the only foreign counselor of the 
 Government. Conscientious, broadminded, cosmopolitan, he 
 was an interpreter of the larger Christian friendship in that 
 formative period of Japan's new life. Cyrus Hamlin one 
 day would be teaching a poor Armenian how to make and sell 
 Boston rat-traps for the support of himself and others; on 
 another he would be casting a steam pipe in his seminary 
 workshop. One day he would be setting up an engine with the 
 help of Ure's "Dictionary of the Arts" to supply bread for 
 Britain's Crimean armies ; on another he would be tempering 
 mill-picks for the dressing of his mill-stones. But all the 
 while, whether as Christian educator and founder of Robert 
 College at Constantinople, or as maker of bread or flour or 
 stoves, Cyrus Hamlin was thinking internationally — he was a 
 missionary statesman. Dugald Christie of Mukden, deco- 
 rated by five emperors, unappalled by the dread pneumonic 
 plague that was devastating Manchuria in 1910-11, fought it 
 
 3" World's Missionary Conference," 1910, I, p. 206. 
 149 
 
[VII-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 hand to hand until the plague had passed. He then sum- 
 moned an international conference which resulted in the 
 discovery of the germ of this disease, which hitherto had 
 killed every victim it had attacked. The Jesuits put their 
 ideal high, and demanded that each member of their order 
 be broadly competent. "Those who wish to become Christ's 
 companions in the noble enterprise of propagating Christianity 
 must be determined to distinguish themselves in the service 
 of their heavenly King. They are not to be satisfied with 
 being ordinary soldiers in the army, but they are to constitute 
 as it were Christ's bodyguard. Hence the name of the society, 
 'La Compania de Jesus.' " 
 
 It is only when we interpret the aim of the world Christian 
 as Christianizing the whole social order of the whole world 
 that any final or adequate definiteness of purpose comes to 
 the modern man. Used to sizable enterprises, world-wide in 
 their scope, nothing less than such an aim will command his 
 loyalty. A hundred million dollars no longer seems too much 
 to comprehend or to manage. Endowed with such a sum, 
 the Rockefeller Foundation, aiming constructively to "promote 
 the well-being of mankind throughout the world," forms its 
 world-wide organization for applying scientific knowledge to 
 human welfare, and the means — research, medical education, 
 public health administration, survey and commissions, ex- 
 change of specialists and student migrations — follow naturally. 
 For such a sum the Y M C A calmly made its plea after 
 having wisely administered half that amount. With the War's 
 revelation of capacities for sacrifice and cooperative atta^in- 
 ment, the day of small enterprises has been outgrown. 
 
 This world aim of the Christian, furthermore, is one that 
 has no individual or even national flavor. All the men of 
 good will of whatever nation or religion, who want this earth 
 to become a decent place in which to live, can join in six- 
 sevenths of the aim. More and more, as Christian men and 
 women manifest in life, and not alone in profession, the 
 vitality of our Lord, all will unite in the . seventh as well. 
 They, too, will want as man's highest good that he should be 
 Christ-like. 
 
 W^hat other demand than this sevenfold aim is big and 
 true and real enough to unite earth's family in cooperative 
 objective endeavor? To make health the possible attainment 
 for all; to abolish all necessity for existence beloiv the poverty 
 
 150 
 
COURAGE FOR WORLD PURPOSES [VII-c] 
 
 line the world around; to enable each human being through 
 education to enter as far as possible into his heritage; to 
 discover and to eradicate all causes of social maladjustment; 
 to develop capacities of response in all to sunsets and flowers, 
 to stars and trees; to pierce down zvith discrimination into 
 zvhat is right; to know our Father and the One whom he sent 
 — this is a program of a world Christian and one in which 
 private-mindedness may be permanently submerged. 
 
 Even heretofore hard-won secrets of nature have been 
 made at once available for the world, and advance in any 
 nation against disease has not been hoarded for the good of 
 one's own group. We are thankful for the professional ethics 
 which holds scientists and physicians to so noble a standard. 
 We need this spirit universalized, and made even more con- 
 scious and directive. It is only by our working together, pool- 
 ing results and organizing for effectiveness, that the task 
 which God has opened out before us can ever be accomplished. 
 "We can do it if we will," said the men of the haystack ; "We 
 can do it and we will," said a later world Christian, Samuel 
 B. Capen, 
 
 VI 
 
 Now something must happen to the Church if it is going 
 even to look at this mark of a world Christian. What is the 
 largest appeal that comes to your mind when the Church is 
 mentioned? For many it is a summons to individual salva- 
 tion and to fall in with a program that will extend religious 
 comfort to others and encourage them to develop individual 
 Christian virtues. The Church sometimes calls to other aims, 
 but it does not call to them with sufficient authority and confi- 
 dence and conviction. A rallying-call must be- sounded for a 
 great adventure. Nothing less than a mighty enterprise will 
 satisfy the souls of our youth today. Girls who have been 
 driving ambulances in France will not be satisfied with reading 
 a selection once a month in a missionary society. 
 
 But suppose it were universally recognized, that request for 
 church membership meant tenfold more eagerness for coopera- 
 tive effort for earth's richest reconstruction than for future 
 individual good, then people would not be fearing whether 
 the Church could retain the interest of those brave lads who 
 have faced the supreme sacrifice. Why should they shrink 
 up until they possess a vision no larger than a cozy, little, 
 
[VII-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 comfortable, but competitive, congregation in their old home 
 town? Is there no great program to which they can conse- 
 crate their lives? Are they simply to sink back unto the 
 old self-centered ends ? The glory of a Christ-filled world 
 must be set forth as an object definite enough to arouse in- 
 terest, and appealing enough to command one's utmost loyalty. 
 We ought to be able to go to the man most indifferent to the 
 Church and say: "Here is a big thing — zvhy are yoii not in 
 itf We are working for the enfranchisement and ennoble- 
 ment of every single human life, the perfecting of human 
 society in all its myriad acti7jities and relationships, the trans- 
 formation of the kingdoms of this earth until they have be- 
 come the kingdom of our God and his Christ, the Christian- 
 i:sation of all life everywhere." 
 
 "What are Christians put into the world for, except 
 to do the impossible in the strength of God?" said General 
 S. C. Armstrong, the founder of Hampton Institute. The 
 very developments which have accompanied the War compel 
 the Church to face a parting of the ways. Surely the Church 
 will not shrink from this enlarged program as too great for 
 its strength. That would be an acknowledgment to the world 
 of poverty of faith in the living, present God, whose nature 
 it is to work with infinite resource through man. 
 
 TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 
 
 1. Why do people sacrifice so much more willingly for 
 patriotism than for religion? 
 
 2. Why will people spend themselves more for democracy 
 than for Christian Missions? 
 
 3. What similarities exist between the highest aims of war 
 and of the missionary program? 
 
 4. How would you formulate the justification of missionary 
 work amongst obscure or dying peoples? 
 
 5. What attitude would you take toward a protest such as 
 the following: '*0f course these moral and social reforms 
 are all well enough in their way, but we must not forget 
 that our real mission is to preach the Gospel"? 
 
 6. Discuss the relation of the task of evangelizing (that is, 
 preaching the Gospel to) the world to the task of Christianiz- 
 ing the world. Can either task be said to be more binding 
 than the other? 
 
 152 
 
COURAGE FOR WORLD PURPOSES [VII-c] 
 
 7. How broad do you think Christ's interests would be if 
 he were with us today in body? 
 
 8. What part did Christ give men in the Christianization 
 of the world? 
 
 9. Is it worth while to attempt to establish throughout the 
 world the social institution called "the Church"? Why? 
 What are some of the problems and difficulties in the task? 
 
 10. What arguments would you use with a person who 
 wanted to limit his program to his own home community, to 
 lead him to take into consideration the world? 
 
 11. Draft a statement of the largest and most comprehensive 
 task that your mind can grasp. 
 
 12. From the point of view of winning the whole world to 
 the democracy of God, of which is there greater need today, 
 foreign missionaries, or men and women who stay for work 
 in America? 
 
 153 
 
CHAPTER Vin 
 
 Readiness to Pay the Cost 
 
 The greatest revelation of the War was not the wickedness 
 and depravity of mankind, but its unsuspected capacity for 
 devotion at any cost to ideals and duty that are supreme. 
 This readiness of men and of women both in and behind 
 the lines to undergo sacrifice was surprising and inspiring. 
 A new life has been manifested. Thousands who had lived 
 self-centered lives tasted the joy of abandon to utterly un- 
 selfish service, even unto death. Through it all even children 
 learned that there are times when progress requires the cheer- 
 ful payment of a cost. 
 
 In the light of the stupendous sacrifices crowded into each 
 day of the Great War, we must urge the claims for heroism 
 in the more normal times ahead. The declaration of peace 
 still leaves multifarious enemies of social welfare that must 
 be fought for years to come by means of the united efforts of 
 men and women. Every Christian citizen of the world must 
 gird himself for this struggle and enter the contest each day 
 with fortitude and sacrifice. 
 
 Eighth Week, First Day: The Stigmata of Jesus 
 
 In labors more abundantly, in prisons more abundantly, 
 in stripes above measure, in deaths oft. Of the Jews five 
 times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I 
 beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I sufEered 
 shipwreck, a night and a day have I been in the deep; 
 in journeyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils of rob- 
 bers, in perils from my countrymen, in perils from the 
 Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, 
 in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in 
 labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, 
 in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. Besides those 
 things that are without, there is that which presseth 
 
 154 
 
READINESS TO PAY THE COST [VIII-i] 
 
 upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches. — II Cor. 
 II ; 23-28. 
 
 Violence, exposure, privation — Paul knew what all these 
 were. His physical sufferings had been such that it seemed 
 that he was "always bearing about in the body the dying of 
 Jesus" (II Cor. 4:10). But they were accepted as part of 
 the task. Ordinarily Paul would never think of mentioning 
 them, for where Christ and the Gospel are concerned the 
 sufferings of the flesh are forgotten. 
 
 Those who have followed Paul in world ministry have 
 often had to pay the price of service with their bodies. In 
 the early days of work in Africa a large portion of the time 
 and strength of missionaries was taken up in pushing their 
 way through interminable jungles and pestiferous swamps. 
 As a result they died prematurely by the scores and hundreds, 
 so that for a generation or two on an average every convert 
 cost the life of a European. Within two years of Alackay's 
 arrival in Africa two of his original party of eight had been 
 massacred, two had died of disease, and two had been in- 
 valided home. The first worker on the Gold Coast died 
 within six months ; his two successors died within fourteen 
 months ; and the next two workers died within one month 
 of their arrival. In Zanzibar at least half the men and women 
 sent out died within a year of their arrival on the field. In 
 Japan alone, 1,000 Catholic missionaries and 200,000 converts 
 had died for their faith before modern missions had started. 
 The average martyr death of Christians from the West was 
 over two for each year of the first century of Protestant 
 missions in China. Who would imagine that Mexico could 
 count its martyrs to the extent of eighty-four? James Han- 
 nington's message, "Tell the King that I purchase the road 
 to Uganda with my life, and give my life for those who 
 kill me," shows the spirit that has dominated untold numbers, 
 not only in Africa but in other lands. 
 
 But death is ofttimes easier than life. Can you picture 
 Xavier striding forward for twenty hours over the hot 
 sands to relieve the Parava Christians of Cape Comorin? 
 Or turn to James Gilmour working alone among the nomad 
 Buddhists of Mongolia. Go with him on his twenty-three 
 mile walk through the desert, with swollen and bleeding feet, 
 in order to make possible a personal conversation with the 
 
 155 
 
[VIII-2] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 first Mongol who had shown a desire to be a Christian. 
 Henry Martyn's words, spoken two days after his arrival in 
 Calcutta, "Now let me burn out for God," were prophecies 
 of his seven brief but fruitful years of missionary service. 
 
 And the pioneer converts have their cost to pay as well. 
 "There, take this and that," and down came the big stick 
 of a great-fisted man on Prem Das's back. The angry Hindu 
 landlord was incensed that low-caste Christians should be 
 taught. And so Prem Das went away bleeding and internally 
 injured. His friends advised Prem Das to sue the lordly 
 Brahman. Prosecute? No, on the contrary, Christlike, he 
 forgave his persecutor, and returned to organize the school. 
 Again the ire of the landlord led to a beating, and he was 
 ordered never to show his face again. But Prem Das only 
 went to his friend, the missionary, and said : "Sahib, let me 
 have a dozen first Hindi books. I am going to open the 
 school again, and we are going to keep it open." "But won't 
 it mean more beatings?" "Perhaps, but this is Jesus' work, 
 and I am a Jesus man and, beatings or no beatings, Jesus can 
 and will conquer this Brahman." 
 
