Class _£X-1_1_ Book Copyright^ _ COPYRIGHT DEPOSFT. Twentieth Century Addresses GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U. S. A. ACADEMY OF MUSIC PHILADELPHIA, PA. May 17, 1901 PHILADELPHIA, PA.- Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work 1902 THE LIBRARY *F ©©NGRESS, Two Cortts Receives MAY. 3 1902 COPVRISHT ENTRY CLASS a : iq oi- >CXc. No. 3 / 3 , COPY r # B. ,s, Copyright, 1902, by the Trnstees of The Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath- School Work. Contents Introduction ...... 5 By the Rev. W. H. Roberts, D.D., LL.D. Philadelphia, Pa. Review of the Nineteenth Century 15 By the Rev. Prof. Willis Green Craig, D.D., LL.D., Chicago, Illinois. Progressive Development of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. - - - - 51 By the Rev. Henry Christopher McCook, D.D., Sc J)., Philadelphia, Pa. The Divine Purpose Developed in the Progress of Time ------- 133 By the Rev. Henry Collin Minton, D. D., San An- The Problems of the Twentieth Century - - 153 By the Rev. George Tybout Pnrves, D.D., LL.D., New York, N. Y. The Speedy Bringing of the World to Christ - 175 By Mr. Robert Eliot Speer, New York, N. Y. 3 4 CONTENTS The Twentieth Century Movement. Report on the Memorial Fund - - - - 203 Address on the Twentieth Century Fund - 219 By the Rev. Marcus Acheson Brownson, D.D., Phila- delphia, Pa. The Duty and Opportunities of the Presbyterian Church in the Twentieth Century - - 229 By the Rev. Samuel Jack Niccolls, D.D., LL.D., St. Louis, Mo. Moderator's Sermon— "Fellow-workers unto the King- dom of God" 251 By the Rev. Charles Andrews Dickey, D.D., Philadelphia, Pa. Introduction The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., meeting at Minneapolis, Minn., May, 1899, had before it overtures and com- munications concerning a movement to be known as the Twentieth Century Celebration. In connection with these papers the Committee on Bills and Over- tures of that Assembly reported the following Pre- amble and Resolutions, which were unanimously adopted : — " Whereas, the century now drawing to a close has been one of signal blessing to the cause of Christ and to our Presbyterian Church, a time when the power of the Holy Spirit has been clearly manifest in extending and deepening the life and work of the Church, and "Whereas, the century soon to open presents to our Church unparalleled opportunities of service for the Master, therefore be it "Resolved, 1. That the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., in session at Minneapolis, May, 1899, expresses its earnest de- sire to show in some fitting manner, our gratitude 5 6 INTRODUCTION for the mercies of the past and our consecration to the opportunities of the future. " Resolved, 2. That a Committee of six ministers and five elders be appointed by the Moderator to report to the next General Assembly as to the best method of fitly celebrating the close of the nine- teenth and the advent of the twentieth century." To carry out the above Kesolutions the Assembly appointed the following Committee on the Celebra- tion of the Twentieth Century : Ministers — Robert F. Sample, D. D., Loyal Y. Graham, D. D., Eobert K Adams, D. D., W. L. McEwan, D. D., Walter A. Brooks, D. B., Howard Duffield, D. D. ; Ruling Elders — Cyrus H. McCormick, John M. Harlan, John H. Converse, Henry C. Symmes, and F. Wol- cott Jackson. This special committee of the Assembly of 1899, reported through the Chairman, Rev. Robert F. Sample, D. D., to the Assembly of 1900, and its re- port was adopted. A part of the report reads : — "The Committee have held three meetings, and have carefully considered the important subject entrusted to their care. They feel that words are inadequate to express the richness of God ? s bounty to his people. The progress made by the Church of Christ in the U. S. A. during the century now closing is very great. Our own Presbyterian Church has increased from twenty thousand to one million communicants, and more than two million two hundred thousand persons have been received into our congregations on con- fession of faith in the course of the one hundred years. In the great missionary advance of the century, both on the home and foreign fields, our missionaries have been in the van, and the INTRODUCTION 7 Church was so blessed of God that she could give during the period, to the work of saving souls, through the Board of Home Missions, $21,154,867, and through the Board of Foreign Missions, $25,150,086. The total of the missionary and benevolent contribu- tions of the Church from 1801 to 1900 exceeded $87,000,000. Such figures emphasize the truth that for the work of Christ in the world, America has been but another name for opportunity. ' Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake. ' The divine favor accorded in the past is a sure foundation of hope for and new endeavor in the future. "The Committee, after serious thought, feel that the Church, in connection with this historic period, should be summoned to praise and effort along three lines. First of all, there should be in our congregations a period of thanksgiving and prayer. This should be accompanied by a general effort for the strengthening of the financial interests of congregations and the extension of educational and missionary work. Having received from God so abundant a spiritual blessing, we should as a denomination manifest our gratitude by compliance with the scriptural command, ' Freely ye have received, freely give. ' In addition, it is believed that a pub- lic celebration, under the auspices of the General Assembly, would be a proper denominational tribute of praise to God, and an ap- propriate testimony to the world of the thankfulness of the Church for unnumbered mercies. "In connection with the proposed day of public celebration by the General Assembly, it is respectfully submitted that historical rea- sons should lead the Assembly to appoint the services in the City of Philadelphia. It was at the beginning of the eighteenth century, nearly two hundred years ago, that the General Presby- tery of this Church was organized, in that city, and in the year 1901 the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia will celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the ordination of its first pastor. In the judgment of the Committee, it is highly appropriate that the Church should hold this historic celebration in the historic place in which, as an organized branch of the Church Universal, it was founded. 8 INTRODUCTION 1 ' The Committee, in view of the preceding considerations, there- fore recommend the adoption of the following Resolutions : — "Resolved, 1. That during the observance of the Week of Prayer in January, 1901, and also wherever practicable during the week following, there be a grateful recognition of the goodness of God to his Church during the nineteenth century, and earnest sup- plication for his continued blessing on the Church during the twentieth century. "Resolved, 2. That the first Friday of the General Assembly's sessions in 1901 be set apart for special services in connection with the advent of the twentieth century — the morning session to be oc- cupied with the review of the history of the Church during the nineteenth century ; the afternoon session, with the outlook for the twentieth century ; much of the time during these sessions to be devoted to prayer and praise ; and the evening session to be of a popular character, with addresses appropriate to the occasion. ' ' Resolved, 3. That a special memorial fund, to be known as the Twentieth Century Fund, be raised for the endowment of Presby- terian academic, collegiate and theological institutions, for the en- largement of missionary enterprises, for the erection of church buildings and the payment of debts upon churches and educational institutions, and for the other work of the Boards, at the option of the donors ; contributions to specific objects to be strictly regarded, and contributions to the general work to be distributed according to the proportions which have been designated by our General As- sembly as applying to miscellaneous offerings ; and care shall be taken that this special effort shall in no way conflict with or diminish the regular contributions to the treasuries of the several Boards. " Resolved, 4. That in connection with the Fund a central com- mittee be appointed, to consist of six ministers and five elders, whose headquarters shall be in Philadelphia ; which committee shall have a general supervision of the work, shall publish ap- propriate literature for the furtherance of the object, making the widest possible distribution of the same, all expenses to be met out of the general contributions ; and that the Stated Clerk of the Gen- eral Assembly be appointed Treasurer of the Fund, to serve INTRODUCTION 9 without expense, except for such clerical assistance as may be re- quired. " Resolved, 5. That for the reasons stated the General Assembly of 1901 meet in the City of Philadelphia." The Committee also reported a Programme for the proposed public Celebration, and recommended " that a Special Committee of five, including the officers of the Assembly, be appointed to take charge of the Celebration, with power to attend to all matters connected therewith." The Committee as appointed was composed of — Ministers — Charles A. Dickey, D. D., Wm. Henry Koberts, D. D., fra. B. Noble, D. D. ; Ruling Elders — John Wanamaker, Wm. H. Scott. The Committee thus appointed reported to the General Assembly of 1901 (see Minutes, p. 14) that " acting in accordance with the authority conferred," they had "arranged that the celebration should take place at the Academy of Music," Philadelphia, at the hours and with the speakers named by the Assembly of 1900, with the exception that the Kev. Henry van Dyke, D. D., having declined to accept the place assigned to him in the programme, owing to the pressure of other duties, it had been arranged that the report of the Committee on the Twentieth Century Fund should be presented on Friday even- ing. The report of the Committee was approved. The Public Celebration thus arranged for was held as appointed, and was in all respects acceptable and successful. The audiences were large, en- 10 INTRODUCTION thusiastic and representative. The General Com- mittee of Arrangements for the Assembly of 1901, composed of leading Philadelphians, cooperated heartily and efficiently with the Assembly's Com- mittee, and much of the success attained was due to their efforts. The Programme of the Celebration was as follows : — PUBLIC CELEBKATION OF THE ADVENT OF THE ETH CENTURY, MAY, 17, 1901. Morning Session, 9 : 30 a. m. John H. Converse, LL. D., Chairman. Long Meter Doxology — " Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow." Prayer — By the Moderator of the General Assembly. Scripture — Eev. Geo. B. Stewart, D. D., Auburn, 1ST. Y. Address— " Keview of the Nineteenth Century," Kev. Willis G. Craig, D. D., LL. D., Chicago, 111. Hymn 300—" I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord." Prayer— -Kev. D. J. Sanders, D. D., Charlotte, K C. Address—" Progress of the Presbyterian Church in the Nineteenth Century," Kev. Henry C. McCook, D. D., Sc. D., Philadelphia, Pa. INTRODUCTION 11 Prayer— Kev. J. P. E. Kumler, D. D., Pittsburg, Pa. Hymn 298 — " Glorious Things of Thee are Spoken." Benediction — Rev. L. Merrill Miller, D. D., Ogdens- burg, 1ST. Y. Afteenoon Session, 2 : 30 p. m. Eev. E. R. Burkhalter, D. D., of Iowa, Chairman. Hymn 524—" Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah." Prayer — Rev. Herrick Johnson, D. D., Chicago, 111. Address — "The Divine Purpose Developed in the Progress of Time," Rev. Henry Collin Minton, D. D., San Anselmo, Cal. Hymn 225—" In the Cross of Christ I Glory." Prayer — Rev. Samuel M. Hamilton, D. D., Engle- wood, 1ST. J. Address— "The Problems of the Twentieth Cen- tury," Rev. George T. Purves, D. D., LL. D., New York, K Y. Hymn 503 — " Christian, Seek not Yet Repose." Prayer— Rev. William H. James, D. D., Spring- dale, Ohio. Address — " The Speedy Bringing of the World to Christ," Mr. Robert E. Speer, New York, K Y. Prayer — Rev. J. Milton Greene, D. D., Porto Rico. Hymn 386—" The Morning Light is Breaking." Benediction — Rev. John N. Forman, Fatehgarh, India. 12 INTRODUCTION Evening Session, 8 p. m. Hon. John Wanamaker, Chairman. Anthem — " Jubilate Deo," by the Young People's Choir, Mr. James Morrison, Jr., Conductor. Hymn 425— " Blest Be the Tie that Binds." Prayer — Kev. H. A. Ketchum, D. 1)., Salem, Oreg. Report — Committee on the Twentieth Century Fund. Addresses — Rev. M. A. Brownson, D. D., and Rev. Charles A. Dickey, D. D. Hymn 347—" Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus." Prayer— Rev. J. D. Moffat, D. D., Washington, Pa. Address — "The Opportunity and Duty of the Presbyterian Church in the Twentieth Cen- tury," Rev. Samuel J. Mccolls, D. D., LL. D., St. Louis, Mo. Anthem by the Choir — " The Recessional." Prayer — Rev. S. Hall Young, D. D., Alaska. Hymn 370 — " Onward, Christian Soldiers." Benediction— Rev. W. H. W. Boyle, D. D., Colorado Springs, Col. The Committee on the Celebration presented to the Assembly the recommendation " that the Stated Clerk be directed and authorized to defray the ex- penses of the meeting, and that he also be em- powered to prepare a volume containing the ad- dresses delivered upon this occasion, the same to be published by the Board of Publication and Sabbath- INTRODUCTION 13 School- Work." The recommendation was adopted. One notable feature of the Celebration was an Historical and Missionary exhibit arranged in the Academy of Fine Arts, illustrating the history of the Presbyterian Church and the progress of its missionary work during the nineteenth century. This exhibit set forth in an admirable and striking manner the work of all the Missionary and Benevo- lent Boards as well as the general History of the Church, and the gentleman to whose knowledge, skill and energy it was largely due, is the Kev. Henry C. McCook, D. D., Sc. D., pastor of the Tabernacle Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. With Dr. McCook were associated other Ministers and Elders who cordially cooperated with him. Special recognition is also made of the excellent services of the Chorus Choir, composed of young people, organized by the Eev. C. M. Alford, D. D., and led by Mr. James Morrison, Jr. The General Assembly made record of its satis- faction over the Celebration, and tendered to the speakers, the chairmen, and all who participated therein, its profound sense of gratitude. The Church is indebted to the Board of Publi- cation and Sabbath-School Work, and to the officers of the Board, for their hearty cooperation in this as in all the work of the Church, and for the admirable manner in which this volume of addresses has been carried through the press. Wm. Henry Kobeets. REVIEW OF THE NINETEENTH CEN- TURY BY THE Rev. WILLIS GREEN CRAIG, D. D., LL. D. ■ f '"■/*•■ REVIEW OF THE NINETEENTH CENTUKY BY THE Eev. WILLIS GREEN CRAIG, D. D., LL. D. Mr. Moderator, Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : — It has been well said that, " the dawn of a new century affords a natural occasion for a retrospect into the past, for the taking of stock of the world's gain and loss, for a comparison of the world as we see it to-day, with its condition as it was known to our ancestors a hundred years ago." The task imposed by this review is a difficult one. The period under consideration embraces the life- time of three ordinary generations of men. The achievements of the century, as compared