 Branded, speared, poisoned, stoned, crucified, morally 
 tempted, ostracized — converts have had to meet the cost of 
 being Christian. 
 
 "From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast" 
 come thrilling accounts of those who have carried about in 
 their body the dying of the Lord Jesus. If a Chinese mail 
 carrier can be found dead on the Kien Yang road, his hands 
 all gashed and bleeding because he had clung till death to the 
 little bundle of foreign letters entrusted to his care, what 
 about the faithfulness of a man whom Christ entrusts with 
 a sacred and eternal message to his fellowmen? Stanley 
 said Mackay faced death — "with calm blue eyes that never 
 winked." May God help us to face the hardships in our path 
 with equal fortitude and courage. 
 
 Eighth Week, Second Day: The Cost of Steward- 
 ship 
 
 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of 
 the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrev^rs; as touching 
 the law, a Pharisee; as touching zeal, persecuting the 
 church; as touching the righteousness which is in the law, 
 found blameless. Howbeit what things were gain to me, 
 
 156 
 
READINESS TO PAY THE COST [VIII-2] 
 
 these have I counted loss for Christ. Yea verily, and I 
 count all things to be loss for the excellency of the knowl- 
 edge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I suffered the 
 loss of all things, and do count them but refuse, that I 
 may gain Christ. — Phil. 3:5-9. 
 
 Stewardship has often been too narrowly interpreted as 
 applying to money alone, when in fact we are trustees of life 
 itself — our time, our talents, our influence, and our property. 
 Paul unhesitatingly placed all these things at the service of 
 the highest. A great career was open to Paul before he 
 started for Damascus. He names points of inherited privi- 
 lege, as well as matters of personal choice, which had already 
 brought him repute and influence. Those things — and the 
 career they opened out for hirii — he counted as that which is 
 thrown to the dogs or the leavings of the table, in comparison 
 with the appropriation of Christ with all His grace and glory. 
 Stewardship of time and talent and life may lead some of 
 us to lay aside careers enticing in themselves, but which are 
 not the great world work God opens out before us. 
 
 But to all of us an enthusiasm for a Christian world will 
 mean a cost in that form of extended personality which we 
 call property. It will mean running one's business with an 
 accounting to God. It will mean a systematic, intelligent in- 
 vestment for God of all surplus beyond one's actual need. 
 
 We have had great leaders in this sense of trusteeship both 
 at home and abroad. Livingstone shortly after his conversion 
 wrote : "Feeling that the salvation of men ought to be the 
 chief desire and aim of every Christian, I resolved that I 
 would give to the cause of missions all that I might earn 
 beyond what I required for bare subsistence." Later he made 
 a declaration even more explicit: "I will place no value on 
 anything I have or may possess, except in relation to the 
 Kingdom of God. If anything will advance the interests of 
 that Kingdom, it shall be given away or kept, only as by giv- 
 ing away or keeping it, I shall most promote the glory of 
 Him to whom I owe all my hopes in time and eternity." 
 William Carey kept for himself and his poor relatives a tenth 
 only of his income, and he and his two companions paid back 
 twenty-fold all that they had ever received from their society. 
 Cyrus Hamlin devoted to his Master all the profit of his 
 genius. With a surplus of $25,000 he built thirteen churches 
 for the American Board in various parts of the Turkish Em- 
 
 157 
 
[VIII-3] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 pire. He turned into the work of the Board more money than 
 he received as salary during the entire period of his service. 
 In fact practically all missionaries definitely relinquish all 
 claim to funds earned beyond their living wage. Thus 
 ■doctors, educators, and missionary specialists of various kinds 
 are annually turning over to Board treasuries every dollar 
 above their modest salaries. It is beginning to dawn on 
 Christians that this kind of cost is not a matter of geography. 
 Why should it be applied to those who go abroad, and not to 
 those who stay at home? 
 
 Christian converts have shown marvelous strength of 
 character in the way in which they have unhesitatingly laid 
 aside inviting careers for the sake of Christ, and have paid 
 the price involved. Let us take Paul Sawayama as a type of 
 many. He was one of the early students from Japan to be 
 educated in this country. The Mikado's Government in 1876 
 offered every inducement in the way of salary to young men 
 returning from, the West. Influential relatives and friends 
 were eager to have him enter this open door to luxury. But 
 Paul Sawayama had formed the vision of a living Japanese 
 Church. He wanted to instil into it such a spirit of growth 
 and independence that it would be free from slavish, feeble 
 leaning on foreign support. He remembered God's promise 
 to those who seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteous- 
 ness, and refused the career which would have given him 
 hundreds, for the shepherding of a little congregation that 
 could pay him but seven dollars a month. But Paul Sawayama 
 still lives on in the independent spirit of the Japanese Church 
 — a spirit which he did much to form. With a world whose 
 needs demand the mobilization of every Christian force, what 
 of prestige or career or funds or leisure are you counting as 
 "refuse" for the joy and privilege of working for deeper 
 values ? 
 
 Eighth Week, Third Day: The Price of Maintaining 
 Spiritual Sensitiveness 
 
 And every man that striveth in the games exerciseth 
 self-control in all things. Now they do it to receive a 
 corruptible crown; but we an incorruptible. I therefore 
 so run, as not uncertainly; so fight I, as not beating the 
 air: but I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage: lest 
 
 158 
 
READINESS TO PAY THE COST [VIII-4] 
 
 by any means, after that I have preached to others, I 
 myself should be rejected. — I Cor. 9: 25-27. 
 
 The soul has its own great warfare if it is going to keep 
 fit for its world task. Paul knew what it was to battle, and 
 he likened the Christian's life over and over again to a war- 
 fare (Rom. 13:12, 13; II Cor. 6:7; Eph. 6:11-17; I Thess. 
 5:8; I Tim. i: 18; II Tim. 2:3, 4). 
 
 Nowadays, apart from the recent war, love's cost is not 
 usually physical death, nor is it accomplished by one supreme 
 act of self-sacrifice. It is rather a series of small renuncia- 
 tions or struggles for victory. It is a dying daiiy (Luke 
 9:23), holding in control our ambitions and secret thoughts 
 to the end of absolute and perfect service. Any one of these 
 things may in themselves seem insignificant, but those who 
 have tried to be faithful and constant in this discipline know 
 that the metaphor of crucifying the flesh with its passions 
 and lusts (Gal. 5:24) is by no means too strong. 
 
 Many times on the mission field a missionary can get no 
 more time with a hungry inquirer than Jesus had with the 
 woman at the well. Such experiences make one want to 
 keep his life at a high level, so as to be ready. If those few 
 minutes are to be the only time that the given person is likely 
 ever to have with an ambassador of Jesus Christ, one would 
 want to say something living and vital, that will change life 
 as Jesus changed that woman's at the well. But why put it 
 off in Africa and India? There are people touching you 
 every day, who need just what your representatives go to 
 give to other lands. A world Christian will see the signifi- 
 cance of opportunity in each little, separate contact, whether 
 it is in China or at home, just as much as the Food Con- 
 servator could see significance for a world war in the leavings 
 on a child's plate. The Kingdom's battlefront is where you 
 are, and demands the price of vigilance in maintaining your- 
 self at your very best. 
 
 Eighth Week, Fourth Day: The Price of a 
 Burdened Heart 
 
 Besides those things that are without, there is that 
 which presseth upon me daily, anxiety for all the churches. 
 Who is weak, and I am not weak? who is caused to 
 stumble, and I burn not? — II Cor, 11:28, 29. 
 
 159 
 
[VIII-4] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 But we were gentle in the midst of you, as when a 
 nurse cherisheth her own children: even so, being affec- 
 tionately desirous of you, we were well pleased to impart 
 unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own 
 souls, because ye were become very dear to us. — I Thess. 
 2:7, 8. 
 
 Paul's solicitude for his converts was not unlike that of 
 a mother. He addresses the untoward Galatians as, "My 
 little children, of whom I am again in travail until Christ 
 be formed in you." '"Now we live," he writes to the 
 Thessalonians, "if ye stand fast in the Lord" (I Thess. 
 3:8). "Ye are in our hearts," he cries to the Corinthians, 
 "to live together — and to die together." Note the passionate 
 words of the twenty-ninth verse above — "Who is weak and I 
 am not weak? Who is made to stumble and I burn not?" 
 In such wonderful ways Paul identified himself with others. 
 
 But some will say, "Does this mean that I must always live 
 at a high tension and never have any of the joy of life?" 
 Well, Jesus did not give this impression to those who were 
 constantly with him. They seemed most impressed with his 
 joy. Nor do missionaries give the impression of being more 
 oppressively serious than other people ; you could not pick 
 them out as being long-faced beyond all others. 
 
 And yet there were times when Jesus cried, "How often 
 would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen 
 gathereth her own brood under her wings!" (Luke 13:34). 
 Similarly, his follower, the dying Xavier, checked before 
 China's closed doors and inaccessible interior, cried, "O rock, 
 rock, when wilt thou open?" 
 
 Certainly anyone with the slightest spiritual sensitiveness 
 must have times when the heart is made very heavy by heathen 
 surroundings. But what about the place right where we are? 
 H we were not so callous and all too blind would not we also 
 have our times of "anxiety for all the churches"? Would 
 there be no situation which would draw forth tender solici- 
 tude, as a mother with her oivn children? 
 
 When something comes into our lives that came into Paul's 
 we, too, shall have our times when we shall look out upon 
 the world's needs with unspeakable pain. The great question 
 for us will then be — how can we recover them, teach them, 
 win them? We, too, shall know what it is to have a passion 
 like Paul's. 
 
 160 
 
READINESS TO PAY THE COST [VIII-5] 
 
 Eighth Week, Fifth Day : The Cost of Prayer 
 
 And in the morning, a great while before day, he rose 
 up and went out, and departed into a desert place, and 
 there prayed. — Mark i : 35. ' 
 
 And it came to pass in these days, that he went out into 
 the mountain to pray; and he continued all night in prayer 
 to God. — Luke 6: 12. 
 
 For many people, almost any cost is easier to pay than that 
 of prayer. It is the highest effort the human spirit can make; 
 it is the putting forth of vital energy ; and many do not love 
 enough to pay the price. The formation and the practice of 
 the habit of prayer in world service is something that is 
 possible behind every closed door. But how we shrink from 
 the investment of time, of concentration, and of sympathy 
 that it requires ! Many would find it easier to give their 
 bodies to be burned, or to bestow all their goods to feed the 
 poor, than to engage in a continuous, intelligent, prevailing 
 prayer life. 
 
 But when we turn to Jesus, we find an example that draws 
 us on to a life of prayer. In him Ave see one whose work 
 was conceived, accomplished, and conserved in communion 
 with God. His great followers, too, have been great in prayer. 
 Judson, finishing his Burmese Bible, took up the last page 
 and, on his knees, dedicated it to God in prayer. James Gil- 
 mour, when he caught the first glimpse of the land for which 
 he was to give his life, a martyr missionary, knelt down and 
 gave thanks to God for a redeemed Mongolia. "I lay in tears," 
 wrote Henry Martyn, "for the unfortunate natives of this 
 country." Dr. John R. Mott, out of his wide experience 
 and after special inquiries into the sources of the spiritual 
 movements that are doing most to vitalize and transform 
 individuals and communities, witnesses : "The workers and 
 leaders who have accomplished most in extending and build- 
 ing up the Kingdom of God have been those who gave to 
 prayer for others and for interests outside of their own lives 
 the foremost place in the use of their time and strength. . . . 
 . At times it has been difficult to discover the hidden spring, 
 but invariably where I have had the time and patience to do 
 so, I have found it in an intercessory prayer-life of great 
 reality."^ 
 
 Intercessors, the Primary Need," p. 2. 
 161 
 
[VIII-6] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Refusal to pay the cost by the Church behind the lines, 
 means defeat in the front-line trenches. We are busy with 
 federations, councils, and continuation committees ; with union 
 movements, surveys, and the mapping out of fields and re- 
 sources. Into these things seriousness and strength of pur- 
 pose is being put, and this marks a real advance. But not 
 until the Church learns to pray with an intensity and devotion 
 more characteristic of its work, will the Kingdom come with 
 power. It is possible even for a five talent man to wrap one 
 of those- talents up in a napkin and" lay it aside from use. 
 How about the capacity for prayer that God has given you? 
 