with all past time, border on the marvelous. The move- ment, especially in the latter half of the period, is so rapid, and upon lines of such far-reaching im- portance, that the reviewer is confused, if not ap- palled, as he undertakes his task. The problems handed over by the nineteenth to the twentieth century are so various, so grave and so far from 2 17 18 TWENTIETH CENTDEY ADDRESSES solution, that we look with awe upon the mighty things that have been done, in the light of the solemn duties that they impose upon those who must conduct the race along the perilous path of the era that has just dawned. And, above all, the time allowed for this discussion is so brief, as to all but guarantee inadequate treatment. But without further words we may enter upon our task. In order that we may understand the distinctive and influential movements of the nineteenth cen- tury, let us observe the situation of the great nations of the earth at its opening. M. Jules Roche in an article in the Paris Figaro, has given us an accurate outline of the population of the great nations, of what is called "active humanity," at the beginning of the nineteenth century. There is little resemblance between the Europe of 1801 and the Europe of to-day. The names of the larger states are the same, but they describe very different entities. The population of France with its new and natural boundaries was 33,000,000. Russia had but 36,000,000, mostly un- civilized. The United Kingdom had only 16,000,000. The old German empire, which was then but a political expression — having crumbled before the arms of France, — contained in its 300 constituent states, but 25,000,000. Austria and Hungary had as many. There was no Italy. The Kingdom of Sardinia had less than 3,000,000. The States of the Church, less than 3,000,000. The Kingdom of TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 19 Naples, almost 5,000,000. The Grand Duchy of Tuscany, 1,000,000. On this side of the Atlantic, our country with its 5,000,000 inhabitants was the only one whose numbers were known. The popu- lation of what may be called the outlying peoples was unknown. The facts as to these nations were but feebly grasped, and no special account taken of them as forces to be considered in the ongoing of human civilization. One hundred years ago " active humanity " num- bered less than 175,000,000. Consider the political condition of the " active peoples " at the opening of the nineteenth century. The most terrific outburst of human passion against a grinding, pitiless, long-continued tyranny of king and ruling classes that the world has ever known, made memorable the closing years of the eighteenth century. The French people with a shout of wild agony had rushed for the throat of authority, had seized and strangled it to death. The nation raised its bloody hands to heaven and swore a mighty oath, that kings and nobles, ruling classes, tyrants, all destroyers of human liberty, and wanton enemies of all rational happiness, should exist no more. Out from the murderous riot and deadly killing of those awful revolution days, there issued the note of human aspiration, and hope for man, as man, and the maddened throng, even in the midst of the frenzied tumult of unchecked passion, demanded that liberty, equality, and fraternity, 20 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES should henceforth be the watchwords of human society. If the aspiration was lawful, and the expression of it had anything of the true and the practicable in it, the time was not yet, and the people had not arrived by whom it could be brought to realization. As our century opened, a gigantic spirit arose, almost unparalleled among men, voracious in his selfishness, far-seeing in vision, conscienceless in thought and corresponding act, resistless in power, who laid hold of the storm of human passion, guided it for a time along its purposed path, and then, with all but magical skill, turned it away from its origins, and required it to do his bidding, as he led it along the highway of his enormous ambitions, looking to personal glory and unrestrained power. Under the leadership of the great Napoleon, Europe blazed with war for the first dozen years of the nineteenth century ; war which left human rights, happiness and even life out of sight, and which threatened the very foundations of public order and rational government. Progress toward better things for humanity at large ; for the imposition and exe- cution of just and humane laws; for sane education, which levels up the people as a mass toward civic righteousness and levels down rulers into a love for subjects and to a rightful exercise of acknowledged authority, did not begin in Europe at the beginning of our century. Another country was designated of God to discover and express the ultimate principles TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 21 of human freedom, to establish these principles in abiding constitutional forms, and then to set them in practical operation through administrative agencies, for the happiness of its own people, as a beacon light for the oppressed in every land, and for the slow but sure instruction of the nations as to the rights of man, the necessary presupposition of human dignity, progress, and true happiness. That nation, our beloved land, thus summoned to this august enterprise, had assumed the commanding form of national life only a few short years before the nineteenth century opened. The scars of the embattled farmers who had won the prize of political freedom against enormous odds had hardly healed when the new century was called to begin its eventful course. The new-born nation was few in numbers, all but impoverished by a long-continued devouring war, scattered over immense tracts of but partially set- tled territory, hemmed in by the sea on the one side and by unbroken primeval forests on the other, threatened day and night by savage tribes em- bittered by wrongs which they could not forget, and with every species of administrative perplexity clamoring for speedy settlement, with an untried instrument of government waiting to be expounded and illustrated by action, fitted to secure the lib- erties that had been purchased at such a costly price of blood and treasure. Who could say that the new nation would live? Or who would dare to 22 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES imagine that, ere the century closed, it would forge to the side of the foremost nations in the world, and even challenge them, one and all, for the leadership in whatever makes a nation great in learning, in resources, in power, in numbers and in influence, wherever and whenever the mightiest world powers are gathered for debate and decision as to the des- tinies of the race ? And yet there need have been no uneasy questioning, for the young nation was designate of God. It came into national being at the appointed time. It was quick with living prin- ciples. It had obtained a stage for action, in its national possessions, broad enough to act out a mighty play before the world at large. A few leading spirits in England and on the continent, whose unclouded vision could in some real sense pierce the future, saw the promised potency of the newcomer among the nations, and they were glad. As for the most, they sat sullen, and prophesied evil. We do not hesitate to say that the appearance on the scene of organized national life of our nation was the greatest single event in the world's history at the opening of the nineteenth century. Concerning the lands and peoples outside of what I have called " active humanity," there is nothing of historical importance to record. When the year 1801 was first written on our calendars, bold voy- agers had touched remote islands and distant ports. They had coasted the shores of unknown lands. A TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 23 little trade here and a little there, sufficient to awaken the cupidity of the adventurers, but not great enough to stimulate arduous and sustained exploration. The knowledge of the outlying peo- ples was hopelessly inadequate, and consequently invalid. A single people, China, ancient and mighty, with a population outnumbering, in point of fact, the entirety of the progressive peoples, was lying in hermit-like isolation, exclusive, and excluding all other men from its hoary precincts, and barely per- mitting approach to its outermost harbors. The real Africa, was " Terra Incognita." Even the old central seats of human life, from whence came the impetuous hordes that seized and settled Europe, had retreated from the gaze of civilized man, or, at most, remained an intangible reality, indefinite to thought, unknown as to conquest, commerce or evangelization. India with its teeming millions, its recondite phi- losophy, its ascetic religion, its damaging system of caste, its fabulous wealth, was in the way of being exploited by a greedy commercial company, which looked down with haughty contempt on the soft- mannered natives, and sought, not them, but their possessions, their jewels, their gold, their lands, their very homes, founded by ancestors whose blood had run pure for a thousand years. Even the Spanish Americans to the south of us were an uncensused people, and counted for little 24 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES in the plans, the operations, and the general out- look, of the dominant nations at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Such was the political and territorial aspect of the world 100 years ago. Next think upon the condition of letters at the opening of the century and its earliest years. The brilliant lights of eighteenth century letters were still shining when our century dawned. Addi- son, Steele, Johnson, Gibbon, Garrick, and Keynolds, had passed away ; but their influence was not lost. We may find polish and sentiment, striving after a true ethic, a certain seeking unto God on the part of the essayist. The tone of the poet was often well modulated and sweet, the aspirations lofty, and the opinions just, but the singers were chanting to a narrow audience and the verse moved within a restricted circle. The world's peoples were far away, closed out from the thinker's thoughts, de- barred from his sympathies, by the apparent unre- ality of their existence. The historian studied with unwearied industry the memorials of classic an- tiquity. He led his patient reader into the byways of Greek and Eoman life, and traced their adven- turous steps along the highways of splendid national achievements ; but their national life was of the past, their glory faded, their significance to be measured by the value of the lessons which might be drawn from an extinguished career. Living nations, incredible as to numbers, hoary with age, vital with living forces, waiting to be TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 25 called, were unknown, and the polished essayist, the painstaking historian, the learned publicist, the impassioned poet, had no word for them, — their hour had not struck. Letters, no matter how bril- liant, arising out of the bosom of "active humanity," could not reach to them, could not even find them. Another and a different agency must be summoned before the world of men could be brought face to face in order to mutual acquaintance and common benefits. Will the nineteenth century find the agency, while all past generations have failed to discover it ? Let us pass now to consider the condition of Christianity as to numbers, organization, spiritual vigor, range of effort, general ideals, and practical plans for the extension of the gospel in the begin- ning of the nineteenth century. It is no exaggeration to say that the period just preceding the dawn of the nineteenth century was one of the darkest in the history of the Christian Church, and perhaps the darkest in the history of Protestantism. A reliable historian informs us, " that the Protestantism of the Eeformation seemed almost to have spent its force. It had wasted itself in internal conflicts, lost its independence by part- nership with the State, and minimized its influence by an alliance with nationalism, moderatism, and a destructive worldliness. In Great Britain the Wesleyan movement had not reached a dominative position. Presbyterianism in that realm was all 26 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES but extinct, the English Established Church was negative in doctrinal teachings, formal in religious life, immersed in worldliness. On the continent torpor reigned, and Christian activity seemed a thing of the past. In America the feeble Christian life was sorely taxed in a struggle for self-preserva- tion. One hundred years ago the aggressive power of Protestantism was reduced to its minimum. The science, the philosophy, and the culture, of that age were almost wholly against evangelical Christianity. Never before nor since has infidelity combined rela- tively so much wealth, culture and power. Hume's nameless blasphemies, Voltaire's brilliant wit and amazing industry, and the French Kevolution with its mighty sweep of radical revolt, combined to subvert the popular belief in Christianity and brand the Church as a creature of superstition and false- hood. In the first quarter of the nineteenth cen- tury this revolt struggled hard to maintain its ground and even to push the struggle on to the complete destruction of Christianity." Even after 1817, we are told, in the course of a few years nearly 6,000,000 volumes of the works of Voltaire and Kousseau and other infidel writers, besides countless tracts, were circulated on the continent of Europe. Was there ever such a whirlwind of destructive forces raging at one time against the kingdom of our Lord ? To offset this we have in 1790, in the way of aggressive Christianity, only three foreign mis- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 27 sionary societies in Europe, and none in America. In the last ten years of the eighteenth century five additional foreign missionary societies were founded. These new societies, however, at first encountered great unbelief and opposition from many in the Churches, and ridicule from the world. Ecclesiastical bodies in Scotland denounced the scheme of foreign missions as illusive, visionary and dangerous, and decreed that it was absurd to think of propagating the gospel abroad, so long as there remained a single individual at home without the means of religious knowledge. Under these general conditions abroad and at home the nineteenth century opened. What will the human race accomplish during the course of the single century which we call the nineteenth ? There was no prophet to foretell. ]STo poet could have even fancied the mighty things to be accom- plished in a single century. The past furnished no patterns for the work now to be attempted. The materials for a picture of the coming years were not within the grasp, nor even within the knowl- edge, of men. The human intellect was alive, vigorous and disciplined. Man was in the midst of his environments. But he had not made their ac- quaintance. Me may learn what is about him, and then a new movement will begin. The breath of the Spirit must blow upon man, if the new century is to move forward to any wider knowledge, to any real advance along the highway of Christian de- 28 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES velopment, to any worthy deeds looking to the real fulfillment of Christ's great commission to disciple all nations. The first great lesson that is impressed upon the student of the beginning of the nineteenth century is that nothing more of prime importance can be done to lift the race along an upward way looking to ultimate victory over the super-abounding evils that afflict this world, save in the power of a fresh and abounding baptism of the Holy Spirit. It is the old, old lesson — away from God, life in the mere energy of the flesh, and the race sinks back into moral corruption and consequent weakness, even though there be the glamour of wealth and the semblance of power. The needed baptism of the Spirit came in the early years of the century. Moderatism died the death in Scotland. Evan- gelical religion as the fruit of organized Wesleyan- ism in Great Britain, and the far-reaching revivals in this country, changed the face of things at home and abroad. Great religious organizations, fitted for the mighty tasks of a world-wide evangeliza- tion, began to take shape. Men were soon think- ing of spiritual conquests on a scale never con- sidered before. They laid the foundations deep, and inlaid them with principles pertinent to uni- versal conquests. Mere local benefits no longer controlled the thinking and planning of Christian men. As we look back, we are amazed to observe the comprehensive principles which guided the TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 29 organizing movements intended to propagate the gospel which the Christian fathers in the early days of the century undertook and perfected. They were, comparatively speaking, a localized generation — provincial we would say now — out of touch with the world qua world. But the mere local concep- tion of things did not predominate in their thought as they wrought out the framework of their religious societies. Universality of Christian knowledge, Christian discipleship, and Christian benefits, guided their arduous endeavors and in- fluenced their widening sympathies. They did not know accurately the mighty numbers of the world's teeming population, but they thought out toward them and stretched out their hands over the vast spaces of the habitable globe, ready to bless what- ever distant tribe or nation might be found. Let us glance at the great Christian organizations which were founded in the early days of the nine- teenth century. The British and Foreign Bible Society, intended to supply the world with the Word of God without note or comment, was founded in 1804, in America in 1816. What spiritual insight these men had into the deepest, most regulative facts concerning God and sinful, needy man and the only reconciling middle term between God and needy man, Christ the Lord, when they laid the foundation of these glorious agencies for the dis- semination of the gospel, for the healing of the nations ! If they had been able to see the de- 30 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES mands that would be made upon their societies, they might have shrunk back in dismay from the mere magnitude of the task. What strange and difficult languages and dialects will be en- countered as exploration proceeds, separating the new peoples, though discovered, from the influence and benevolent disposition of the discoverers ? Who shall read to them in their own tongue, or ex- plain, when read, the wonderful things of God? Who shall undertake to break down this seemingly impassable barrier of differing tongues ? The forces behind the great Bible Societies will do it, even in the energy of the Spirit. New tongues will be conquered. Endless dialects shall be forced to submit to indomitable human intelligence working toward the highest ends. The universal Word of God, made known in every tongue spoken among the divided families of men, shall prove to be the final argument to establish the unity of the race, and upon the great acknowledged facts, stimulate the supreme undertaking of the ages, to wit : — the evangelization of the world. Early in the century commenced the organization of the great missionary societies throughout Chris- tendom. Then the cultivation of benevolence that the way might be cleared for the advance. Then a devout Christian literature, informing the Chris- tian nations as to the wide range of the purpose of grace, was brought to bear on the great problems of missionary labor. Then the organization of edu- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 31 cation, looking to a wide, yea, an universal training of men as rational, knowing subjects, destined for higher things than mere physical life. Foundations for higher education and for professional training, challenging the liberality of benevolent people to an unprecedented extent, were laid deep and wide, indicating the coming time when men will be needed with every faculty developed, and seeking a content of information fitted to startle coming gen- erations with its extent and variety. So matters stand as we cross the middle line of the nineteenth century. And yet the real movement to encircle the globe with light and life tarried. The world-wide problem of universal evangelization and civilization has not been yet fairly confronted. The populations of the earth as such stand aloof. Isolation still holds the world of men in its grasp. Great nations live far away, and lonely, locked in the embrace of remote- ness. The forces of awakened humanity cannot circulate throughout the whole body of mankind. Men are not in touch. What will meet this grave necessity, and overcome it ? Then it was that science awoke from its torpor and entered upon its momentous task. Man was in contact with the world, but he did not know it. He had seen steam rising from boiling water, had confined it, and utilized it for a few common and servile tasks, but he had no conception of its amaz- 32 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES ing possibilities. He had felt the shock and wit- nessed the brightness of the electric spark in some secluded laboratory. He had seen it blazing along the sky, now in eccentric forked forms, now in sheets of blinding glare, but he had never dreamed that it could be harnessed and made to do man's bidding like a child. The men of that day had heard the human voice in all its varied and charming tones, the soft music of a mother's song soothing her child to sleep, the ravishing notes of some en- trancing singer giving utterance to the resistless passion of the human heart, through music's subtle harmonies. He had heard the orator awakening, thrilling, convincing, guiding men to high thoughts and mighty deeds in behalf of home, altar and na- tive land, but he had never dreamed that the human voice could reach a thousand miles, though spoken in the modulated tones fitted for immediate per- sonal intercourse. He had seen waving fields of golden grain gathered by the slow and painful process of the sickle or the cradle, but never had he dreamed of the mighty harvesters moving with re- sistless force over miles of continuous fields, and bringing to completion in a day the mighty tasks which then demanded weeks in the performance. As a people our fathers had crossed the sea, the bold spirits among them had drawn away from the shores of old ocean, and had turned their faces to- ward the west, bent upon the exploration of the far-reaching primitive forests, the lofty mountains, TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 33 the persuasive valleys, the water courses which threaded the vast expanse guaranteeing life and fruitfulness to the teeming soil. But how had they moved here, as everywhere? By the slow and un- certain sailing vessel over tractless wastes of water. On land, by foot, on horseback, or by the lumber- ing wagons, or by stage coach over unleveled roads, creeping as a snail. What distance had they reached ? They were still skirting the outer edge of this vast continent. "Transportation" was in its childhood, though the race was already old. The people of different continents were separated by the impregnable barriers of " distance," and rumors of " other peoples," their existence, their habits, their numbers, their powers and their wealth, were unknown, or, at the most, the doubt- ful accounts of other lands and peoples brought in by some intrepid but infrequent traveler, formed the material for conclusions, scanty and misleading at best, concerning vast sections of the earth and its inhabitants. As a race, all of one blood with like passions and similar needs, men had never faced each other. What can Bible societies and mission boards and hospitals and improved print- ing presses and more accurate education, and better medical and surgical knowledge and practice, and more scriptural views of the Christian obligation to a universal evangelization, accomplish, if we do not know the nations, if we cannot come face to face with them ? Practically to obey Christ's last 3 34 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES command, we mast annihilate distance. We must stand in the presence of men, found out in their homes by persistent exploration, and to be dealt with as near neighbors. To do this, nature must be subjugated. At this point, and for this tremendous task, nat- ural science commenced its mighty career. The men of science have made nothing ; they have sim- ply discovered what was already made and waiting to be found and utilized. These great forces or laws of nature, which they have discovered, com- bined and applied to useful ends, were always pres- ent in nature, since the great Creator had called the world into existence. God knew these laws, as he knows his chosen, whose names are written on the palms of his hands. As the patient scientist made a discovery, and then with inventive skill, applied it to some marvelous end, before which even the most enlightened of the progressive peoples bowed in utter astonishment, be it known that this was but a commonplace to God. He had always known the principle and its possible effects, when mastered by man and combined with other great principles, and properly guided. The great, ra- tional, supreme Spirit, Creator and Governor of the universe gave his special revelations to men in the full knowledge of all great laws, and what they could be made to accomplish. His gracious plan of redemption was purposed in full sight of what we call the secrets of the universe. They were no TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 35 secrets to him. The lines along which the gospel must be propagated, the knowledge of the world which must be gained by men before the great con- quests of the Cross could be consummated, all these were known to God, were designated to their proper time. He sent great men developed by ages of mental toil to find the always existing laws of nature, not simply for their intrinsic value, but as a needed preparation for something higher, as adjuncts for work in a nobler sphere. Some of the men of our day look upon these bril- liant discoveries of science simply as dazzling won- ders, to be admired for their own sake, and rested in as the ultimate benefit. These are mistaken. If we would weigh accurately the products of human genius, when the maximum has been reached, when every law of the realm of nature has been appre- hended and put to man's service, we must still ask the question : Will these great results, taken as a possession, satisfy the needs and aspirations of moral, responsible, immortal agents ? The answer comes swiftly : Kay, nay, they cannot. Truly let us agree, this marvelous subjugation of nature is but a means to an end. It is intended to compass the purposes of grace, to bring to completion the kingdom of God among men. The triumphs of science, especially in the last half of the nineteenth century, merit mention in some detail. Well has it been said, " The sternest grapple with the forces of nature ever known among men 36 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES has been witnessed in the last fifty years." Man is the undoubted head of the earthly series. He has made long strides in the assertion of his dominion over the earth upon which he dwells. The struggle for mastery has been gallant and inspiring to the last degree. He has sought for reality, and by better processes than were known in earlier times. He has had, in part at least, his due reward. Fact after fact has been brought to light and properly correlated. The earnest students of nature have often made mistakes by hastening to conclusions upon a too narrow anthology of particulars, but they have been ready to retreat from untenable positions, and to continue the search for fact with unwearied patience. The votaries of science have once and again plunged into domains of thought for which their peculiar studies afforded them no fitness of preparation, and concerning which they had no competent knowledge, and so have essayed the impossible task of destroying fact in one depart- ment of human knowledge, with fact obtained from another and different department. But the folly of such a procedure has been easily demonstrated, and the giants of material science have been made to know that man does not live by bread alone, and that the rational, the spiritual dominates the ma- terial. Otherwise they could not have discovered their own facts. But with all the mistakes that have been made, and after all the hard and false applications of scientific facts, so-called, to other and TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 37 nobler regions of truth into which human thinkers must necessarily go, what a debt do we owe to the patience, ability, learning, and truthfulness, of the natural and physical scientists, who have labored and produced so wonderfully in the last half of the century which we have under review. To rightly appreciate the marvelous achievements of science we may first of all consider the supreme question of " Transportation." In the year 1801, the people of the world, we are reminded, were still using the same means of locomotion that were known to the most ancient times, and the speed that they could make was that of the sailing vessel, the horse, or the ox, the camel, or the elephant. My own father rode horseback from central Kentucky to Lexing- ton, Virginia, to pursue his studies in what is now called the Washington and Lee University. "When his collegiate studies were complete, he rode horse- back to Philadelphia, in company with merchants, to attend medical lectures under the renowned pro- fessors, Physic and Eush. This journey he accom- plished in this manner two successive years, return- ing each year by the same method of travel to his distant home. We can hardly realize that we are so close to the old modes of travel, and our astonish- ment is heightened when we recall the fact, that for fifty-seven centuries the world had been at a standstill in these respects. Under such restrictions the race of man could not realize its solidarity. And now what has science and invention wrought 38 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES in this interest in the last fifty years ? You may well look with awe upon your railways, climbing every mountain and threading every valley, and your steamships plowing every sea, hurrying men with incredible rapidity from the outermost con- fines of the earth to any chosen center, and then scattering them back as by magic to their distant homes : distributing the products of the surface and the bowels of the earth to every corner of the habitable globe, in masses that stagger the imagina- tion. We may look upon the telegraph and telephone lines, as they bind up the inhabitants of all lands with bands of steel and copper, with ever growing amazement, and exclaim, " We are