 Eighth Week, Sixth Day : The Sobering Alternative 
 
 Verily, verily, I say unto you. Except a grain of wheat 
 fall into the earth and die, it abideth by itself alone; but 
 if it die, it beareth much fruit. He that loveth his life 
 loseth it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall 
 keep it unto life eternal. If any man serve me, let him 
 follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant 
 be: if any man serve me, him will the Father honor. — 
 John 12: 24-26. 
 
 One may refuse to pay the price of love; and Jesus points 
 out the inevitable result — fruitlessness. Like a grain of wheat 
 which may be eaten or may be sown, so our lives may be 
 used for present, temporary enjoyment and benefit, or, fore- 
 going self-centered profit, may fall in the furrow which alone 
 yields the hundred-fold fruitage. 
 
 Horace Tracy Pitkin did not hesitate at the choice, either 
 for himself or for his little son. When, during the Boxer 
 Rebellion, with wife and child far ofif in America, murder 
 and foul deeds had at last come to his very door, just before 
 his tragic martyrdom, he called Lao-man, the faithful, to his 
 side and gave one parting message : "Lao-man," he said, "tell 
 the mother of little Horace to tell Horace that his father's 
 last wish was that when he is twenty-five years of age, he 
 shohld come to China as a missionary." 
 
 Spring after spring men sow their choicest grain, instead 
 of selling it in the market, because they know that except it 
 die it abideth alone ; but if it die it beareth much fruit. Ox- 
 ford and Cambridge men did this in the Battle of the Marne. 
 Vacant places on farms, in factories, and in college halls 
 
 162 
 
READINESS TO PAY THE COST [VIII-7] 
 
 show that America made the great choice too. Sacrifice, self- 
 surrender, death are the conditions of the highest Hfe; selfish- 
 ness means abiding alone. The question faces us — What of 
 my life? Am I consuming it for myself? Or am I sowing 
 it deep down for the increase a hundred-fold? To spend 
 one's life for the highest cause that comes one's way is — 
 as some one puts it — to fulfil life's highest destiny, be the 
 years few or many. 
 
 Eighth Week, Seventh Day: Cost, Continuous and 
 Supreme 
 
 To wit, that God was in Christ reconciling the world 
 unto himself, not reckoning unto them their trespasses, 
 and having committed unto us the word of reconciliation. 
 — II Cor. 5: 19. 
 
 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only be- 
 gotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not 
 perish, but have eternal life. — John 3: 16. 
 
 What is it costing God these days? What has it cost 
 God in the past to bring us even where we are? W^ho would 
 dare to answer? And yet we are catching glimpses of the 
 heart of God. As we suffer, not because of wrong that we 
 have done, but that peace or justice or progress may ensue, 
 we gain an insight into the experience of a Christ-like God. 
 Hosea found a new God through his patient suffering for the 
 regeneration of his unfaithful wife. America, through her 
 gift of her best young manhood in the War, through he;: 
 vicarious suffering to bring about a world of better relation- 
 ships, will understand more clearly the cost of God-like love. 
 
 Man has not always believed in God's solidarity with him in 
 all experience. God has been thought of as far off, watching 
 from outside the drama of history, only occasionally making 
 a miraculous thrust into human affairs. Slowly and all too 
 inadequately we are realizing, however, the significance of 
 God's immanence in history. We see him not merely as a 
 sj^mpathetic and well-disposed onlooker, but as an actor in 
 the affairs of men. Above all he is the One who cares, and 
 there is no suffering of ours in which he does HOt share. 
 "In all their afilictioh he was afflicted" (Isa. 63:9). 
 
 Why did God thus enter our lives of sin and failure? Why 
 was the cross ? The answer is that God is involved in his 
 
 163 
 
[VIII-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 inmost life with man, in order that man may be made whole. 
 Good is contagious as well as evil. Just as we are involved 
 one with the other in the consequences of sin, so there is a 
 solidarity between man and man, and between man and God, 
 that makes available for others the wholesome effects of 
 good. 
 
 The cross gives us eyes to see God's will to pay the cost of 
 love. As deepening experience reveals to us the measure 
 of that cost, we realize that such a giving can be answered 
 only by a love in kind. A gratitude that does not cost seems 
 all too inadequate. Jesus tells us we must enter into God's 
 experience of the cross each day. No other reconstructive 
 force is adequate to the perfecting of a world. 
 
 COMMENT FOR THE WEEK 
 
 A generation that has paid the price of loyalty to the cause 
 of world democracy will not respect a church that fails to pay 
 the price of loyalty to her goal — the democracy of God. We 
 certainly shall gain nothing by representing the demands of 
 Christianity in small terms. The cost of being a world 
 Christian is very real and very great. The Church has made 
 a vast mistake if she has permitted us to think otherwise. 
 Jesus never belittled the intensity of the struggle in which 
 his followers were engaged, nor did he make light of the cost 
 of discipleship. He plainly said that the servant need not 
 expect to fare better than the Master. "Ye shall be hated 
 of all men for my name's sake. . . . H they have called the 
 master of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his 
 household?" (Matt. 10:22, 25). We are only beginning to 
 glimpse the price that must be paid, in order to adjust human 
 relationships to a thoroughly Christian standard. 
 
 But we have been learning in the War that selfishness is 
 not the supreme instinct in humanity. Ask the soldiers why 
 they left our country to fight in the War, and they will tell 
 you that it was for world democracy, to free humanity from 
 militarism, for the integrity of all nations — spiritual reasons, 
 every one. It was the idealism of uiiselfish service that 
 mobilized America's energy in the War. Leaders in the suf- 
 frage movement tell us that what women want is not protec- 
 
 164 
 
READINESS TO PAY THE COST [VIII-c] 
 
 tion and segregation from the world's dark tasks, but the 
 chance to share the burdens of thought and toil equally with 
 men. And so Christ was a truer reader of hearts than, alas, 
 his followers have often been, when he based his appeal 
 for men and service upon the deeper, heroic, unselfish motives 
 in human nature, rather than the superficial love of ease and 
 pleasure and success. 
 
 Garibaldi, also, knew men and summoned young Italy to the 
 fight with these burning words : "I do not offer pay, pro- 
 visions, or quarters ; I offer hunger, thirst, forced marches, 
 battles, and death." Said Professor Denney at Edinburgh, in 
 1910 : "When a voice like that is uttered in the Church by 
 men who have the right to utter it, then we can be sure that 
 the thin ranks will fill up again and our King go forth con- 
 quering and to conquer." 
 
 In the perfecting of a world if we would move men deeply 
 we, too, must appeal to heroic, and not to merely selfish, 
 motives. In a day when men are making inconceivable sacri- 
 fices for their ideals of justice and democracy, the only way 
 for the Church to appeal at all is by presenting a more compre- 
 hensive cause requiring still greater devotion. In other words, 
 the Church must return for its regeneration to the kingdom 
 vision and sacrificial devotion of its Founder. The Church 
 must be militant. There must be virility in the venture. We 
 must approach our youth not with the slogan, "Safety first," 
 but with the call to risk all in fresh paths of honor, of glory, 
 and of duty. For the Christianization of the individual, as 
 well as of the whole social order on our globe, will call for 
 more sustained endeavor, more superhuman energy, deeper 
 sacrifice than the War in Europe drew upon. The time has 
 fully passed — if in fact it ever existed — for the Church to 
 win our youth by a soft and easy call to service. 
 
 II 
 
 As we look over the path by which world progress has 
 come it would seem that we must recognize the indispcnsablc- 
 iiess of sacrifice. Whoever really undertakes the task of 
 turning the ideal of the democracy of God into reality will 
 suffer. There is often, of course, that inevitable first cost 
 of separation from those you love for service overseas. When 
 Cyrus Hamlin informed his mother that he had decided to 
 respond to God's call to go abroad for service, she broke 
 
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[VIII-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 down and wept as he had never seen her weep before. But 
 when she recovered her self-control, it was with a willingness 
 to pay the cost: "Cyrus, I have always expected it, and I 
 have not a word to say, although I would have been so happy 
 if I could have had my youngest son with me," Hundreds 
 upon hundreds have been the mothers and the sons who have 
 not rebelled at Christ's stern words : "He that loveth father 
 or mother more than me is not worthy of me" (Matt. lo: Z7)- 
 
 We rejoice at China's progress, but we need our imagination 
 quickened to see what it has cost. Behind this progress we 
 can see Morrison working in his cellar with darkened win- 
 dows. At times he is so ill he can only drag himself across 
 the narrow room. The books upon which the pioneer trans- 
 lator is working are piled about him, while the one Chinese 
 helper that he has been able to secure carries a phial of poison 
 ever with him, that he may end his life in case he is tortured 
 for teaching the foreign-devil. Behind this progress you can 
 also see old Gutzlaf, disguised as a native coolie, and hired 
 out as a cook on a Chinese junk, shrinking ashore under 
 cover of the darkness to distribute the first printed word for 
 Christ from port to port on China's shores. Back of the 
 progress also is the blood of noble martyrs. Not alone those 
 from foreign soil, but thousands of Chinese Christians have 
 laid down their lives. Over large districts of China only two 
 per cent recanted when the death test came during the Boxer 
 Rebellion. What China is today is in large part due to 
 the firmness with which her Christian children bore ruin, 
 torture, and death in order to retain the Pearl of great price. 
 
 Less dramatic, but no less significant, are the burdens to be 
 borne by courageous souls who must bear the brunt of intro- 
 ducing many a social change. It still takes courage in China 
 to leave a daughter's feet unbound. How far dare one follow 
 Western ways in seeking to establish the new type of Chris- 
 tian home? How much obedience is still due to parents? 
 What are one's responsibilities to poor relatives? 
 
 And when in these days every one is reading with more 
 or less intelligence about Armenia, Kurdistan, and Persia, we 
 may well recall how one hundred years ago Smith and Dwight, 
 clothed to resemble Turkish merchants, in native costumes and 
 with faces stained with the juices of a berry, blazed a trail 
 through these lands for civilization. It was only in secret 
 by the light of their evening camp fire that these pioneer 
 
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READINESS TO PAY THE COST [VIII-c] 
 
 missionaries were able to open up for us in authoritative 
 writings the heart of the Turkish Empire. 
 
 In quite another reahn, our immunity from many tropical 
 diseases has been purchased by the dearly-bought experience 
 of hundreds who have gone down before these unconquered 
 scourges. Many a robust constitution broke under the fevers 
 of the tropics and many a white tombstone was raised in 
 Africa and in the Orient before the problems of sanitation 
 and adaptation of the white man's life to the tropics were 
 conquered. Today, however, there are directions for each 
 country which safeguard the health of the missionary as he 
 makes his transition from one hemisphere to another. 
 
 Think also of the almost superhuman toil that has gone into 
 the reduction of languages to writing. Furthermore, the wis- 
 dom of a generation of students has been gathered into a 
 score of language schools, so that the cost of conquering a 
 foreign tongue has been immensely lessened. The modern 
 world worker enters into a vast intellectual heritage in the 
 way of knowledge of customs and of the results of the com- 
 parative study of religions, because of the painstaking re- 
 searches of those who have gone before. 
 
 Ill 
 
 One might as well recognize from the start that the business 
 of becoming a Christian is most difficiilt. Not the intellectual 
 acceptance of certain explanations of theology hard to under- 
 stand and therefore to believe, but the task of translating the 
 spirit and principles of Jesus into the daily life — that is the 
 supreme challenge to each of us. It will cause us to give up 
 many a thing which habit or custom has let others feel is 
 perfectly right. "We know," says a wise leader of the Church, 
 "how unabashed selfishness is in the world and in the church. 
 We know how' many people there are who are lovers of 
 pleasure rather than lovers of God, people who resent it as 
 a kind of insult that they should be asked to give up anything, 
 people who will not part with money, who will not give up 
 their week-ends, who will not come under any kind of obliga- 
 tion that fetters their liberty so that they can do something 
 regularly for the good of the church, people who will not 
 sacrifice an atom of their spare time or of their opportunities 
 for mental culture or even for self-indulgence. They simply 
 
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[VIII-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 will not do it, and they refuse even to look at the idea that 
 it should be done seriously."" 
 
 To many people the cost of discipleship will be the willing- 
 ness to accept the challenge of the commonplace, to do the 
 common thing — yet do it in Jesus' way. These are days 
 when one has been thinking of heroism in terms of physical 
 death, or of one single supreme act of sacrifice. And many 
 men and women who volunteered for non-military service 
 in France were sorely tested by the drudgery of their tasks. 
 Stationed in some small town far from the firing-line, without 
 the stimulus of travel and excitement, asked to sweep out a 
 hut — even though he was a brilliant Ph.D. — many a volunteer 
 was caught in the deadly monotony of the unspectacular, and 
 found himself hardly equal to the price. Many here in 
 America chafed under the burden of a hidden post. It would 
 be easy, they thought, to put on a uniform and go to France. 
 Leading a forlorn hope in battle, saving the guns, creeping 
 up the hillside under a heavy rifle-fire, laying down one's life 
 quickly in a moment of enthusiasm, requires one kind of hero- 
 ism. No less heroic is the facing day by day for thirty 
 years the dangers of a deadly climate, the warding-off of 
 disease and death under scorching heat and chilly cold, and 
 the undergoing of discomforts month after month as many 
 a missionary has done. These avenues for commonplace 
 heroism are still open to tho.se who are willing to enlist for 
 service in non-Christian lands. All, however, must be ready 
 for the steady cost of the Christian life in doing homespun 
 work, in accepting the humble task, in a series of small re- 
 nunciations, each in itself apparently insignificant. 
 
 For the exceptional man, the cost is from a different angle. 
 He is tempted to use his exceptional ability to win for him- 
 self a place where he will be freed from strife and struggle. 
 If, through the possession of ten talents, he could lay his 
 burdens on the poor one-talent members of society, he has 
 felt it legitimate to do so. But Christ stands before him, 
 challenging him to choose the place marked by hardships, 
 and to win through greatest service the greatest recognition. 
 
 "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." How many 
 shrink from the cost that this would involve, or frankly be- 
 lieve it quite impracticable ! "What !" one says, "treat men 
 
 2 James Denney, in "Report of World's Missionary Conference, 1910," Vol. 
 IX, pp. 327, 328. 
 
 168 
 
READINESS TO PAY THE COST [VIII-c] 
 
 as brothers? Love them? Why, three-quarters of mankind 
 are incapable of understanding love and will take advantage 
 of what they consider weakness. Our servants would despise 
 us, our employes and competitors would rob us, and inferior 
 races would rebel against necessary authority. The world 
 would be turned upside down and no property or honor or 
 life would be safe for a single day." Jesus neither ignores 
 nor denies this. "It may be so," he says, "it will be so some- 
 times ; it was so with me." Love sometimes has no material 
 defense, and while mankind remains as it is, love may be 
 imposed upon. "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the 
 midst of wolves" (Matt. io:i6). "In this world ye have 
 tribulation: but be of good cheer*; I have overcome the 
 world" (John 16:33). "Some of you shall they cause to be 
 put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's 
 sake. And not a hair of your head shall perish" (Luke 21 : 
 16-18). Jesus does not obscure the fact that discipleship may 
 mean death — a death, however, that is the open door to life. 
 
 IV 
 
 Does the Church sense the cost it must be ready to meet? 
 Listen to Bhataricharya, an Indian student in the second 
 largest city of our land. One day, walking with an American 
 friend, he happened to remark that he haped India would 
 become Christian. Knowing that he was a Hindu, this state- 
 ment surprised his friend and he asked why he wanted 
 India to becom.e Christian. It turned out that this Indian 
 had come to the conclusion from his university studies that 
 religion in general was economically bad for a country ; that 
 a land would be better off without any religion ; but that if 
 India must have a religion it would be best for it to have 
 Christianity, "because it costs so little." That was the im- 
 pression made on this keen foreign student by church life as 
 he saw it. 
 
 We were staggered at the colossal internecine strife airfongst 
 the nations. But we do well to remind ourselves that part 
 of the responsibility for conditions that could make war 
 possible rests upon a divided Church. To attain reunion will 
 involve a real cost. Manifest narrowness and ancient preju- 
 dices must be laid aside. Each sect has nursed some real 
 and precious experience — an expeiience that all should have — 
 
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[VIII-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 but in holding to its grain of truth it has too often been 
 bHnd to the grains of truth that others have. What each one 
 needs is an awakening of his whole religious nature. 
 
 When this realization of need comes, then each branch of 
 the Church may be ready to acknowledge that others have 
 emphasized elements that can be overlooked only by impover- 
 ishing one's largest life. One denomination, for example, 
 has stood out for the freedom of congregational life. An- 
 other, historically, has laid emphasis on the right of each 
 individual soul to direct communion with God without inter- 
 vention of book, creed, or priest. Still another has acted on 
 the advisability of having an educated ministry, and of certain 
 democratic elements in government. 
 
 In a reaction against Rome some have starved their esthetic 
 sense, and we therefore turn with joy to a church that has 
 ever continued to nurture a sense of beauty and reverence in 
 form and ritual. For many it will go against the grain to 
 give up prejudices against art and ritual in worship — preju- 
 dices which have made much of our American life unneces- 
 sarily ugly. It may cost Puritan pride something to acknov/1- 
 edge that any communion has developed a greater capacity 
 for worship and a finer loyalty to the Church than it pos- 
 sesses. Just as hard, on the other hand, will it be for others 
 to acknowledge that independence and reliance may be de- 
 veloped, as well as very real needs met, by elements of freedom 
 in prayer and worship. We are eager for a church willing 
 to pay the price of bringing together these isolated values 
 and of rearing up a generation able and eager to vibrate in 
 response to the whole gamut of religious experience in worship 
 and in service. We need comprehension in the Church, not 
 so much to make reunion possible, as for the sake of truth 
 and fulness of life. 
 
 The trend of the times indicates that the Church must also 
 face the cost of breaking over old conventions. The present 
 expectation that one man should combine within himself the 
 functions of pastor, teacher, and preacher may have to be 
 given up for a greater differentiation in the ministry. The 
 practical departments of our leading seminaries tell us that 
 thousands of men are laboring to produce two sermons a 
 week where only a few have the preaching gift. Instead 
 of tying the natural preacher down to a single congregation 
 that happens to be best able to pay him, it may become neces- 
 
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READINESS TO PAY THE COST [VIII-c] 
 
 sary to share him with many places. In smaller parishes 
 there may have to be more freedom in frankly reading great 
 sermons. Thus could the clergy be freed from the tyranny 
 of sermonizing, and be able to give time and leadership to 
 making the Church a more dynamic institution. Furthermore, 
 friendly visitation is important, but here again differentiation 
 in the pastoral function is needed. Church members should 
 carry much of this work, so that the time and energy of the 
 one outstanding member of a church's general staff should 
 be conserved for the highest constructive leadership. New 
 times demand new measures and the Church must be ready 
 to pay the cost in alertness, flexibility, and far-seeing adapta- 
 tion of means to ends. 
 
 The clergy must lead in this sacrificial life. If the fire 
 burns intensely in the leader of the parish, it will spread. 
 From one small church the pastor, the organist, and sixteen 
 members of the choir volunteered at once for war service. 
 Is it any wonder that the enthusiasm for meeting national 
 need was contagious through the congregation? Similarly, in 
 days of peace if a lofty, but hardy, life of self-giving is 
 embodied by the leaders of the Church, there will be plenty 
 to follow, and answer to the -call of sacrifice. 
 
 Society must be ready to pay the cost of readjustment ac- 
 cording to Christiaii principles. If Jesus were to come today, 
 he could say, no less than when in Palestine, that the accept- 
 ance of his spirit and his teachings would cause a ferment 
 and a shock right through society. For his teachings would 
 still be new wine which would burst old wine-skins, and go 
 against conservative standards. Men would still find his 
 commandment new. We have to so small an extent embodied 
 his spirit in our social order that his call to do so would 
 still bring "not . . . peace but a sword" (Matt. 10:34), or, as 
 another gospel puts it, would "cast fire upon the earth" (Luke 
 12:49). We are so little like what we should be, that un- 
 questionably we would have to be born again before we could 
 even see in imagination his social ideal. 
 
 We are not without prophetic leaders whose penetrating 
 insight into the social application of Christ's teaching is show- 
 ing us how loyalty to him will mean many a radical change in 
 
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[VIII-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 standard and motive. We begin to be conscious of sin and 
 injustice deep-seated in the very constitution of our social 
 •order. Who among us is ready to follow without compromise 
 the pure standards of Jesus, though it mean a renouncing of 
 long-time accepted values? 
 
 The question must be squarely faced, for example, whether 
 it is Christian ever to use another for personal ends without 
 equal consideration of his welfare and advantage. Does it 
 solve the problem to take some of the money that should 
 have been given to wage-earners, and with it establish welfare 
 work for them? Is the missive and finely articulated in- 
 dustrial, commercial, and financial system, which has grown 
 up in the last three-fourths of a century and which has per- 
 meated all phases of our life, really Christian in its adminis- 
 tration as long as its legal control is in the hands of private 
 persons, who do not think of their responsibilities as social? 
 Is the modern industrial system under which the means of 
 production are all fenced off by private ownership too nearly 
 the foster-mother of a new kind of slavery — a wage slavery, 
 in which men are forced to sell their labor to others in order 
 to gain the right to work? Is a regime under which one is 
 more sure to make a fortune the further removed he is from 
 the actual processes of production, compatible with a regime 
 that gives first place to the one who serves the most? In 
 business should the motive of making money be permitted 
 to remain first and foremost? To what extent is the whole 
 system of relentless competition consistent with the spirit 
 of Jesus? If in non-Christian countries discipleship often 
 means relinquishing fortune and family ties, is it too much 
 to expect that those ambitions should be rooted out of our 
 business and social life which are contrary to the mind of 
 Christ? Is it right that many who are least necessary to 
 society should be most imbursed? If one began to embody 
 the Christian principle that service is superior to being served, 
 or that life is not to be measured by the abundance of posses- 
 sions, what awkward changes would be necessary in our social 
 rewards and in our social conduct? 
 
 Many are answering such questions as these in a way 
 that would, for most of us, mean shouldering a new and 
 heavy cross. For in reality we are at the dav/n of a new 
 reformation, in which the principles and spirit of Jesus are 
 being interpreted for modern life. 
 
 172 
 
READINESS TO PAY THE COST [VIII-c] 
 
 VI 
 
 For each nation the question must ultimately arise as to 
 whether it is willing to pay the cost of being Christian. Al- 
 ready men are saying that no nation with integrity should 
 build itself up at the expense of weaker nations. And as 
 in ordinary business life the private ownership of certain 
 common and public utilities is being discountenanced, the day 
 will undoubtedly come when nations will have to face the 
 same principle and pay the cost of internationalizing Panama, 
 and Gibraltar, and the Suez Canal. 
 
 The cessation of the War brought its great opportunity 
 for nations to pay the price of being Christian. Long before 
 the end, Amelia Josephine Burr put these pointed questions 
 in her poem "The Great Victory" : 
 
 "Thinking of your wasted land, can you leave that land un- 
 
 wasted? 
 ^ Vengeance' cup within your hand, can you put it by untasted ? 
 With the tortures of your living and the faces of your dead 
 Branded in you past forgiving, can you leave the curse un- 
 said?"' 
 
 As in criminology we have passed from punishment a^ 
 vengeance, through control for the sake of correction, to the 
 ideal of complete reclamation of the criminal and his incor- 
 poration in a society reformed to induce less crime, so the 
 question comes to nations whether motives of vengeance shall 
 be supreme, or whether reformed criminal nations shall be 
 received back into a reformed society of peoples. 
 
 Will nations that have the power to control raw materials 
 be willing, as the British Labour Party suggested, that sys- 
 tematic arrangements be made on an international basis for 
 the distribution of available raw material to the different 
 countries, in proportion to their several pressing needs, rather 
 than to their purchasing power? And will the governments 
 in each country be willing to maintain control of the most 
 indispensable commodities, in order that the richer classes 
 may not appropriate them in a competitive market according 
 to their means, but that they may be systematically distributed 
 on the principle of "no cake for anyone until all have bread"? 
 
 3 " The Silver Trumpet," p. 127. 
 