dwelling in won- derland." Nay, we are at home in the same old dwelling place that our fathers knew ; only science has found out a few facts, always existent, which our ancestors had not even imagined, and lo, the face of the world has changed, and men have been transformed as at the touch of a magician's wand. See the printing presses which will yield 1,500 book impressions an hour, and for newspapers, printing both sides of the sheet, folding and delivering at the rate of from 10,000 to 20,000 an hour. The inven- tions in the agricultural department: the plows, the reaping and mowing machines, the cotton gin. The mining drills and ore separators. The ice machines turning the tropics into the North Pole in a single particular. The mail facilities which dis- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 39 tribute private letters and printed literature to every breakfast table in the civilized world. The vast geological inquiries which have discovered the earth beneath its crust, and made its secrets below almost as plain as the surface facts. In the field of optics and acoustics : the polarization of light, the solar spectrum, the spectroscope, the X-rays, the phenomena of vibration, the physiology of hear- ing, the physical causes of the quality of sounds, the phonograph. Our scientists have climbed the skies and walked among planets and stars, at ease. Medical discoveries have eased the race from a thousand ills that tormented our fathers who lived their lives out unremedied. Surgery with its ether, chloroform, cocaine, its " surgical cleanliness," and its bold but safe skill, has penetrated with its relieving knife to the very vitals of the body. But why use our allotted time with further enumeration of scientific discovery ? These are not the common- places gathered from current accounts. Volumes are filled with the details, so vast, so beneficial, so striking that we retire from the reading all but con- fused with the riches of result. The subjugation of nature to which the vast increase in human population, in power, in material welfare, is due, owes but little, as has been well said, to arms, to emperors, to legislatures, to gov- ernments. The true potentates have been the men of inventive genius, of devotion to science, whose discoveries and whose energies have renovated the 40 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES earth, and knit its remote parts together. They have made greater changes than all the princes, all the conquests, all the foundations and all the falls of kingdoms and empires. The men of ideas have come to the front. Honor to whom honor is due. But we may well ask, in what atmosphere was this scientific genius bred? What soil produced the men of ideas ? The resistless impulse of Chris- tian thinking stirred the sons of Christian lands to these mighty tasks. They are found in no other land. Christianity has its final aims, and its directive agencies. When nature needed to be interrogated more fully in furtherance of these aims, the inquiry commenced in earnest, under provisions made by Christianity itself, and the answers were prompt to come in. The Christian Church well knows how to adapt and to utilize them, as their truthfulness is made clear, for the accomplishment of her divinely commanding task, even though some of her most able and efficient work- ers have been blinded to the higher truth by the brilliancy of mere earthly lights. Let us now estimate, in a general way, the most important gains for humanity, during the nineteenth century. 1. Increase of population of so-called Christian nations. To-day France, with contracted limits, numbers 38,000,000. England has 41,000,000. The new German empire has 56,000,000. Austria, 45,- 000,000. Kussia perhaps 135,000,000. Italy has TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 41 32,000,000. The United States 72,000,000. Tak- ing into account all the colonies of European and American states and other peoples who have come into sight, it may be said, using abundant caution, that the progressive peoples number 800,000,000 as against less than 175,000,000 one hundred years ago. 2. Amplification of religious organizations, es- tablished early in the century, and other societies for Christian work, founded at a later date. An accurate writer informs us (Eev. Judson Smith, D. D.) "that at the opening of the nineteenth century, the different versions of the Scriptures numbered only about fifty, spoken by less than one-eighth of the race. There are now 421 differ- ent languages or dialects into which the Bible as a whole or in part has been translated. These in- clude the languages spoken by at least three-fourths of the human race. This marvelous work of translation is almost entirely due to missionaries, and constitutes in itself a grand achievement. All these languages have been studied and mastered by foreigners after long, continuous and exacting toil. There is no other single piece of literary work that can compare with it. Think of the time and pains that are necessary to obtain such an understanding of Chinese, Japanese, Tamil, Hindustani, Turkish, and the hundreds of other tongues, so as to be able to speak and write freely therein ; and to be able to reduce the language of barbarous peoples to written and lexical forms, to make the grammar and vo- 42 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES cabulary of the language before the work of trans- lation can be commenced. Who can measure the time and effort required for such a task ? In what other field of labor has anything like this been attempted ? It has been done. Consider the fact that the great Bible societies have published the Scriptures in these manifold tongues and sent them forth to the ends of the earth at a price not above cost, and who can doubt that God is on the scene of human life, and that he has made good the ancient saying, " He has magnified his word above all his name." Protestant foreign missionary boards have in- creased from a few weak societies before 1801, to seventy strong boards, besides numerous subsidiary organizations. Numerous woman's foreign mis- sionary boards have been organized, especially in the United States, the first in 1861, and all but one since 1868. The Sunday-school, organized in a peculiar manner and for a special purpose, just at the close of the eighteenth century, has grown to a mighty force, beyond all expectation, for the re- ligious care of children. Young Men's Christian Associations, Young Women's Christian Associa- tions, The Christian Endeavor Society, medical missions on a large scale, have been founded and have rendered the most efficient service. It is not too much to say, that the Church is organized fitly for the conquest of the world for Christ. Power must come down from on high to TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 43 quicken the various corps of the Christian army, before the world-wide conquest can be achieved. But the Church is no longer theorizing and praying and hoping, it no longer presents the spectacle of detached individuals zealous, alert, devoted, but powerless. The strength of organization is with us. Large additional numbers of workers will be de- manded, as the field of missions widens, and sol- diers here and there fall at their post, but the army is in the field, organized, equipped, drilled, and under command, and the word has been given, " Enter in, abide, and possess the land for Christ." The battle is on. We will not take off the har- ness before the victory has been won, but there is no retreat now, — no rest, no harking back for the men of vision. Checks there will be. We have met with one recently in which more than four hundred Christian missionaries won the martyr's crown, and by their side most gloriously, there stood and fell, a great company of true disciples of our God, but recently called from the ranks of a degraded paganism, as we are told by the press. But this will but swell the streams of salvation to a mighty flood, as when the temporary dam but gathers the waters of a river into a resistless head, ready when the hour strikes to sweep all before them. The Christian people are in one large sense a prepared people now, and there is waiting for them a prepared field, called of God, " the world," 44 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES and that field, we believe, is a field of final, if not speedy victory. 3. The human race, as such, is for the first time, face to face. The world has been fully explored. There remains, probably, no undiscovered territory of any significance. It is a thrilling sight, an awe- inspiring picture. Men, as such, all men gazing steadfastly into each other's faces : " Many strange, uncouth, savage men, shrinking back and crying to the newcomers, * Who are you ? ' ' From whence do you come ? ' ' What is your message ? ' ' We have heard the tramp of many feet. We have heard the sound as of thunder. We have seen the glare of the lightning, and our braves dropped to the earth, dead men.' " And the disciples of Christ are answering, in the midst of all the confusion of unhappy wars : We are your brothers. We have found you at last, For God "hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation ; that they should seek the Lord." Amazing spectacle: can we gaze, and live, and not do f It was known that this must be, and would be, before the gospel could triumph. A recent writer calls attention to a prediction made by Sir Isaac Newton. In the commentaries which Sir Isaac has written on the prophecies of Isaiah, and on the Apocalypse, he has occasion to speak of the rapidity with which events must be brought to pass in order TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 45 to prepare the way for the universal spread of the gospel at the time predicted, and he avows his belief that men will discover the means of passing from place to place with unwonted speed, perhaps at the rate of fifty miles an hour. Yoltaire in his self-conceit and hostility to religion scoffed at the suggestion not only as a contradiction to the prin- ciples of sober sense and sound philosophy, but as a proof of the bewildering and entangling influence of Christianity on the mind of a great man. He does not question the services which Newton has rendered to the cause of philosophy, while devoting his mind to scientific subjects. But he professes deep regret to see the enlightened philosopher ren- dered a poor dotard by employing his mind in the study of the Scriptures. Great and gifted men both of these. The one a seer, the other a blind man. The fifty miles an hour have been reached, and more, much more, and men, as men, are face to face. 4. Increase of the Church during the century. It has been determined by experts that in the year 1801, the Christian Church at large numbered 200,000,000. At the close of the nineteenth cen- tury the number of Christians had grown to 500,- 000,000. A gain of 300,000,000 in a single cen- tury. This is a remarkable growth especially when compared with the rate of advance in all the previous centuries. In fifteen hundred years Christianity gained 100,000,000. In three hundred 46 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES years, from a. d. 1500, to a. d. 1800, it gained 100,000,000 more. In 100 years the era of the nineteenth century, Christianity gained nearly 300,000,000, more than as much, as the statistician reminds us, as in the eighteen centuries previous to A. D. 1801. We cannot detain this audience around statistics, but the faint-hearted should be encour- aged by the facts. The Church as a whole is gain- ing on the world. At the rate of advance estab- lished in the nineteenth century, the Church will soon obtain the recognized oversight of the entire population of the earth. 5. Human slavery has been abolished by all the enlightened nations. 6. Education has been enlarged, systematized, and opened to the masses. 7. Abundant wealth for the world's business and comfort, and for the work of the Church, has been amassed, and is being freely used. 8. Larger freedom for mankind, in the territory of advanced humanity has been achieved notwith- standing notable exceptions to the contrary. The price which we have paid for the marvelous scientific advance of the century. We see it in the tendency toward materialism. The skeptical spirit is abroad. Great self-sufficiency is manifested in some circles amounting to a sort of boyish claim of independency of God, and indifference to an on- coming eternity. The demand is made for the abso- lute authority of fact in the domain of material TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 47 science, and equally absolute freedom from fact in the domain of spiritual knowledge, though sup- ported by evidential values that cannot be ques- tioned. This state of mind, toward religion in general, and specially toward the large postulates of the Christian religion, is regarded with dismay by some timid Christians. It is rather a matter of delight, with others, who are a little weary with the gravities of Christian doctrine, and who would like a season of untrammeled roaming amid the uncertainties of speculative thinking. With the watchful and grave leaders of thought, however, the understanding is definite. The skeptical atti- tude in many circles, is just the price this genera- tion must needs pay for the advance in scientific knowledge which the nineteenth century — last half — has made in the world's great interests, but with drawbacks. Let us not be afraid, not even impa- tient, certainly not despondent, in view of the un- faith and worldliness of the closing days of a great, very great century. Man cannot interpret nature without God, and he cannot be delivered without the Christ : for " He is before all things, and by him all things consist." " Beware then, lest any man spoil you, through philosophy and vain deceit, after the elements of the world, and not after Christ." Christianity must nevertheless honor true science. She must bring it to work in her cause, and she must strive with all love and patience to save the 48 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES scientists who have been raised up of God to break the way for the triumphs of the Cross. " The cen- tury closed with many a voice crying into the ears of men. It has been called a vociferous, multitudinous generation, with which we have had to do as we watched the last hours of a dying century." " Posi- tivist, idealist, utilitarianist, theosophist, spiritist, monist, naturalist, mediaeval reactionist, general skeptic — all telling the world what dogmas of Christianity we have rejected, and why f Self suffi- cient patronizers of the Gallilsean are informing a long-suffering Church and overwearied public, what religious beliefs we still hold, and Why ? " All these are here, coming and going : and yet above them all, high and commanding, the clear, ringing voice of divine revelation is heard, calling men back to God through an all-sufficient Mediator once crucified, but now reigning on the throne of power and of grace. At the close of the nineteenth century, even as at the beginning of the twentieth century, men want freedom to think for themselves. Freedom from whose sway? JSTot, we trust, from the great supreme rationality, whom to think, to love, to trust, and to serve, is the largest possible freedom for the highest rational finite being. Professor Har- nack has raised the question of our age and of all ages : How can a man be intellectually free, and yet a man in Christ Jesus ? And he has been reminded that that question was solved, for