 173 
 
[VIII-cJ MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 Jesus was giving no external, universal, and literal rules 
 when he said to turn the other cheek, to go the two miles, 
 to let the greatcoat go also, and to lend. But he was indicating 
 a principle that, whether in private or in national life, has 
 been all too little tried. There is unquestionably something 
 reformative about friendship that goes forth in service be- 
 yond the demands of mere justice. It costs to do this indi- 
 vidually. It would be still harder for a nation to rise high 
 enough to adopt this method. The spirit back of this method 
 — the readiness to undergo cost to self in order to produce a 
 transformation in an evildoer — is universally incumbent on 
 us. The adaptation of the highest personal ethics to the 
 national realm will cause many an old shibboleth to be laid 
 aside. 
 
 VII 
 
 It is right that one should with steady gaze count the uost 
 of being a Christian. Yet the notable fact is that experience 
 has proved that those who have most truly paid the cost have 
 been least conscious of the sacrifice. "For the joy that was 
 set before him, endured the cross, despising shame" (Heb. 
 12:2) — this was Christ's way of triumphing over trial. Paul 
 kept his eye upon the goal which was so glorious, so impelling 
 that he could say: "Forgetting the things which are behind 
 and stretching forward to the things which are before,^ I press 
 on toward the goal, unto the prize of the high calling of 
 God in Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:13, 14). 
 
 In comparison with a great goal and a high purpose, sacri- 
 fice is as nothing. 'T never made a sacrifice," said Hudson 
 Taylor in later years, looking back over a life in which to an 
 unusual extent this element had predominated. Hudson Tay- 
 lor found that the compensations that followed any apparent 
 sacrifice were so real and lasting that he "came to see that 
 giving up is inevitably receiving when one is dealing heart 
 to heart with God." 
 
 Similarly Livingstone said : "I do not mention these priva- 
 tions as if I considered them to be sacrifices; for I think 
 that the word ought never to be applied to anything we can 
 do for Him who came down from heaven and died for us." 
 And again, "If God, in his great mercy, lead me in His way, 
 to me there is little worth living for but the going onward 
 with His blessed work. Of course it is wrong to risk one's 
 
 174 
 
READINESS TO PAY THE COST [VIII-c] 
 
 life, but to carry one's life in one's hand is what other soldiers, 
 besides those of the Cross, do habitually." 
 
 John Coleridge Patteson, the famous English oarsman, who 
 was murdered by South Sea Islanders, thus winning the name 
 "Martyr of Melanesia," spoke as follows of the kind of person 
 needed for world service : "Earnest, bright, cheerful fellows, 
 without that notion of 'making sacrifices' so perpetually occur- 
 ring to their minds, would be invaluable. You know the kind 
 of men, who have got rid of the conventional notion that more 
 self-denial is needed for a missionary than for a sailor or 
 soldier, who are sent anyvrhere and leave home and country 
 for years, and think nothing of it because they go on duty." 
 
 It is possible to draw stimulus out of the very difficulties 
 of the work and to think of hardships as things not to be 
 endured but to be ignored. Much depends on the attitude we 
 bring to our task and the devotion with which we pursue it. 
 The soldiers at the front did not talk of sacrifice. "Bad luck, 
 old fellow, you have been hard hit," said a companion in 
 arms to an unshaved peasant picked up by an ambulance in 
 France, both arms gone. "No, I gave my life to France. She 
 has taken only my arms." Wealthy, cultured women, who 
 never did a day's work in their lives, were seen in the canteens 
 scrubbing floors and serving tables. "Sacrifice?" they ex- 
 claimed. "We are happier than we have ever been before." • 
 
 Can one doubt that the loving life is vastly more satisfying 
 than the selfish life can ever be? In spite of difficulties, hard- 
 ships, and trials, the life spent for others is even here and now 
 infinitely more rich and significant than a selfish life can 
 possibly be. The Christian knows that selfishness is an inevi- 
 table limitation of life, and love just as inevitably is its 
 enlargement. 
 
 Then, too, are we going even to name the hardships of 
 the peaceful spread of the democracy of God in the presence 
 of those who hate given their lives for its spread through 
 war? Ten score Christians from the West were martyred 
 during the first century of Protestant missions in China, but 
 that is as nothing compared v/ith the toll of consecrated lives 
 taken by a single day's fighting in France. We were told 
 about a mother, with three sons killed in battle, who with 
 radiant face gave her fourth to face wounds and death at 
 country's call. Why, then, should a Christian mother flinch 
 from allowing her child to make a peaceful journey overseas 
 
 175 
 
[VIII-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 to undertake constructive work of exceptional scope and 
 power for the highest of world enterprises? If it was not 
 waste for the flower of our colleges to die for democracy, is 
 it waste for the best to live for the extension of that which 
 alone can make democracy safe? In the presence of the 
 millions who have lived the stern and simple life in order that 
 Red Cross and Liberty Loans may be supported, we blush to 
 mention the paltry sum of one dollar and twenty-two cents 
 which is, at present, the average church member's contribution 
 to the Kingdom overseas. We have been living at a time 
 when men saw that it is quality of life, not quantity, that really 
 matters ; when death was but an incident in the great fact 
 of eternal life ; when the very indifference to human flesh 
 made men assured that there was something vastly more. 
 Men at the front had it out with death ; they counted the cost ; 
 and were living from high principle and sense of sacred duty. 
 By all means, let us be ready to pay the cost of being a 
 Christian, but let us not be over conscious of the cost. 
 
 What the noblest souls crave is not recognition of their 
 sacrifice, but that the cause for which they suffered shall be 
 upheld and carried forward. Just this is the cry voiced by 
 Colonel John McCrae: 
 
 "In Flanders fields the poppies blow 
 Between the crosses, row on row 
 That mark, our place; and in the sky 
 The larks, still bravely singing, fly 
 Scarce heard, amidst the guns below. 
 We are the dead. Short days ago 
 We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, 
 Loved and were loved, and now we lie 
 In Flanders fields. 
 
 Take up our quarrel v/ith the foe ! 
 To you, from failing hands, w.e throw 
 The torch. Be yours to hold it high. 
 If ye break faith with us who die 
 We shall not sleep, though poppies grow 
 In Flanders fields." 
 
 TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 
 
 I. "I count all things but loss for the excellency of the 
 knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." If some person should 
 
 176 
 
READINESS TO PAY THE COST [VIII-c] 
 
 say to you that this in the mouth of a modern church member 
 is pure cant, how would you meet his criticism? 
 
 2. What does the modern Christian lose and what does he 
 gain by professing Christianity? 
 
 3. What did Christ teach that his disciples should lose and 
 should gain? 
 
 4. Do the last two questions indicate that Christianity is at 
 its core selfish? How could you show that it is not? 
 
 5. Give some example of where appeal to heroism has 
 brought a great response. 
 
 6. Give several illustrations of progress that has come (a) 
 without sacrifice, (b) with sacrifice, 
 
 7. What did it cost Israel as a nation to become ready for 
 international service? In Egypt? In the wilderness? As a 
 kingdom? In captivity? After the Restoration? 
 
 8. In what ways have we as a nation paid the cost of prepa- 
 ration for international service? 
 
 177 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 A Sense of Vocation 
 
 Resolve, power, fruitfulness develop in that life which is 
 conscious of a call from God. No Christian can come to his 
 greatest world significance without a keen sense of close 
 personal relationship to God and of ready response to his will. 
 
 As we look through the Old and New Testaments we find 
 God laying his hand on one man after another, calling him to 
 some special task — for each piece of work is special for some 
 man. Now it is a herdsman, now a courtier, who is called — 
 men who, like the disciples, come from every rank of society 
 and possess all grades of ability. The Bible shows us how 
 God has used men and women of every kind to do his will 
 and gives us the assurance that he is still calling helpers of 
 the most varied kind. The world Christian will not be one 
 to drift into his place in life, but will be ready to fulfil the 
 conditions which will enable him to perceive his vocation from 
 God. 
 
 Ninth Week, First Day: Abraham— A Call to 
 Enlarged Horizons 
 
 By faith Abraham, when he was called, obeyed to go 
 out unto a place which he was to receive for an inherit- 
 ance; and he went out, not knowing whither he went. 
 By faith he became a sojourner in the land of promise, 
 as in a land not his own, dwelling in tents, with Isaac 
 and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. . . . 
 These all died in faith, not having received the promises, 
 but having seen them and greeted them from afar. — Heb. 
 II : 8, 9, 13. 
 
 There is something distinctly modern in the way In which 
 Abraham was called forth to "a land not his own." The 
 pressure came on him to break with old ties, old associations, 
 old ways of life, and set out for another land. Such a call still 
 
 178 
 
A SENSE OF VOCATION [IX-i] 
 
 comes literally to those world Christians who, as missionaries 
 or as pioneers in commerce, feel led to serve God in other 
 lands. They, too, know what it is to set one's face toward 
 a distant and unfamiliar land. But in another way this call 
 comes to each of us, not necessarily to change our abode or 
 our outward mode of life, but to enlarge our horizon, to live 
 in interest and imagination in other lands than our own. It 
 was no easy matter for Abraham to set out from the old, 
 familiar, luxuriant life of nature and of man on that rich 
 alluvial land between the Tigris and Euphrates. May we on 
 our part not hesitate, when we hear God's call, to enter 
 through knowledge and sympathy into lands that are not our 
 own. 
 
 We note, furthermore, that "he went out, not knowing 
 whither he went." These are the circumstances under which 
 God's call often comes to us. We have an unmistakable feel- 
 ing that God is leading us away from our present manner of 
 life or our present plans. The direction we are to take is 
 plain, but what that direction is to lead to is by no means 
 plain. It took faith for Abraham and it still takes faith for 
 any man to launch out from old moorings when the next 
 port is unknown. Faith rises to the highest when without 
 sight we obey — when we follow truth and righteousness with- 
 out fear as to the Spirit's leading. The significant factor in 
 such situations is the confidence that there is Someone who is 
 going along as guide. 
 
 "Lead, kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom, 
 
 Lead thou me on ! 
 The night is dark, and I am far from home ; 
 
 Lead thou me on ! 
 Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see 
 The distant scene — one step enough for me." 
 
 But the most striking clause in these verses is the following : 
 "Abraham, when he was called, obeyed." Back of this simple 
 sentence are some fundamentals that should characterize every 
 world Christian of the present day. It is plain that Abraham 
 was in touch with God ; he was living so that he could hear 
 the call ; it was a natural and normal thing for God to speak ; 
 and when God had once spoken, there was unhesitating 
 obedience. An imperative need in these days is that each 
 
 179 
 
[IX-2] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 one should have a vivid realization of God. If God does 
 not seem close to you now — even if you have never had this 
 experience — remember that this is your birthright as a child 
 of God. And if response to the inward leading is hard, recall 
 that long line since Abraham whose ears have caught the 
 voice of the living God. After so many examples of faith 
 down through the ages, it ought to be easier for us than for 
 the man of Ur to detect and to trust the still small voice 
 within. 
 
 Ninth Week, Second Day : Gideon— A Call to Those 
 Who Criticize 
 
 And the angel of Jehovah came, and sat under the oak 
 which was in Ophrah, that pertained unto Joash the 
 Abiezrite: and his son Gideon was beating out wheat in 
 the winepress, to hide it from the Midianites. And the 
 angel of Jehovah appeared unto him, and said unto him, 
 Jehovah is with thee, thou mighty man of valor. And 
 Gideon said unto him, Oh, my lord, if Jehovah is with 
 us, why then is all this befallen us? and where are all his 
 wondrous works which our fathers told us of, saying, Did 
 not Jehovah bring us up from Egypt? but now Jehovah 
 hath cast us off, and delivered us into the hand of Midian. 
 And Jehovah looked upon him, and said. Go in this thy 
 might, and save Israel from the hand of Midian: have 
 not I sent thee? And he said unto him. Oh, Lord, where- 
 with shall I save Israel? behold, my family is the poorest 
 in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house. 
 And Jehovah said unto him. Surely I will be with thee, 
 and thou shalt smite the Midianites as one man. . . . But 
 the Spirit of Jehovah came upon Gideon; and he blew a 
 trumpet; and Abiezer was gathered together after him. — 
 Judges 6: 11-16, 34. 
 
 Could any paragraph be more full of complaint and doubt 
 than Gideon's first response to the angel? "If Jehovah is with 
 us" seems to indicate some doubt as to God's continued care. 
 What other explanation was there of all that had befallen 
 them? "And where are all his wondrous works" definitely 
 raises the question of God's present interest or power. "But 
 now Jehovah hath cas-t us off" seems as definitely to be the 
 expression of one who had lost his faith in God's dependable- 
 ness. 
 
 And yet something else was there — righteous indignation, 
 180 
 
A SENSE OF VOCATION [IX-2] 
 
 courage, sympathy with his fellow-Israelites, and a longing to 
 help. These were really signs of God's presence in his life, 
 and Gideon had not learned to interpret them. For God is not 
 a far-away, external being. The very faith and hope and 
 love within us are tokens of Jehovah's presence, unrecognized 
 .and unreleased though he may be. 
 
 Yet somehow in the midst of his impetuous criticism., 
 Gideon became aware that he had a part to play in making 
 conditions right. The call came to the complainer to become 
 the helper — "Go in this thy might and save Israel." Then 
 the excuses began. When he saw that he had a definite rela- 
 tionship to the meeting of the need of his nation, he pleaded 
 his own unfitness and inadequacy, the obscurity of his family, 
 his own lack of all prestige. How many times we find our- 
 selves, like Gideon, pessimistic, laying blame on others, gen- 
 erally discontented with the way the world is going, even 
 doubting whether God is very much interested in us after all. 
 If we stopped to listen, do you not think that we, too, would 
 hear God calling us to take a hand, to do our part to make 
 things right? 
 
 And then when God had opened up the vision of our own 
 individual responsibility as world Christians in all the great- 
 ness of his thought for us, we would be very likely to say: "O, 
 what experience have I had? Who am I to attempt this? 
 Nobody knows me. Even amongst my friends no one has 
 picked me out as great." Here we must learn Gideon's lesson. 
 God was not sarcastic in following up his complaints vrith, 
 "Go in this thy might and save Israel." God really saw in 
 Gideon, as in all of us, capacity that he could use. The very 
 explosion of complaint showed an underlying solicitude for 
 the highest welfare of his people. But in calling Gideon God 
 knew that there was something more than any might that 
 was in Gideon himself. "Have not I sent thee?" Under these 
 circumstances was it not clear that Gideon could count on 
 being empowered above his natural strength? "Surely I will 
 be with thee." Here is the justification of the humblest of 
 us in attempting the greatest task to which God calls us. 
 Without this assurance, how dare we launch out at all? 
 
 The final secret of Gideon's strength is found in the last 
 verse of our reading. The margin puts it, "The spirit of the 
 Lord clothed itself with Gideon." If the part God is calling 
 you to play in the world's work seems overwhelmingly greater 
 
 181 
 
[IX-3] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 than you are fitted for, remember that God is ever clothing 
 himself upon those who heed when he says : "Have not I sent 
 thee? Surely I will be with thee." 
 
 Ninth Week, Third Day: Amos— A Call to the 
 Unconventional 
 
 Then answered Amos, and said to Amaziah, I was no 
 prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was a herds- 
 man, and a dresser of sycomore-trees: and Jehovah took 
 me from following the flock, and Jehovah said unto me. 
 Go, prophesy unto my people Israel. — Amos 7: 14, 15. 
 
 This desert-trained man of Tekoa was able to hear a call 
 which led him to break over the conventions of his time and 
 become the founder of a new order of prophecy. Heretofore 
 there had been guilds of men, "sons of the prophets," as they 
 were called, who made their living by prophesying. To the 
 insinuation of Amaziah that Amos was a professional and 
 could work wherever expediency dictated, Amos replied that 
 something higher than custom or gain was directing his life. 
 
 Could anything have been more unexpected? Here was a 
 herdsman of desert sheep, a "pincher" of a fig-like fruit 
 eaten only by the poor ! Yet God called him, with all his rude 
 attire and serious face, to confront the self-indulgent luxury 
 and the immorality of the Northern Kingdom. 
 
 Are we to draw the conclusion that education and training 
 are not essential for God's service? No, but we may see how 
 he has many ways of fitting men to do his will. The solitude 
 of the fields and plains of Judah was the school of Amos. 
 Can you possibly have had less opportunity? 
 
 While he was engaged in his regular work, God's call came 
 to him. No one could call his new task a pleasing one. To 
 charge men of position with injustice and oppression; to sound 
 God's doom upon the indifference of the people was scarcely 
 an inviting or a hopeful venture. But the basal fact was 
 that God had chosen him, and that meant unhesitating obedi- 
 ence. 
 
 Some of us are poor, untrained as universities count train- 
 ing, and living away from the centers of power or luxury. 
 Let us remember that God has schools of many kinds and that 
 the world has a crying need for those who possess clear, un- 
 clouded moral judgment and have hearts attuned to catch 
 
 182 
 
A SENSE OF VOCATION [IX-4] 
 
 the mind of God. Let your meditations go out, as did those 
 of Amos, to kingdoms that are not your own. Give inter- 
 national scope to your spiritual hunger and insight and con- 
 victions, as did this humble desert herdsman. Be not abashed 
 or unfaithful, if God takes you from behind the flock. 
 
 Ninth Week, Fourth Day: Isaiah — Beholding the 
 Spiritually Real 
 
 In the year that king Uzziah died I sav/ the Lord sit- 
 ting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and his train filled 
 the temple. Above him stood the seraphim: each one had 
 six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain 
 he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one 
 cried unto another, and said. Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah 
 of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the 
 foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him 
 that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then 
 said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man 
 of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of 
 unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, Jehovah 
 of hosts. 
 
 Then flew one of the " seraphim unto me, having a 
 Hve coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs 
 from off the altar: and he touched my mouth with it, 
 and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity 
 is taken away, and thy sin forgiven. And I heard the 
 voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who 
 will go for us? Then I said, Here am I; send me. And 
 he said. Go, and tell this people. Hear ye indeed, but un- 
 derstand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. — Isa. 
 6: 1-9. 
 
 If world friendship is to be most significant, there must 
 have come to us as to Isaiah a vision of the great realities 
 back of our visible world. To the ancient prophet came a 
 very vivid realization of God in all his majesty and exaltation. 
 He saw God as a great king on his throne. About him were 
 beings alive to his glory and ever ready to serve him. Behind 
 the visible, Isaiah saw activity, service, and appreciation all 
 centering in God. This world will never have its fullest 
 meaning for us until we, too, can see God back of everything, 
 and are impelled to join in the praise, "Holy, holy, holy, is 
 Jehovah of hosts." 
 
 Very true to our own experience is Vv^hat followed. Kow 
 
 183 
 
[IX-5] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN \ 
 
 I 
 often have we begun our prayer v/ith praise and adoration of i 
 our Father. As our minds dwelt on his purity, his holiness, his \ 
 love, his character, a sense of our own unworthiness has 
 almost inevitably come over us, and we have passed naturally ; 
 into confession. With Isaiah we acknowledge that we are i 
 men with unclean lips. ; 
 
 But we never see God in his fulness if our experience ' 
 stops here. For, since Jesus revealed the Father, each one | 
 of us may have the wonderful sense of forgiveness and 
 cleansing that was pictured by Isaiah as a seraph touching ■ 
 his lips with a live coal, so that his iniquity was taken away ; 
 and his sin purged. Normal prayer still passes through the \ 
 stages of adoration, thanksgiving, confession with a sense of j 
 forgiveness, and on to aspiration and petition. 
 
 Prepared in such a way, Isaiah was able to perceive the -i 
 same call that is coming to every individual today. The world ; 
 that we see is out of harmony with the world that lies back ; 
 of it. Conditions as they are, come short of conditions as j 
 God wants them to be. A great insistent need is ever present, i 
 And most of us do not see this need, nor hear the call, nor 
 find our place and mission in the world. The call to be 
 world Christians comes when we have caught some vision \ 
 of the contrast between what seems to be, and what through i 
 God can be; and when we have become aware of that wonder- i 
 ful freedom and release of powers and energies which result J 
 from forgiveness and cleansing. We are living in a busy , 
 age when it is easy to leave God out of account. Why not 
 definitely determine to fulfil the conditions which may bring 
 to us, as to Isaiah, the life-transforming vision of the glory 
 and the reality of our God? 
 
 Ninth Week, Fifth Day; Jeremiah — Inspiration 
 from a Planned Life j 
 
 Now the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, Be- •! 
 fore I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before 
 thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee; I 
 have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations. Then 
 said I, Ah, Lord Jehovah! behold, I know not how to ^ 
 speak; for I am a child. But Jehovah said unto me, Say j 
 not, I am a child; for to whomsoever I shall send thee 
 thou shalt go, and whatsoever I shall command thee i 
 thou shalt speak. Be not afraid because of them; for 
 
 184 
 
A SENSE OF VOCATION [IX-5] 
 
 I am with thee to deliver thee, saith Jehovah. Then 
 Jehovah put forth his hand, and touched my mouth; and 
 Jehovah said unto me. Behold, I have put my words in 
 thy mouth: see, I have this day set thee over the nations 
 and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down 
 and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. — 
 Jer. 1:4-10. 
 
 To be selected at all by God for a certain task would seem 
 to be assurance enough. But somehow there comes to us 
 an added confidence, when we know that the choice has been 
 of long standing. Jeremiah must have felt the definiteness 
 and urgency of the call all the more, when told that this had 
 been God's thought for him from his very birth. 
 
 If the very hairs of our heads are numbered, if not a 
 sparrow falls to the ground without the Father's knowing it, 
 if God takes interest in the individual as a woman in a lost 
 coin or a shepherd in a lost sheep, then may the assurance 
 that came to Jeremiah be ours as well. We, too, are not here 
 by chance, and the investment of our lives is not a matter 
 of indifference. God has sanctified us from the very begin- 
 ning for some task that awaits our doing. 
 
 Those of older years know how true this is to experience. 
 As we traversed life's way the path did not always seem 
 plain. Sometimes we were turned from a goal we had set 
 for ourselves by some slight failure or apparent lack of oppor- 
 tunity. And then later on would come an opening we had 
 not sought, the gentle inward pressure would urge us toward 
 this open door, and a host of things in our past lives would 
 fall into their places, showing how all along we were being 
 fitted for this very thing. We are often strengthened to take 
 up an unexpected and difficult task by perceiving how the 
 past has been a preparation for the new call of God. Joseph, 
 in Egypt, looking back over his life could reassure his 
 brothers and say : "So now it was not you that sent me hither, 
 but God" (Gen. 45:8). 
 
 By no means a general, but yet a very natural, experience 
 in the face of some great call of God is the feeling of inade- 
 quacy, of immaturity. Moses felt it. Gideon felt it. Jonah 
 and Jeremiah had it. To us in our day comes doubt as to 
 health, the capacity for guiding men, the courage to endure 
 hardship, the power to acquire a foreign language. This 
 sense of disproportion between task and agent does not come, 
 
 185 
 
[IX-6] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 however, to everyone. But to all alike can come the rich 
 assurance that God is with us, that we do not .enter upon the 
 task alone. Within us is the Source of life, within us is the 
 Kingdom of God; all needed power is available. The great 
 Pilot will send us where we are to go ; he will give us words 
 to speak; he will outline our task as the days go on. 
 
 Many a Christian has responded to a call with just such 
 faith as God asked Jeremiah to have, and what have seemed 
 like veritable miracles have resulted. In these days, mo- 
 mentous with need and opportunity, the v/orld Christian 
 may weir shrink before complicated situations, delicate adjust- 
 ments, unprecedented tasks. Let such a one read over many 
 times God's promise to Jeremiah and apply its principle to 
 himself. 
 
 Ninth Week, Sixth Day: Paul — Courage from 
 Life's Interpretation 
 
 It was the good pleasure of God, who separated me, 
 even from my mother's womb, and called me through his 
 grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him 
 among the Gentiles. 
 
 For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet 
 to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church 
 of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am. 
 
 But thanks be unto God, who always leadeth us in 
 triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest through us the 
 savor of his knowledge in every place.— Gal. i: 15; I Cor. 
 15:9, 10; II Cor. 2: 14. 
 
 Paul, also, had the conviction that came to Jeremiah, namely, 
 that he had been set apart by God from his birth for a certain 
 task. See how closely his very words parallel those of Jere- 
 miah. This assurance is borne in upon him as he looks back 
 in reflection upon the incidents of his life. In this conscious- 
 ness of mission, Paul was like his Master who said: "To this 
 end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the 
 world" (John 18: 2)7)- 
 
 The additional stimulus we gain from Paul's vocation is in 
 noting what a source of confidence and hope and assurance 
 it is to him. The very difficulty of the task of transforming 
 Saul the persecutor into Paul the apostle makes him feel that 
 God must have had a purpose through him which he does not 
 
 186 
 
A SENSE OF VOCATION [IX-7] 
 
 mean should fail. When Paul sees how the pride of a bigoted 
 Pharisee has been humbled, how deeply-ingrained prejudices 
 have been overcome, how a blasphemer of the Christ has been 
 transformed, and an ardent persecutor of Christians led to 
 be an apostle, he renews his courage. Such obstacles would 
 not have been overcome unless God were very definitely 
 meaning to use his life. 
 