all time, at the TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 49 conference in Jerusalem, and no better solution, yea no other, can ever be offered. And now, fathers and brethren, we must close this hasty and in every way imperfect review of what we may call a pivotal century. Other speak- ers will bring forward, with larger detail and greater accuracy, individual particulars of this great period of time. And others yet will guide your thought into the fateful days that await us, as the century begins its august movement. There is a final word, sad to some, not so to us, who are risen with Christ and who seek things which are above where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God. The stalwart men, the great men chosen of God to open the nineteenth century, are not here. No increase of knowledge, no multipli- cation of wealth, no mandatory control of the forces of nature, no medical discoveries, no surgical skill, no speculative theory as to the unreality of body, sin and pain, no plaintive call of living friends, crying, " Abide with us, the world of man is just beginning to live," could hold them here. They are silent, they have disappeared, they are dead. So it will be said of every one of us, when the twenty-first century is ushered in. Our life here is but a tale that is told, but as a watch in the night. May our inward life, our relations, one with another, our discussions, our preaching, our individual and organ- ized testimony, our service of God and men, be un- dertaken and accomplished in the light of the 4 50 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES solemn fact. We are passing on to the final award, and none may detain us. " This is not my place of resting, Mine's a city yet to come. Onward to it I am hasting, On to my eternal home." THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U. S. A. BY THE Rev. HENRY CHRISTOPHER McCOOK, D, D., Sc. D. THE PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE U. S. A. BY THE Rev. HENRY CHRISTOPHER McCOOK, D. D., Sc. D. The history of a river does not begin at the point on the plain where it has reached the proportions of a stream. It begins at the fountain head. The chief characteristic elements of the nineteenth cen- tury were born in the last decades of the eighteenth century. The eighteenth century was a child of the seventeenth, and as far as specific American Church history is concerned, we there mark its fountain head. I New England as a Mother of Presby- terianism Presbyterianism came to America in the wake of the Mayflower. The Presbyterianism of Eliza- bethan days, of which Thomas Cartwright was the 53 54 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES incomparable advocate, and of the reign of the Stuart kings, of which the Westminster divines were the exponent, was successfully lodged in America on New England soil. The experiment of Admiral Coligni, thirty years before the landing on Plymouth Eock, to colonize Florida with the Huguenot type of French Presbyterianism, was extinguished in blood by Spain ; but the zone of New England was happily beyond the reach of the Castilian. The Westminster Confession and Cate- chisms were lodged in the colonies neither by the Scotch of Caledonia nor the Scotch of Ulster, but by the English Puritans. Cotton, Davenport, and Hooker, were nominated to the Westminster Assem- bly, and would have gone but for local considera- tions. Eliot, the proto-missioner to the Indians, represented thousands who emigrated to New Eng- land or were banished by Oliver Cromwell and Charles II. It may be assumed safely that of the twenty thousand or more settlers in New England during the first fifty years of occupancy, from one- quarter to one-fifth were Presbyterians of the West- minster Assembly type. They were at length merged in the general mass of Congregationalists, which in the end swallowed up even the Scotch exiles and the Scotch-Irish set- tlers, from whom sprung such heroes as Generals Stark and Sullivan. Only here and there a sturdy remnant survived, like the old Newburyport Church wherein the evangelist Whitefield lies entombed. TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 55 The growing New England theocracy quenched the Presbyterian order. But the process developed (Jan. 6th, 1657) perhaps the first of the now long list of American benevolent organizations, known as " The Scotch Charitable Society of Boston." Yet the leaven did not lose its activity. The theory of the Westminster Puritans survived, and even found organic expression in a modified species of Presbyterianism which, in certain sections, was scarcely distinguishable from our present type. In Connecticut, within the memory of those now liv- ing, " Congregation alist " and " Presbyterian " were interchangeable words, and the distinction between " consociation" and "presbytery " was one of terms rather than of character. Here and there were sporadic settlements of pure Presbyterian congre- gations, as for example, that of Eichard Denton made at "Watertown in 1630, and at Hempstead, Long Island, in 1644. But the evolutionary development of the old English Puritan-Presbyterianism was wrought out by a change of environment. New England lies next door to the Empire State ; and when the avail- able farms of Connecticut, New Hampshire and Vermont were taken up, the stream of population, following its natural parallel and the line of least resistance, turned westward into New York. There it met organized Presbyterianism, and was greeted with a hospitality which was more than friendly ; it was fraternal. As in 1643 the Scottish commis- 56 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES sioners fraternized in the Jerusalem chamber with the English Puritans, as men of kindred doctrine and order, so, in the beautiful valleys and uplands of Northern New York, the men of New England, of New Jersey, and of Pennsylvania and the South, recognized kindred spirits, and with high devotion to the essential truths of their faith, united in wor- ship and work. This spirit culminated in the "Plan of Union" of 1799 and 1802, whereby Con- gregationalists and Presbyterians united in common congregations and in common courts of jurisdiction. Dr. John Eodgers of New York was the author of the plan, and Dr. Ashbel Green in the General As- sembly of 1790 proposed the convention of the two communions. The dawn of the nineteenth century was, in that Johannean benignity and fraternization, in closer sympathy with the dawn of the twentieth century, than with the fathers of fifty years ago, when the Union was ruptured into the Old and New School branches, in the Kanstead Court Tabernacle of Philadelphia. During the opening decades of the century the union was a girdle of strength to Pres- byterianism. It won for it, by natural affinity, the splendid synods of Northern and Eastern New York, which have fed the national metropolis and its teem- ing centers of population with virile and generous blood, and with vigorous and cultured brain, that have enriched the Church and the nation. When the century began, according to the reports of 1801, TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 57 there were in that section twenty-six ministers, forty-two churches and about 2,300 communicants. To-day Presbyterianism holds the strongest posi- tions therein with a masterful hand, and numbers 891 ministers, 744 churches and 135,065 communi- cants. This is not all. Still westward held " the course of empire." Along the old Indian trails, and over the route by which passed the Jesuit missionaries and the Canadian fur traders, and the French bat- talions in their struggle with the British for the new continent, by lake and bridle path, and down the valley of the Allegheny moved the New Eng- land Puritans and the New York Plan-of-Union Presbyterians. The stream divided. Part of it took the middle trail along which the Ulster migration moved, and lodged at Marietta, thus planting in Southern Ohio an element that left decided traces upon Presby- terian history. But the chief current was directed toward the " Western Keserve," the northeast cor- ner of the Ohio territory, the title to whose soil had been reserved by the State of Connecticut when she surrendered her claims to eminent domain under her colonial charter. 1 1 Connecticut's charter gave her claim to the zone lying between the forty-first and forty-second parallels westward. Of this 3,800,- 000 acres were reserved. Virginia in like manner reserved nearly four and a quarter million acres between the Scioto and the Little Miami Rivers ( about one-sixth of the State ) to satisfy the claims of her continental soldiers. 58 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES Thither rolled the white-topped wagons of the migrating children of the Puritans. They brought with them the Church and the school. Presby- terianism was rooted in the new soil. Along the pebbled beach of Lake Erie, in Cleveland, the " Forest Tree City," now the metropolis of that section, and in the counties tributary thereto, a lodgment was made for our Church and our ecclesi- astical principles, which has been a seeding center of influence for Ohio and the whole Middle-west, Southwest and Northwest. In the first decade of the century the number of Presbyterian communicants in that center was but a handful. To-day there is an enrollment in that corner of Ohio alone, of 198 ministers, 174 churches, and 30,465 communicants. These settlements pushed down from the West- ern Eeserve to the line of Columbiana and Stark counties, where the settlements met the confluent streams of the Scotch-Irish and German Eeformed migration, with whom Presbytery was the dominant form. To-day, chiefly owing to the assimilation of Presbyterianism by the Puritan stock of Northern New York, the Presbyterian Church has in the Buckeye State, the home land of Grant and Sher- man, Sheridan and McPherson, of Garfield and Harrison and McKinley, — seventeen Presbyteries, 633 ministers, 64:6 churches, nearly 100,000 com- municants, and 90,000 Sunday-school scholars. In institutions of learning of high and lower grade TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 59 for men and women, and youth ; in noble charities and in all the elements and accessories of advanced Christian civilization, in deep-seated and far-reach- ing influence for the general welfare of the Middle- west, Northwest and Southwest, who can weigh the value of that planting of Presbyterianism in the eastern border of Ohio ? What a vast stride for- ward from that day of small things when the com- mittee of Domestic Missions in Philadelphia sent out in 1805, James Hoge of Virginia, as a missionary to " the State of Ohio and the Natchez district " ; and in the next year (1806) renewed the commission to " the State of Ohio and the adjacent parts " ! * We have followed the chief contributory streams of New England Puritanism as it fed, directed, and modified, the course of Presbyterian history and influence. But there were many divergent and independent streamlets, which are more difficult to trace, but which in the aggregate made important accessions to the Church in membership and espe- cially in the ministry. The great colleges of New England, particularly Yale, supplied many of the early ministers to the scattered Presbyterian con- gregations of the Middle and Southern States. New England gave Jedediah Andrews, the first pastor of the mother church of Philadelphia, and a command ing figure in the organization, about 1705, of " The Presbytery," as the name always appears on the early records, meaning the General Presbytery, and the only court properly so designated. 60 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES The influence of New England Puritans was marked in the development of Princeton Uni- versity, which has so strongly modified the char- acter of our Church, for Princeton has always been cosmopolitan. It went to New England for Jonathan Edwards; to Virginia for the eloquent Davies; to Scotland for the incomparable John Witherspoon, and for James McCosh, whose colossal intellect was coupled with a child's charming sim- plicity ; and it went to the British West Indies for its last, and not least distinguished president. Time would fail to call the roll of the good and great New England men, whose life work has been wrought into the spiritual and mental and material growth of our Church and its affiliated branches. New England gave those devout missionaries to the Indians, David and John Brainerd ; and the story of David's life written by Jonathan Edwards was a clarion call to many consecrated evangelists. There was Gardiner Spring, a veritable metropolitan bishop, the successor of John Rodgers, and the predecessor of such preachers as James O. Murray, the younger Van Dyke, and Maltbie Babcock. Adams, the stately and courteous, a noble type of the old school gentleman, and of the new school divine ; Professor Shedd, a thinker clear as crystal and as solid ; Smith, keen, incisive and eloquent ; Lyman Beecher, " the noblest Roman " of all that name ; and Henry Ward, whose bright early manhood was given to our Church; Beeman, Wells, Finney, TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 61 Hatfield — we might point to constellation upon constellation of shining clerical lights of New England birth and parentage. Morse, who taught the lightning to talk ; Cyrus Field, who bridged the ocean and bound Europe to America, and linked the continents together ; Henry Field, editor, author, traveler, whose facile pen has charmed thousands of readers ; Samuel J. Mills, the father of American Foreign Missions, who fell asleep ashipboard while returning from his evangelistic visit to Liberia, and awaits the hour when the sea shall give up its dead ; Jedediah Chapman, moder- ator of the Synod of New York and New Jersey in 1797, and first moderator of the Synod of Albany in 1803 ; Seth Willis ton and Jedediah Bushnell, a rare trio of missionary evangelists who set North- eastern New York aflame in the revival of 1799, — these were all New England men. Samuel Parker, who heard the strange and romantic call of the " Wise men of the West," and, though past the imaginary "dead-line of fifty," penetrated the wilds of Oregon to preach to the Indians, was a New England man. So was Marcus Whitman, who saved to the United States Oregon and the Northwest, from the clutch of the British Hudson Bay Company, and whose sound claims to the honor cannot be shaken by literary criticism. Kent, Little, Eiggs, the Pond brothers, and Dr. Williamson, the pioneer of Minnesota, — these and many more of the heroes and heroines of the great 62 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES missionary campaign, which marked the early dec- ade of the nineteenth century, were given to our Church by New England. And what shall we say of the laymen of New England lineage and blood ? Noble men, " princes of the Church," indeed ; munificent contributors to every worthy cause, and active helpers in every good work, the savor of their generous gifts and devoted lives breathes through the charitable, educational and missionary institutions of our Church, of the country, and of the world ! One hesitates to name a few where there are so many, but many of you will think of the names of Butler, Brown, Dodge, Day, Eollins, Tappan. If you seek a present example, behold in the honored chairman of this morning's commemorative service, a child of New England, whom every Presbyterian and every Philadelphian honors and loves, for what he is as well as for what he has done — John H. Con- verse. II The Scotoh-Irish Element in the Making OF THE ChUECH Turn now to another and parallel stream of migration that largely influenced the progress of our history. It might well be a theme for equal debate whether New England Puritans or the Scotch-Irish Puritans, have more largely molded TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 63 the history of our Church as it greets the twentieth century. If we exclude from consideration our Southern sister and the Cumberland branch, the question is more doubtful. But descending from the northern range of settlements, from New York westward, to those that lie along the valleys of Pennsylvania and Ohio, the influence of the Ulster Scots was predominant. It was a wonderful development, during the middle of the eighteenth century, that sent ships of Britain loaded with families, churches and com- munities, from the ports of Northern Ireland to the colonies. The folly of the English rulers of the eighteenth century was the friendliest factor in the making of America and her Presbyterian Church. The migration following the potato famine in the middle decades of the nineteenth century was Celtic, and has made the Latin communion the foremost in numbers of the great American Churches. But the migration of the eighteenth century was Protestant and Presbyterian. Had it not been for the unhappy divisions, and the lack of central and controlling agencies, the Presbyterian Church to-day might equal in numbers that of her ancient antagonist. But as our fathers were wont to say, " Nothing happens — to a Presbyterian !" Doubt- less, one of our foreordained functions has been to feed other denominations with our spiritual power and wealth of vigor, intellect and money. Certainly, "the godly consideration of predesti- 64 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES nation," to quote the language of the Episcopalian Articles of Eeligion, (Art. XYII), " is full of sweet, pleasant and unspeakable comfort," — at times ! JSTot long ago your Committee on Eevision held a sitting in our Capitol City, and were honored with a reception by President McKinley. " I understand," the President remarked to our stated clerk, " that you have met to revise the Con- fession of Faith ! " " We are met to consider the matter," was the diplomatic answer. "Well," said the President, "I hope, whatever you do, that you will not revise out of it the doc- trine of predestination ! " Is not that a rare example of the " survival of the fittest " ? There spoke, through the lips of our Methodist President, the long and goodly genera- tions of his Presbyterian ancestors. To-day our President waits in yon far land of flowers, whose fragrance breathes upon this as- sembly from the Moderator's chair, to learn the will of the heavenly Father concerning his beloved wife. As he sits in sorrow and anxiety at the bed- side of the good woman whom he led, in her fair, bright maidenhood, to the marriage altar in a Presbyterian Church of the Buckeye State, the heart of this nation beats in sympathy with him. Let this venerable court, this vast assembly unite in a moment of silent prayer that his heart's desire and beloved may be spared ! Or, should the pur- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 65 pose of God be otherwise, may our chief magistrate have grace to bow before the divine decree, and say : " Thy will, not mine, be done ! It is the Lord ; let him do as seemeth him good ! " 1 In the retrospect of the century, we as a Church may take consolation in the thought that, through our predestined calling to fertilize the Church catholic and mankind in general, every Protestant Communion in America is far richer in every element of disciplined service and spiritual success, because of the good blue blood of Presbyterianism that has been poured within their veins. And the destiny that has drained our arteries for the benefit of sister communions appears still to be operative ! When the distinguished Koman Catholic prelate, Archbishop Kyan, came to Philadelphia, receptions were tendered him, to which came citizens of all Christian Churches. Among others he was pre- sented to a gentleman now in high official position in the State, as " the descendant of a family [the Latta family], that for 175 years has had contin- uously a representative in the Presbyterian ministry of the United States and colonies." With that suavity which marks the Archbishop's manners, he took the gentleman's hand, and bowing, said : 1 The writer, when he opened his manuscripts early in October (1901) to prepare them for the press, was startled as he re-read these words in the shadow of our nation's loss, and in the light of President McKinley's dying words : "It is God's way. His will be done ! " 5 66 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES " Sir, I am glad, since you are not of our Church, that you at least belong to a disciplined religion ! " What a ringing phrase that is — "a disciplined religion "/ It was a tribute of strength to strength. In many a hard fought field, in Ireland and else- where, Komanism and her representatives have learned to respect their stout antagonist of the Pres- byterian fold. It is a satisfaction for us to believe that if we have lost so much by transfusion of blood, other Churches have gained by accessions of that devotion to duty and divine truth which have made our fathers and our fold the types of "a disciplined religion." May the day be distant far when the Church that we love shall cease to be distinguished, by friend or by foe, as the represent- ative of a religion whose pure biblical doctrines, primitive order, and hereditary trend and tradi- tions, contribute to the making of strong and up- right characters, thoroughly disciplined in every good word and work ! Certainly, our Scotch-Irish forbears were possessed of a disciplined religion ! Philadelphia was the chief though by no means the only port of entrance for the Scotch-Irish im- migration, and thence westward and southward along Pennsylvania's valleys the human stream flowed. It broke through the barrier of the Alle- ghany Mountains, leaving in its course many lonely graves by wilderness trails, or in the rude church- yards of log cabin sanctuaries in the forest. The tide swirled for awhile around the forks of the TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 67 Ohio, leaving its settlements on the rich uplands and in the fat bottom lands, and then swept on into Kentucky and the southwest territory. At these points, especially in Western Pennsylvania, the new society grew into lusty youth, and gathered vigor for that great forward movement which marked the latter decades of the first half of the nineteenth century, and which we are yet to consider. Naturally, this Ulster migration was distributed along the Atlantic seaboard, as far south as Georgia and the Carolinas. There, also, colonies of High- land Scotch made lodgment; among them that Flora MacDonald, whose name is so romantically associated in history with the escape of the pre- tender, Prince Charles Edward. A picture of the so-called " Barbecue " Presbyterian Church, where Flora and her husband, Alan MacDonald, wor- shiped, has been preserved, and may be seen by the curious. The famous Revolutionary partisan, Sergeant MacDonald, was of that Highland clan, although most of his clansmen were royalists, the almost unique exception to the political status of Presbyterians during the Revolutionary period. This introduces a fact which we may pause a moment to emphasize, for the American Revolution had a vital influence upon the progressive develop- ment of the Presbyterian Church. General Francis Marion's men, rank and file, were largely drawn from the Scotch-Irish, and it was the 68 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES Williamsburg settlers of that stock who put Marion into leadership. It was from these Southern Pres- byterians that came the Mecklenburg Declaration, one of the earliest notes of Colonial independence, although the utterance was paralleled by the acts of their congeners in the back counties of Pennsyl- vania. The famous Rifle Brigade of General Daniel Morgan was drawn chiefly from the same stock ; and although Morgan was a Virginian, the bulk of his corps was enlisted from the sturdy settlers of the southern and central valleys of Pennsylvania, whose " Associators " and " Liberty-men," were dis- ciplined by conflict with the border savage, and used to the long rifled weapon which was then a new arm in warfare, and which Napoleon greatly admired. It was the same stock that fought and won the battle of King's Mountain, every regiment of the Colonial forces there engaged being commanded by a colonel who, according to tradition, was a Pres- byterian, most of them ruling elders. Of one of these battalions it is related that the men gathered around their chaplain before the conflict began, and with uncovered head, leaning upon their rifles, bowed before God in supplication. Their spiritual leader closed his prayer with the ringing sentence, " The sword of the Lord and of Gideon ! " As by one impulse, they raised their hands aloft, like the old Covenanters in the act of adjuration, and re- peated in chorus, as though it were a battle cry, the TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 69 chaplain's closing words : " The sword of the Lord and of Gideon ! " No wonder such men were in- vincible ! General Daniel Morgan died an elder in the Presbyterian Church. Is it to his discredit that be- fore the battle of Cowpens he climbed into a bushy tree, and, secluded from the eyes of his comrades, bowed in prayer to the God of battles for forgive- ness of sin and for victory over his foes ? It is needless to enumerate examples. In truth the chief burden of the Revolutionary struggle fell upon the descendants of New England Puritans, and of the Ulster Presbyterians, shared in less proportion but almost equal ardor by the Germans of Pennsylvania and the Hollanders of New York. No review of the progress of our Church can omit some reference to the struggle for Colonial independence. It was but another stage in our ecclesiastical evo- lution. It was the destiny which a higher power controlled. But it is not strange that the Ulster- men threw themselves heart and soul thereinto, and were among the first and most uncompromising supporters of independence. To them it was a strike for liberty, from not only civil but ecclesias- tical disabilities and annoyances that had driven them and their forbears from Ireland. It seems a far cry from Lord Cornbury and his oppressive as- sault upon liberty of worship, in the persons of Francis Mackemie and John Hampton in the Coun- cil House at Fort Anne, New York, in 1706, to the 70 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES immortal deed of 1776 in Independence Hall, which John Witherspoon, Presbyterian clergyman, advo- cated, and Charles Thomson, Presbyterian elder, re- corded. But in fact the note ran all through the intervening years. You may still see the original document with the seal of the King's privy council, dated 1767, which sets forth the reason, in the in- terests of the English Established Church, why the First Presbyterian congregation of New York should be denied a charter ! Elsewhere Presbyterian worshipers were ham- pered or harried. Although there was much liberty in many parts, and absolute liberty in some, there was always the possibility that under English rule, the old odious conditions in Ireland might be ap- plied to the Colonies. Hence the passion for abso- lute liberty of conscience, and the wish and motive for separation. It was the promulgation of a new civil code for mankind, from the political Mount Sinai of the new world, Independence Hall, which declared the equality of individuals before the law, and the equal right of all men to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The barons of England, in the days of King John, framed the Magna Charta of civil rights for the Anglo-Saxons of Britain. The political fathers of the Declaration of Inde- pendence and of the Constitution, made the Maxima Charta, not only for the Colonies but for the human race. In that noble deed, and in its precedent and sub- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 11 sequent incidents, your ecclesiastical fathers had a conspicuous share. Presbyterians are never called upon to explain or apologize for the part which their fathers took as individuals and as churchmen, in pulpit and pew, in the courts of the Church, and in foughten fields where destiny was settled by the arbitrament of war. In these days of patriotic so- cieties and celebrations, the honors assigned to Presbyterian clergymen may be somewhat dispro- portionate. But in those days, when hard knocks were to be given and received, and the high fate of the nation was to be wrought out, Presbyterians had no lack of such honors as were to be won by hardships, by sufferings, by wounds and death in camp and field. It is surprising how many " sons * and " daughters " of the American ^Revolution, and of kindred modern associations, when they hark backward for a patriotic pedigree, find their claim to honorable standing hinging upon the lusty deeds of some Scotch-Irish or other Presbyterian an- cestor ! We have here dwelt at length upon the chief racial elements that contributed to establish Ameri- can Presbyterianism, but we do not forget that the good blood of nations which represented other branches of the great ecclesiastical family of the Keformed, has been transfused into our veins. The Church of Holland, whose sturdy children planted their seats on Manhattan Island and along the Hudson, has always recognized our close kinship, 72 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES and the ministers of the two Communions have freely passed from one to the other. That we have not suffered by the exchange appears from some of the historic names of the living and the dead upon our rolls : van Kensselaer, van Dyke, van Norden, Talmage, De Witt. The sons of the Palatinate, too, have found a place among us. The first emigrants of the Ger- man Keformed were fostered by our Colonial fa- thers of the eighteenth century until they could fend for themselves. The Classis of Amsterdam gave them ecclesiastical mothering and substantial aid. Thus our pioneer days send down to us a happy foretoken of that " Alliance of Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian System," known under the popular name of " Pan-Presbyterian." Our rolls abound in German names, derived from the original Palatinate stock and from the late migration. Among them there is one name that has shone in the world of scholars with especial luster, Professor Philip Schaff. So, too, the Huguenots have left their impress upon our history, easily dropping into our ranks and bringing to us a glint of their vivac- ity, and a touch of that vigorous faith which marked their great leaders, — Calvin, Coligni, Farel. Nor must we forget among those early elements of strength the Calvinistic Church of Wales. Welshmen were among our first colonists, and have left their trail, particularly in the early Quaker settlements, in the names of many Pennsylvania TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES "IB towns and neighborhoods. "We can trace them upon our records by such names as Edwards, Evans, Lewis, Jones, Morris, and Eoberts. Ill The Pioneer Presbyters and their Flocks The conquest of independence changed the des- tiny of our Church and set it upon its wider sphere and world-wide career. There