 Are there not many of us who may find a source of strength 
 and comfort for our further life in just such a reflection on 
 the way God has brought us to where we are? For us to be 
 where and what we are seems nothing less than a miracle. 
 Are we going to disappoint God who has brought us thus far ? 
 Or shall we go on with him, realizing that "by the grace of 
 God I am what I am"? As the Children of Israel took cour- 
 age from rehearsing Jehovah's providences throughout their 
 history and loved to speak of him as the God of Abraham, 
 of Isaac, and of Jacob, so may we take strength from thinking 
 of God as the one who has brought us through the particular 
 life-history we have had. As we stand here today, faced 
 possibly with some difficult task, confronted it may be by 
 some open door through which we see a career that seems 
 beyond our power, let us be assured that God does not at this 
 late point in our career mean that failure should come to his 
 design for us. Surely we may have faith in him who has 
 led us thus far. 
 
 Ninth Week, Seventh Day: The Heritage of j 
 
 Christ's Chosen 1 
 
 And the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own 
 
 sheep by name, and leadeth them out. When he hath j 
 
 put forth all his ov^rn, he goeth before them, and the sheep j 
 
 follow him: for they know his voice. — John 10:3, 4. j 
 
 Ye did not choose me, but I chose you, and appointed : 
 you, that ye should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit 
 should abide: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father 
 in my name, he may give it you. — John 15: 16. 
 
 i 
 
 It was a big, practical world task that Jesus came to ac- ' 
 
 complish, and each one of us is called to join in the work. ; 
 
 None of us are to have self-chosen tasks, for Jesus has no , 
 
 uncalled servants. He has chosen and appointed each with a 1 
 
 187 ^ 
 
IIX-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 purpose. In these verses one may renew again his conviction 
 that God thinks of each as an individual and again may deepen 
 his sense of personal call. 
 
 And what more inspiring goal for life could there be than 
 the promises he gives to those who respond to his choosing — a 
 productive life, work of eternal significance, and spiritual 
 insight so that asking from God shall mean receiving? 
 
 COMMENT FOR THE WEEK 
 
 As leaves driven about by an autumn wind settle down 
 without any inherent force or guidance, so all too many are 
 blown into their places by the force of mere circumstance. 
 Chance-directed imitation determines the life-work; somQ 
 fancy as to expected rewards determines the profession; or 
 possibly the sheer force of gravity makes one drop down in 
 an unrefiective way into a certain niche. Thousands of edu- 
 cated men and women, themselves Christian and members of 
 Christian communities, are slow to realize that they have any 
 responsibility for conditions in the world, and settle down 
 haphazard, with no alertness or expectation of a call from 
 God. Efficiency experts tell us that seven out of every ten 
 men are wrongly placed, and that most men are utilizing only 
 about one-third of their mental and spiritual force. This 
 condition of maladjustment and of indifferent drift is due in 
 part to the fact that men and women are not interpreting 
 their life-work in terms of God's will. 
 
 The word, "called," has become too narrowed in its applica- 
 tion. It seems all right to speak of a man being "called" to 
 the ministry, or "called" to be a fofeign missionary; but we 
 rarely think of a person as being called to be a banker, or 
 diplomat, or merchant, or teacher. On the other hand the 
 word "vocation" has lost much of the sacredness of its 
 original meaning, so that one even hears the phrase "choosing 
 one's vocation," as though you could choose that to which 
 you are called. We are right in applying the word "vocation" 
 to all work of whatever kind, which Christians do in response 
 to God's guidance, but we are wrong in leaving out of our 
 consciousness the original implication of the word — that God 
 has a purpose for every single one of his children. That you 
 
 i88 
 
A SENSE OF VOCATION [IX-c] 
 
 do not recognize the vocation or call from God does not mean 
 that he has no plan. For even of Cyrus God could say, "I 
 girded thee, though thou hast not known me" (Isa. 45:5). 
 Consciously or unconsciously God is girding you for some 
 specific work, in the doing of which you will find your highest 
 self-realization and the world will receive its greatest service. 
 
 II 
 
 There is one primary and universal call, however, that comes 
 to every Christian. Until one has heard this and responded 
 absolutely to it one can hardly be in the proper frame of 
 mind or heart to entertain any more specific call. The uni- 
 versal vocation is that we submit our spirits to the one end 
 of developing a perfected society made up of Christ-like per- 
 sonalities. Jesus put it this way : "Seek ye first the kingdom 
 of God." Blessed is that youth who, at student conference 
 or in the quiet influence of a Christian home, has found God's 
 Spirit pressing home on him the primary obligation of conse- 
 crating his life — no matter in what concrete expression — to 
 the service of God. This is the great and fundamental de- 
 cision of one's life. The simple yet momentous questions are 
 just these: "Will I accept God's call to live for him, and 
 make this consideration dominating? Is there anything that 
 will really count more for the world than for me to do the 
 will of God? Is there any task more supreme than finding 
 out his plan and yielding myself to its fulfilment?" 
 
 You may choose your life-work yourself and then decide 
 to serve God as well as you can through this activity. Or 
 you may decide to serve God unhesitatingly and absolutely, 
 whatever this may involve, and in particular even in the 
 specific life-work that he shall open up. There is a vast 
 difference between these two procedures. To choose our work 
 first and then to decide to serve God as best we can in this 
 work is reversing the order approved by Jesus. It is not 
 enough that we make the decision to serve God faithfully in 
 the place where we are. For that place itself should be de- 
 termined by his call to us. Our specific life-work will absorb 
 most of our energy. It is supremely important that this great 
 outflow of life shall be along the course he has chosen for 
 our life. Mackay, an engineer in Scotland, held that his life 
 had been given to him to use for Christ. That question once 
 
 189 
 
[IX-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 settled, it was not difficult for him, when the information was 
 before him, to decide lo use his engineering talent in Uganda. 
 
 Ill 
 
 But we are not to assume that such a primal decision will 
 land each person on the foreign field, for God's calls are many 
 in kind. It may mean a vocation right here at home, identify- 
 ing our lives in residential friendship with the immigrants 
 or the mountaineers of some needy section of our own coun- 
 try different from our own. It may mean sharing our privi- 
 leges with communities from amongst our 12,000,000 fellow- 
 citizens of a darker skin. For some mother it may mean 
 opening the door of her home to foreign students for simple 
 Christian fellowship about the hearth-fire. Our country is 
 full of opportunity to stand against class opposition and to 
 show, through practical deeds as well as attitude of mind, 
 the truth that we are members one of another, God may call 
 some to be teachers, religious educational directors, organ- 
 izers of a federated church movement, or to take up medicine, 
 commerce, trade, or art. "Every tree is a challenge to us," 
 says our Secretary of the Interior, "and every pool of water 
 and every foot of soil. The mountains are our enemies. We 
 must pierce them and make them serve. The wilful rivers 
 we must curb; and out of the seas and air renew the life of 
 the earth itself." 
 
 Any one of these works, so necessary for the welfare of 
 society, is just as worthy as the other — providing one is called 
 to it. One can be a world Christian in the smallest hamlet 
 of America. Reading, prayer, giving, all the manifold forms 
 of holding the ropes for^ those who have gone abroad, are 
 ways in which one may express one's interest in the world. 
 "It seems as if some were called to China, or Africa, or India, 
 for God, and others were called no less truly to God for 
 China, or Africa, or India, or rather for the world." Their 
 place may be at home ; their work can be for the world. For 
 those who stay and those who go, "the field is the world" — 
 not the distant portions only, but the whole. 
 
 And even if one feels called to go abroad, there are many 
 channels, into any one of which your call may lead you. Some 
 will be serving God in sugar or rubber plantations in Cuba 
 or South America ; others will be building bridges in Burma ; 
 another will be a dentist in Kashmir. Consulates, banks, 
 
 190 
 
A SENSE OF VOCATION [IX-c] 
 
 commercial posts, educational positions make their legitimate 
 call as well as does that magnificent vocation — ambassadorship 
 for Christ. 
 
 What we are here trying to say is that this primary and 
 fundamental decision to serve God absolutely and to use our 
 lives for his glory, does not necessarily settle the question 
 of the specific channel through which our lives are to flow. 
 Any one who has read the lives of Nicholson or General 
 Gordon or the books of Donald Hankey can see how these 
 men served God nobly through the soldier's life abroad. 
 Anyone who has read of Edwardes of Peshawar or of John 
 and Henry Lawrence of the Panjab has obtained inspiring 
 glimpses into lives that put the Kingdom first as administra- 
 tors of the British Government in India. The Japanese em- 
 ployed Captain L. L. Janes as an educator, but the wonderful 
 Kumamoto Band — a group of students who came to be among 
 Japan's most distinguished Christians — was sufficient evidence 
 as to where his primal loyalty was. What a tremendous gain 
 for the Kingdom would it be if every man from our Christian 
 homes and schools who went abroad in commercial, govern- 
 mental, or professional tasks felt the call of Christ to witness 
 for him in these posts, by word and deed and life. 
 
 Here we can well learn from Muhammadanism. Its most 
 characteristic method of expansion is found in the zeal of the 
 individual believer. No profession or occupation unfits the 
 believer to be a preacher of the faith ; it is, in fact, the 
 trader who takes the largest place in Muslim propaganda. 
 In a list of Muhammadan missionaries, published by an In- 
 dian paper in Lahore, we find the names of schoolmasters, 
 government clerks in the canal and opium departments, trad- 
 ers, including a dealer in camel carts, a newspaper editor, a 
 bookbinder, and the like. Some would even say that every 
 Muslim is a missionary. 
 
 While the universal call that comes to every Christian to 
 place his life absolutely at God's disposal by no means involves 
 going as a missionary to the foreign fields, yet, with needs 
 and opportunities as they are, this specific call is certainly a 
 possibility. And at this point let us make sure that we do 
 not claim any exemption. This original and primary com- 
 mitment to God's service does certainly involve a willingness 
 to go, if that should prove to be his will. Readiness to do 
 missionary work ought not to be considered an utterly unre- 
 
 191 
 
[IX-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 lated affair which one may decide at will irrespective of the 
 primary commitment of his life. Once enlisted as a soldier, 
 one may not claim exemption from service in Mexico or 
 overseas. 
 
 And yet there is something harsh about these phrases — 
 surrender, commitment, enlistment, relinquishment of all ex- 
 emption. They come from an age when democratic ideals 
 were not so pervasive. The whole question of call lieeds to 
 be restated in other terms, giving up the arbitrary, military, 
 domineering aspect of these phrases, and bringing out Christ's 
 conception that we are not servants, but friends, so that the 
 relationship is much more personal, cooperative, and social. 
 
 IV 
 
 When once we have accepted as our call a participation in 
 the recovery and the perfection of the whole life of all man- 
 kind, the discovery of the particular bit of work that any indi- 
 vidual should do would seem to be a simpler matter. But 
 who of us has not at times felt baffled in the search to know 
 with surety just what God would have us do, even when we 
 were willing to be led? Our whole conception of God as 
 Father, however, assures one that the individual who seeks 
 guidance can count on arriving at his vocation. To each man 
 or woman the knowledge of God's will may come in different 
 terms, but in one of the many ways that his sheep hear his 
 voice, the great Shepherd will speak to you. It may be 
 through some speaker in conference or church ; or it may be 
 a flash of illumination as you read God's Word. It may be 
 some silent inward urge, in the presence of which every other 
 course feels wrong; or it may be the compulsion of external 
 forces shaping one's life. To some it will come as a challenge 
 to do the apparently impossible ; to others ^it will mean the 
 faithful continuance in still and quiet waters. Light may 
 spring up suddenly ; possibly it will be a purely rational de- 
 cision. Or the next step, only, may be given — "Rise and enter 
 into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do" 
 (Acts 9:6). But we may be confident that in one way or 
 another we shall know what to do when the time comes for 
 decision, if we are true to the conditions. A few principles, 
 however, may help us in this great life problem that faces 
 every one. 
 