were only thirty- four men in the General Assembly of 1799, one- twentieth of the membership of this Twentieth Century Assembly. There were only fifty-six com- missioners, thirty-six ministers and twenty elders, in the Assembly of 1801. But the great step had been taken toward a large and unfettered growth. The barriers to national and ecclesiastical develop- ment and union had been burned away in the fervor of war, and all obstacles melted down be- fore the newborn enthusiasm for liberty, for exten- sion, for a continental domain. The losses of the Presbyterian Church during the Kevolution were great in members killed, wounded, and fallen by disease; in destroyed churches; in scattered congregations ; in impoverished individ- uals and families, and in the lapsed and indifferent, the inevitable consequence of a protracted war. The eighteenth century left our Church with a communion membership at the utmost numbering 20,000, and it was probably one-quarter less than 74 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES that figure. But it was blest with leaders who were possessed with a quenchless zeal for souls. National sovereignty cut loose the Colonies from dependence upon the mother country, and threw upon ministers and people the whole responsibility for evangelizing the land. Nobly they rose to the occasion. In all the new Eepublic, when the nine- teenth century dawned, there were in round num- bers 200 (183) ministers, and 500 (449) churches. They were widely separated from one another. Single bishoprics embraced a whole Presbytery and sometimes an entire state. Families dwelt in log cabins in " the forest primeval," amidst scant clear- ings whose open spaces and " blazed " trees showed where settlers had made homes. As the pioneer presbyters passed to and fro, they knew not when the lurking savage might break out of the solitude upon them; and their crude records abound in references to the ever-impending peril of the Indian raid. Their salaries were pitifully small, payable wholly or in part in " good merchantable wheat," and often unpaid or paid tardily. No "Lady Bountiful" was there to share parish cares; no princely men of affairs to bear the financial burden of new enterprises; no Boards with experienced, faithful and intelligent secretaries, the general pastors of the Church, to stimulate and support exertion. If you seek for the just records of home mis- sions, look over the minutes of the early synods and TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 75 presbytery. Every minister was a missionary. From college president down to the leathern breeched apostle of the far frontier, they were evangelists all ! "With the spirit of the preaching friars of the middle ages, or better comparison still, with the spirit of the apostles of the primitive age, they went from settlement to settlement, riding through the lone forest, camping at night in open woods, possessed with the consuming desire to found a Church, to administer the Sacraments, to gather and save the scattered sheep of the Ameri- can wilderness. They were in perils in the forest ; in perils by river ; in perils by slough and swamp ; in perils from savage beasts and more savage men ; in perils from their own countrymen, whose nefarious deeds they thwarted and whose iniquity they rebuked ; in perils from winter blizzard and summer heats; in perils by fevers, by malaria, from contagious dis- eases. Amidst all these and innumerable priva- tions, they pressed forward, bearing the standard of Jesus Christ and his gospel, planting humble organizations and rearing humble sanctuaries that to-day have grown into the great churches and beautiful temples in which twentieth century Pres- byterians "praise God, from whom all blessings flow." It is due to them, fathers and brethren, that to-day we may number our own great host, and cast our eyes over our vigorous offshoots of the Southern and Cumberland Churches, and in the 76 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES spirit of the patriarch Jacob exclaim, " With my staff I crossed the border of the nineteenth century, and lo, I am become three bands ! " The fifteen thou- sand souls which our Church led, by the dawning light of the nineteenth century, into the wilderness reaches of the nation's vast and vacant territories, number now a million and a half in actual Church communion. No wonder those men found the most fitting emblem to put upon the seal of their newly-organ- ized General Assembly in the well-known device, printed on the title page of their loved Genevan Bibles, and upon the first English edition of Calvin's Institutes, — the brazen serpent uplifted upon the Cross ! The conception which the fathers and founders had of the high mission committed to them was, that they stood in the wilderness of the New World to uplift before perishing souls the one and only saving remedy for sin-ruined men. How faithfully they fulfilled their Heaven-appointed duty, let the reports and records of this day declare. And what rare heroes and heroines composed these few and scattered flocks of those missionary bishops ! Weary with hard conflict with the forest ; with domestic duties done under severest condi- tions ; with the necessity to fly the Indian foe, and with the wearying fret of continual guard against him; enervated by fevers and racked by chills those pioneers had before them the mightiest and loftiest problem that God gives to mortals. A so- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 77 ciety was to be organized ; a Church to be estab- lished, a State to be founded ; schools and colleges were to be instituted ; social order and civilization were to be built up in the midst of a wilderness land. They found the wilderness a social chaos, " with- out form and void." The divine Spirit within them brooded over those forest deeps, those prairie reaches and mountain heights, and there came forth order and law and holy faith. They spoke, in the name of the great Jehovah and his divine Son, the old creative word, " Fiat lux ! " " Let there be light ! " And there was light. The people no longer sat in darkness. A new people occupied the primitive vacant seats, and because of those faith- ful pioneers, the wilderness blossoms as a rose- Sublime men! Heroic women! They undertook their Titanic task as unconscious of their own great- ness and the magnitude of their achievements, as those depicted by our Lord at the final judgment, who in the true spirit of heroic humility questioned the divine Judge as to when they had wrought the worthy deeds on which approval was pronounced ? They were plain men, rudely-clad, uncouth in their manners at times, yet many of them with the old- fashioned graces of gentlemen and ladies. Their herculean labor was heroically done, and the ver- dict of history is that, which, we dare believe, al- ready has been spoken in the High Court of God : " Well done, good and faithful servants ! " 78 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES The environment of the American Church has greatly influenced its progressive development. Our fathers had a vast and virgin field on which to train men and women, without the trammels of Old World customs and traditions, into the new ideas of independence, liberty, manhood, freedom of con- science, and obligations to serve the race. Room gives opportunity. Nothing in nature needs as much room as a man. Nothing is capable of as large expansion as a man. In these two correlated facts lie the secret of his greatness and destiny. No pent-up sphere can hold him when he feels the touch of the divine Hand, and the impulse of the Holy Spirit moving him to his destiny. A young cedar of Lebanon, and a seedling sequoia of the Yosemite occupy much space, and they need room for complete growth. But they stay where nature has rooted them. Man not only grows on, but goes on. Even when he holds to his selected seats he expands upon them. His hut be- comes a house ; his house a mansion ; his mansion a palace. His work bench develops into a shop; the shop into a factory; into a warehouse; into stores. His canvas tabernacle, or log sanctuary, or sod-house temple becomes a sanctuary of hewn logs, of boards, of brick, and stands at last a cathe- dral of stone. There was nothing haphazard in the providence that set the Anglo-Saxon upon this continental sphere for his development. America was destined TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 79 for, as it was given to, a virile race. Spain, seized with an infatuation, fed from the Vatican and from ten thousand pulpits and confessionals, to quench Protestantism, was expending all her energies in a struggle against Holland and in efforts to destroy Protestantism in Europe. Thus, her attention was diverted from North America, and another race and another faith occupied this noble domain. "We owe a larger debt to that little land of the Netherlands than men are apt to estimate. Holland, by her heroic opposition to Spain, her long-continued struggle for national and religious liberty, held back the power that might have blighted this broad and beautiful land and stayed the migratory waves upon which our fathers entered and occupied the land. IV Classical and Theological Schools Do you ask whence came the pastors and preach- ers for these pioneer flocks ? Our fathers were not unmindful of the need of ministers and the duty to provide a ministry native to the soil. The pioneers did not find a short and easy road to the ministry. Most of them were educated men, and graduates of colleges. All of them had an academic education ; and every minister of influence in all the centers of population was a theological seminary, around whom, as in the case of John McMillan of "Wash- 80 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES ington County, Pennsylvania, gathered a group of students. History has delighted to depict our great mar- tyred President, Abraham Lincoln, preparing for the responsible duties to be devolved upon him in the future by studying the rudiments of English by the light of a cabin fire. This was a common history in the pioneer days. John Watson, the first presi- dent of Jefferson College under its charter, began his career as a clerk and barkeeper. An old copy of Horace came into his hands, which without a grammar, and with only a Latin dictionary to guide him, he studied by the light of a wood fire, shin- ing from an old-fashioned hearth. He mastered Horace in that wise, and at last achieved the hon- orable position in which he died, one of the fore- most scholars of the West. We catch a glimpse of Charles Beatty, the Irish pack-peddler, at the door of the old Tennent Log College of Neshaminy, astounding the master and his scholars by offering his wares in fair Latin. The incident settled his destiny, for Mr. Tennent received him into the school, and he became an effi- cient minister. With George Duffield, he was the first to visit as a missionary the forests of Ohio, to preach the gospel to the red man. We see Macurdy, the wagoner of Ligonier, earn- ing by " teaming," the simple method of transporta- tion of those early days, the money which laid the foundations of his useful career. We see Samuel TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 81 Porter, the weaver, rising from the loom to the pulpit. For that matter, the race of self-made ministers has not died out. There is Dr. Yeomans, who cher- ished his blacksmith hammer as the best emblem of his early manhood. William P. Breed, sweet, gra- cious, pious, witty, a poet, a naturalist, and a preacher, we see closing his days by amusing him- self at the trade he learned when he was a book- binder's boy in New York city. In Central New York, a lad possessed with the quenchless zeal for learning which has characterized the stock from which he sprung, presented himself in an academic town to win his education. He entered the family and the employ of a physician ; he attended to the chores of the house; he cared for the doctor's horses. He won the crown of education for which he struggled. "Would you be surprised to learn that that youth became the pastor of one of the noblest churches in the land " the mother First " of Phila- delphia, a past-president of the Board of Education, a professor in a great theological seminary, and the present president of the Board of Aid for colleges, a commissioner upon the floor of this Assembly, — Dr. Herrick Johnson ! These are but typical cases. The guiding genius of the American people may be traced in the genesis of her churches ; her worthiest leaders, her best, her noblest sons have trod the pathway of humble toil to the highest seats. The service wrought in raising up an educated 6 82 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES ministry by the early academies and colleges and their successors, is beyond estimate. There is no better work before the Church than to rebuild these old foundations, and erect new ones where they are needed. The tendency of our great universities, unless fed by a devout constituency and restrained by devout and faithful managers, is to cast off the influence of the Church and repel or keep to a dis- tance the touch of religion. At the best they are apt to be coldly responsive to the influences that make for piety and evangelical faith. But the academies and small colleges are accessible to, and their students easily molded by, the influence of re- ligion. Let us care for them ! Let us hark back to the old methods while we " consider the days of old." It is a good token that we are so doing. " The wheel has come full circle round," and the academies and small colleges of the pioneer days are once more taking their place as the " semina- ries " — the seeding centers of pious education. The method of ministerial instruction has been revolutionized during the nineteenth century. Most of our early academies and colleges had their origin in the necessity to prepare an educated ministry for the old colonies and the new states. The classical teacher, who was with rare exceptions a clergyman, was also the teacher of theology. In course of time a theological professor was added. He included in himself all the functions discharged by the entire faculty of a modern seminary. The TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 83 work of the professor of theology was frequently supplemented by or was the supplement of private instruction. Men who have not yet reached three- score and ten, can remember that divines of ap- proved soundness in theology were resorted to by young men whose thoughts were upon the sacred ministry, and who studied privately in their houses. This was the rule also in the professions of law and medicine. It was not until the third year of the century that the theological seminary was evolved, "An- dover " having been established in 1803. " Eutgers " of the Dutch Eeformed Church followed in 1810 ; and in our own Church " Princeton Seminary," the original theological college, was not founded until the beginning of the second decade of the century, 1812. In the meanwhile, Dr. John McMillan was the center of a theological school annexed to Jeffer- son College (now Washington-Jefferson) in Can- onsburg, "Western Pennsylvania, out of which in the course of time was developed the Western Theological Seminary at Allegheny. The old methods have ceased, and from the Golden Gate to the Atlantic, there are established at convenient centers, authorized "schools of the prophets," manned by professors of piety, learning, and modern culture. Some of these are richly en- dowed, by the munificence