 Life is not made up of a single choice. For most people 
 192 
 
A SENSE OF VOCATION [IX-c] 
 
 life's course does not follow plainly from a single specific call. 
 Most of our lives contain a succession of decisions. Ability 
 to discern these inward leadings is an attainment and the habit 
 of sensitive response to them can be built up only through 
 repeated acts of the will. No one can read Paul's life without 
 noticing how his will continuously placed itself in line with 
 God's, as a compass needle comes to rest on the meridian. 
 He wanted to go to Bithynia, but "the Spirit of Jesus suffered 
 them not"; he is "forbidden of the Holy Ghost to speak the 
 word in Asia" (Acts i6:6, 7); he goes to Macedonia as a 
 result of a call ; he feels a definite inward command to stay 
 in Corinth and not be afraid. 
 
 No wonder some are blind and confused when finally the 
 big choice of their life-work comes. They are like a wireless 
 receiving station to which the meaningful waves are coming 
 all right, but in which the coherer or receiving apparatus has 
 not been placed. They have not developed the capacity to 
 hear spiritually, li it takes practice to develop skill in the 
 detection and interpretation of distant objects on the sea 
 that may prove to be hostile craft; if an airman must be 
 specially trained to interpret the strange landscape presented 
 from the sky ; is it not natural that we must acquire through 
 constant practice the ability to sense God's direction of our 
 lives? We are expected so to use our gifts that we may be 
 able to see when and where we are called to branch out into 
 a new path. No one else may be able to recognize the guid- 
 ance that comes to you ; but you must have so lived and lis- 
 tened that you will know when to leave the old and take up 
 the new. 
 
 This simply means that wc must prepare for great choices 
 by being faithful in little ones. Only as we habitually seek 
 to interpret the purpose of God and regard our life through- 
 out as a continuous trust from him, can we fittingly prepare 
 ourselves for the great decisions when they come. Thus liv- 
 ing, we shall sometime be able to say : 
 
 "I heard him call 
 'Come, follow,' that was all. 
 My gold grew dim. 
 My soul went after him. 
 I rose and followed, that was all. 
 Who would not follow if he heard his call?" 
 
 193 
 
[IX-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 The detection of God's zvill zvith sureness is also a social 
 affair. The more nearly the family, the church, and society 
 are interpreting their functions in the light of vocation, the 
 more the corporate aspect of human life is Christian in its 
 outlook and attitudes, the greater will be the certainty that 
 the individual will be able to make a fine adjustment to God's 
 will. In developing individual harmony with God's purpose, 
 as in so many other things, we find ourselves involved with 
 others. Social harmony with God's will and individual har- 
 mony must progress together. 
 
 It is a comfort, furthermore, to remember that in the social 
 group of which we are a part there is One who is more inter- 
 ested than all the rest in our arriving at a true perception of 
 our vocation. We do not need to think of ourselves as alone 
 in this effort to find out the will of God. The greatest per- 
 sonality in the universe is ever joining with us in our effort 
 to know his will. 
 
 Why is it that we so seldom come to him with a simple 
 childlike prayer for guidance? We have his promise that 
 those who ask shall have and that those who seek shall find. 
 How can we expect to interpret the fluctuating play of circum- 
 stance, or the opening and closing of doors along our path, 
 if we do not discipline ourselves through prayer and reflec- 
 tion to discern his will? A more frequent request for such 
 direction would lead us to go forward on life's way with ever 
 deepening reverence. 
 
 We must employ reasonable means of ascertaining facts of 
 need and opportunity, if we wish to admit into our lives the 
 very material out of which a call comes. Mackay, humanly 
 speaking, would not have gone to Uganda if he had not begun 
 to read widely on Africa, thus becoming impressed with the 
 fact that Muhammadanism was making its great strides in 
 Africa because it carried with it a higher civilization. The 
 question came to Mackay, Why should not Christianity carry 
 its superior civilization to the blacks? It was not until Han- 
 nington resolved to make himself better acquainted with what 
 was being done to carry out the will of Christ for the world, 
 that he learned of the serious crisis brought about by the 
 death of Smith and O'Neil. To this young rector, uncon- 
 ventional, athletic, occupying an easy post in England, but 
 dead in earnest, this new knowledge proved to be his call. 
 James Chalmers in New Guinea became one of the most 
 
 194 
 
A SENSE OF VOCATION [IX-c] 
 
 famous and successful missionaries of modern times. When 
 he was still a boy his pastor one Sunday read a description 
 of work in the Fiji Islands. This information, along with 
 the earnest appeal of the pastor, was the call to Chalmers. 
 
 It is not simply information and perception of need that 
 produce the most powerful call. Consciousness of power to 
 meet that need forms one of the most appealing elements in 
 vocation. Power to meet the need, however, is not to be 
 thought of as power merely in one's self. Often utter insuffi- 
 ciency is the only consciousness. But there must be enough 
 experimental knowledge of God in and through the channel 
 of one's life to bring the assurance, "I can do all things in 
 him that strengtheneth me" (Phil. 4:13). The contrast be- 
 tween supply on your part and demand on the world's part 
 should enter into a person's entrance upon any walk in life. 
 Religiously, it is the contrast between the non-Christian world 
 both here and abroad and the riches that are in God through 
 Christ. It was this that moved Keith-Falconer to go to 
 Arabia. "Whilst vast continents are shrouded in almost utter 
 darkness, and hundreds of millions suffer the horrors of 
 heathenism, or of Islam, the burden of proof lies upon you to 
 show that the circumstances in which God has placed you 
 were meant by him to keep you out of the foreign mission 
 field." David Livingstone, after reading Gutzlaff's appeals 
 for China, decided to give himself to missionary service. In 
 writing to the directors of the London Missionary Society, 
 he said : "At home the population is fairly well supplied, while 
 the majority of the population of the world is entirely destitute 
 of the means of grace. The greater prospect of usefulness 
 and fhe fact that, even were the present rate of se?f-dedication 
 of qualified persons to that cause greatly augmented, many 
 millions must perish without even the chance of hearing the 
 glad news of salvation by Christ, would render it imperative 
 on me, if _ qualified, and on all other qualified Christians to 
 obey the command of our risen Redeemer." Perception of 
 need, willingness to go, and consciousness of something to 
 give, are the elements in many a call. 
 
 V 
 
 If, however, we say that world Christians in whatever walk 
 or place in life should, just as much as foreign missionaries, 
 think of their work as a vocation — that is, as something to 
 
 IQ5 
 
[IX-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 which they have been called of God — then the same standards 
 of consecration and character should he expected of all. The 
 spiritual qualifications of a missionary have been worked out 
 with some care. We are right in placing a very high standard 
 for one who is to be an ambassador of the Church to distant 
 peoples. We are wrong in tacitly admitting that any less 
 exacting standard should content a member of the same 
 church at home. If the plain people of shop and farm and 
 trading vessel may rightly regard themselves as called of 
 God, if their specific vocations are forms of kingdom work, 
 then their tasks require spiritual qualifications also. 
 
 Let us apply some of the standards set up for the foreign 
 missionary to our own lives. We are told that the missionary 
 should have such a character as shall demonstrate the power 
 of Christ in individual life ; but is this a qualification from 
 which any of us should be released? Missionaries are warned 
 that the people in non-Christian lands are ready to have their 
 bodies cared for and to be helped materially, and that there- 
 fore they will be tempted to spend their lives in giving people 
 what they are willing to receive, to the neglect of any effort 
 to give them what they most need. Is this warning less needed 
 by the world Christian at home, engaged in the ministry of 
 the farm or shop or office? Missionaries are told that they 
 must guard against "dictatorialness, dogmatic assertlveness, 
 slothfulness, spiritual indolence, mere formality of service, 
 weakening of moral fiber and tone, degeneration of standard 
 and ideal for self and others." Are not these equally the 
 temptations of those who stay at home? If the missionary 
 must maintain his spiritual power by cultivating habits of 
 spiritual refreshment, shall we on our part expect to attain 
 such habits without conscious effort? If the missionary must 
 not let school work, or hospital, or editor's desk distract him 
 from personal work with men, pray w^hat releases the Chris- 
 tian teacher, doctor, or editor from personal work in this 
 land? Almost every missionary is greatly overworked, as 
 indeed we feel we are here at home ; but is he the only man 
 to be expected to make careful adjustment between routine 
 and spiritual efficiency? 
 
 Candidates for foreign mission service are told that men 
 are wanted who will esteem home and companionship of loved 
 ones and ease and pleasant surroundings in such a way as 
 not to let these dull God's call to duty. They are told that 
 
 196 
 
A SENSE OF VOCATION [IX-c] 
 
 they must show a constant wilhngness to sacrifice, to endure 
 hardness, and to hold personal comfort lightly. But why 
 should Board secretaries have to apologize for placing the 
 qualifications so high? Why are they afraid of discouraging 
 the very men and women whom they most want to have go 
 abroad? Is it not because the Church has failed to apply a 
 spiritual standard to each vocation? The Church in behalf 
 of each of its members must turn again to Christ, who said, 
 "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and 
 take up his cross daily, and follow me." 
 
 Now if one is to balance over against a missionary's voca- 
 tion of developing Uhe Kingdom another's apparent task of 
 making shoes, or selling oil, or designing engines, then un- 
 doubtedly the previously enumerated high qualifications seem 
 more necessary for the kingdom man than for the shoe- 
 maker. But the trouble comes in imagining that anyone is 
 called merely to make boots or sell oil or design engines. 
 These, also, are called to develop God's Kingdom in and 
 through and along with their necessary tasks. Kingdom work 
 requires kingdom qualifications. It was because Carey, the 
 shoemaker, had them, that he could have them when inaugu- 
 rating modern missions in Serampore. When the Church 
 expectantly trains each of its members to the attainment of 
 such qualifications, it will more rightly conceive its mission. 
 
 As in modern warfare you can scarcely speak of non-com- 
 batants, so for the growth of the Kingdom throughout the 
 world every man's, woman's, and child's utmost is required. 
 There are no peculiar callings in the sense that they alone 
 are sacred. Christ is calling many young men and women to 
 enter the very center of modern business and political life, 
 to fight inefficiency, ignorance, and sin, to grapple with prob- 
 lems, with the faith that only a Christian can bring to bear, 
 and to witness throughout that life is more than food and 
 the body more than raiment. The spiritual qualifications set 
 up for the Church's ambassadors abroad are certainly none 
 too high for every line of work, if abundant life is the heritage 
 of all. The standard for a missionary is certainly very high, 
 but great also is the standard for a Christian business man 
 who must work in absolute loyalty to the spirit and principles 
 of Christ. The mark of a world Christian in any sphere is 
 readiness to face the high demands of his life-work as a 
 sacred vocation. 
 
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[IX-c] MARKS OF A WORLD CHRISTIAN 
 
 TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION 
 
 1. How would you show that Christianity demands that a 
 commercial career be regarded as a "vocation," as much as 
 the ministry? 
 
 2. To what extent is the foreign representative of a busi- 
 ness house under obligations to extend the Kingdom? 
 
 3. What difference is there between calls to military service, 
 Red Cross work, winning America to Christ, and winning the 
 entire world to Christ? 
 
 4. Criticize the following opinion : "It is not considered 
 ethical for missionaries, ministers, physicians, and teachers 
 to compete with one another and seek to put each other out 
 of business, or to regard their earnings as their main induce- 
 ment to labor. But the manufacturer, the importer, the 
 broker, the mechanic, the unskilled laborer, are supposed to 
 be influenced by far lower motives. Until we elevate every 
 trade and calling to a holy ministry, until the nominally Chris- 
 tian merchants who enter the markets of non-Christian lands 
 are impelled by the identical motives which send out the mis- 
 sionary, the commerce of Christendom is the propaganda of 
 an anti-Christian ethic." 
 
 5. Who are God's chosen people today? What would be 
 the effect of a general belief that there is a divine plan for 
 every nation ? 
 
 6. What matters most — the character of the work, the 
 place of the work, or the fact that it is the work to which 
 God has called you? 
 
 7. What constitutes a call? 
 
 8. How is a vocation to be discovered? 
 
 9. In what attitude of mind and spirit should the student 
 of the purpose of God for his life approach decision? 
 
 10. Which of the nine "marks" which we have been study- 
 ing are possessed by a typical trade union ? By a tj^pical 
 church ? 
 
 11. The Church has had a long history of dealing with 
 a great world problem. What are the richest lessons that can 
 be drawn from this experience for our world tasks? 
 
 198 
 
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