of Christ's faithful and worthy stewards in the Church ; but others struggle on under great burdens, in the face of difficulties, 84 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES toward the " door of hope " which may open to them a sufficient maintenance. There are few of us who would go back to the methods of our fathers. Yet, theological seminaries have not been unqualified blessings to the Church, and they include an element of danger that needs to be vigilantly guarded. Ministers whose life separates them from the people and the practical duties of the pastorate, and whose thoughts are largely and often wholly given to critical studies and the pondering, analyzing, and framing of ab- struse doctrines and theories, are apt to acquire a temper and habit of mind which insensibly trend toward doubt. The checks and balances of the pastorate furnish an element of human sympathy and a view of human necessities which color and modify critical processes, and hold the heart true to holy faith. How many of the heresies that have distressed, disturbed, and weakened, the Christian Church have originated with theological professors ? Have not most of the attacks upon evangelical religion issued from theological seminaries in Europe and America ? The ablest defenders have also come from thence ; but history admonishes the Church that concerning even the seats of sacred learning she must regard the divine Master's com- mand, ■" Watch and Pray ! " TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 85 The Great Awakening of 1800 Two great waves of influence that moved across the border of the nineteenth century have deeply impressed, have indeed almost shaped, the character of our Church. One was the revival of religion some- times called "The Great Awakening of Eighteen Hundred." A formalism as spiritually barren as that of the Pharisees stood for religion. Specula- tions as sapless, soulless and useless as those which occupied the intellects of the Jewish priests and rabbins of the first half-century of Christ, were the favorite themes of ministers and teachers. Un- belief, indifference, skepticism ate like gangrene at the hearts of high and low. Montesquieu said of this period : " There is no religion in England. If the subject is mentioned in society, it excites noth- ing but laughter.'' Bishop Butler said : " It is taken for granted by many persons that Christianity is not so much as a subject for inquiry ; but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious." So general was the reaction from old beliefs that Yoltaire is said to have boasted that before the nineteenth century dawned, Christianity would be banished from the world ! Par ton, in his life of Aaron Burr, says that at the close of the eighteenth century it was a common expectation among 86 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES cultivated infidels that Christianity would not hold its place in the world for three centuries longer ! This spiritual condition of the Church was re- flected, though in a fainter degree, in America. The infidelity whose outbreak shocked the world during the French Eevolution of 1792, had long been gradually leavening the nation, nobility and clergy, professional, business and laboring classes alike. It infected the officers of the Colonial army by contact with their companions in arms of the army and the navy of France, who were fighting side by side with them the battles of independence. The godly mourned the desolation of Zion. " Ichabod, thy glory is departed " seemed to be written upon the portals of the sanctuaries. But it happened as of old in Israel, " the people who sat in darkness saw a great light." Upon the spiritual darkness of Israel in the first century, arose the Sun of Eighteousness, and with Him those lesser lights, the apostles and disciples of Jesus, and following them the early Christian fathers. The Eef ormation of the sixteenth century saved the faith in Europe. It gave men a form of Christianity adapted to the new conditions of so- ciety and the renaissance of human thought and culture. It revived the Eoman Church and rescued it from spiritual decadence. If the Eeformation was the birth of Protestantism, it was the rebirth of Eoman Catholicism. Thus on either hand Chris- tianity was purified and uplifted. TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 87 So, in the closing years of the eighteenth century, there came upon the whole Christian world a spirit of revived evangelism. The sense of responsibility for the spiritual saving of men, which had been almost atrophied, or buried beneath the exotic ef- florescence of formalism, was quickened in many breasts. On every hand was manifest a keen inter- est in human souls, whether at home or abroad, and a burning zeal to save them. The influence of this great movement is inestimable. It is scarcely too much to say that it saved Protestant Christianity from decadence. Perhaps, more properly one should say, it was the evidence that Christianity possesses a vitality which is indestructible, and which expresses itself in movements for the rescue of humanity and the revival of religion. This mighty spiritual tide swept across the border of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, over- spreading England especially, and in a measure the whole of Protestant Europe. It swelled high on our American shores. The Presbyterian General Assembly was organized in 1789 under the day- spring of this new reformation, into warm zeal and holier faith, and so, under happy auspices began its great career of evangelism. The preachers kindled the flame of piety as they went from town to town, from hamlet to hamlet, from house to house. Along the Southern Atlantic border the reviving energy spread from the old Hanover Presbytery of 88 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES Virginia to the Carolinas and Georgia. The zeal and fervid eloquence that have characterized the preach- ers and orators of the South, were consecrated to the establishment of religion along the rivers and shores, on the plantations, and in the great pine forests, of that section. In the Eastern and New England States the spirit of revival worked mightily. Connecticut and Massachusetts felt the power. It penetrated the then wilderness of Vermont and New Hampshire. Eastern New York was profoundly moved thereby. Commencing with a wonderful display of divine grace at Palmyra, it extended to Bristol, Bloomfield, Canandaigua, Eichmond, and Lima. The counties of Delaware and Otsego were affected. On the north, Oneida was shaken. It was a common saying then, " There is no religion West of the Genesee ftiver." But the force of the proverb was dissolved before the advancing Spirit of grace. It rolled a strong current into "Western New York, and to the revival of that period is due, in a large degree, the devout and elevated character of the people of that popu- lous section, and the prosperity and culture which invariably spring therefrom. "From 1800 to 1825," said Dr. Gardiner Spring, of the Brick Church, New York city, who himself was a child of the revival, "there was an uninter- rupted series of celestial visitations. During the whole of these twenty-five years, there was not a month in which we could not point to some village, TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 89 some city, some seminary of learning, and say, ' Behold, what God hath wrought ! ' " McMillan, McGready, Marquis, Patterson, Ma- curdy, and other pioneer preachers and educators on our frontiers, became the divine instruments of the Western Eevival of 1800. Then were to be seen in the vast wilderness reaches of our new land strange and startling scenes. Western Pennsylvania and Kentucky especially were moved to the foundations of society. There the revival seized upon and utilized an institution which had sprung out of the necessities of the pioneers. These men, mostly de- scendants of Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presby- terians, sought to maintain their old-fashioned an- nual communions with its " Four-Days' Meetings," including a Thursday fast and post-communion service on Monday. There was no sanctuary that could hold the people save " God's first temples," the mighty forests around them. There, then, they pitched their tents, and reared booths of wattled branches and leaves, and placing them and their covered wagons around three sides of a hollow square, which contained rude seats of logs and slabs, facing a pulpit and platform of the same material, they worshiped God as nearly as might be after the manner of their fathers. This primitive institution the pioneer revivalists utilized. Under a process of gradual evolution, chiefly in the hands of our brethren of the Metho- dist Episcopal Church, it has grown into the Chau- 90 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES tuaquas, the Ocean Groves, the Winonas, and similar vast summer encampments which to-day attract scores of thousands of worshipers. But it is of Presbyterian origin. Yast camp meetings were organized by the pioneer preachers. In the prime- val forest arose the mighty sound of psalms sung by great congregations, who were swayed by the fervent reasonings and appeals of the preachers as were the branches of the trees above them by the passing breeze. In the silence of the deeper woods, the cry of prayer and of penitence was heard, and the rejoicing shout of new believers. There were some disorders as one might expect. There were physical prostrations ; outbursts of unregulated en- thusiasm; unwholesome reactions; harmful ex- crescences. But, on the whole, the work of grace may be said to have saved the new West from the gross materialism, infidelity, and semi-barbarism, that threatened it, and consecrated it unto Christ and his Church. Thus, the infant brow of the mighty West and Southwest was baptized with the dew of heaven, the Holy Ghost shed from on high. The tide of religious feeling spread farther and wider, and rose higher and higher, and from that day to the present has been continually rising until the dawn of the twentieth century shows the Church panoplied with a power of influence, of wealth, and above all of spiritual purpose and devo- tion which, in the whole history of the nineteen centuries of Christianity has never been excelled. TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 91 Our General Assembly of 1803 appointed a spe- cial committee on the state of religion, consisting of Samuel Miller, Archibald Alexander and James "West, peerless names in our Presbyterian history. Their report is well worth perusal by the men of the twentieth century, and it confirms the state- ment here made of the inestimable value of the revival of 1800 in shaping the social, moral and re- ligious character of the American people. To one point this committee called particular attention- Most of the accounts of revival communicated to them stated that the institution of praying societies, or seasons of special prayer to God for the out- pouring of the Spirit, generally preceded the re- markable displays of divine grace with which the land had been favored. Could this venerable As- sembly and the Church which it represents, better begin the new century than by calling upon all Christian people throughout its vast extent to organize " New Century Praying Bands " and " Twentieth Century Societies for Prayer " ? Were we thus to lay hold of the divine Hand by that human arm divinely appointed to open its stores of mercy, surely we would have reason to hope that now, as a century ago, the Spirit of the Lord would descend upon the people, and multitudes be born unto God. Here, from our high vantage ground, on this the great day of our new century feast, let us pray and wait with outstretched hands to God, and listen for " the sound of a going in the tops of the trees " ! 92 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES YI Development Theough the Spirit of Organization A second formative influence that shaped the character of our Church and of American Christen- dom generally, was the spirit of organization. Men were moved to band together for Christian work. The element of personal initiative in Church prog- ress was stronger with the pioneers than with us, in whom that element is largely eliminated. Boards and societies are now depended upon to begin and complete the great missionary undertakings of the Church. But the fathers early saw the need of organization. This movement had begun in Europe in the last decade of the eighteenth century. The Baptist Missionary Society was organized in 1792 ; the London Missionary Society in 1794; the Church Missionary Society in 1799; the Beligious and Tract Society in 1799 : and the Episcopal Church Missionary Society in 1800 ; the British and Foreign Bible Society in 1804. These were the types of many organizations which sprung into being throughout Great Britain and the Continent. In the American colonies Christians largely de- pended upon British organizations. It is significant that the society in Scotland for Propagating Chris- tian Knowledge, composed of Presbyterians in Edinburgh, was among the first to undertake mis- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 93 sionary work in America. In 1730, Governor Belcher and others of the Massachusetts Bay Colony were made a " Board of Correspondents,'' for carrying on work among the Indians. In 1732 the first missionaries l were sent out to the Indians on the George and Connecticut rivers. In 1737 this work was abandoned. In 1740 a similar Board was formed in New York ; and within the same decade, David Brainerd was sent out under the auspices of the same society to undertake his historic and heroic work in which he was succeeded by his brother, John Brainerd. The conversion of the Indians was then regarded as foreign missionary work, as indeed it was until a comparatively recent date. But the Scottish So- ciety undertook home missions as well, sending out the Kev. Mr. John McLeod to a colony of High- landers in the Carolinas in 1735. 2 The Kevolution severed the bond between the colonies and the mother country, and American Christians at once began to organize for evangelis- tic work. The New York Missionary Society was formed in 1796, chiefly through the influence of the eloquent Dr. John M. Mason who, in his address of 1803, indulged the dream that the "converted 1 Mr. Joseph Secomb, Mr. Ebenezer Hinsdale and Mr. Stephen Parker. 2 The mission was abandoned in 1740 on account of the colony being nearly extinguished in the expedition against the Spaniards at St. Augustine. 94 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES Indians of America might carry westward into Asia the light of life and immortality." "Who shall say that this dream is an empty figment? The native Indians to-day are preaching the gospel to their own people ; and it is but a step from the far West and from Alaska to the shores of Asia ! Why should not our brethren of the aboriginal race aid in evangelizing Japan and China, from which na- tions it is not impossible that they may have sprung ? In 1802 the Synod of Pittsburg was organized, and at once formed itself into the " Western Mis- sionary Society," of which the Hon, Walter Lowrie became the secretary. A " Board of Trust " was formed as a sort of commission to conduct the affairs of the society, and to select and send forth missionaries. In 1810 (June 29) the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was formed, and in 1818 the American Home Missionary Society. To both of these organizations Presby- terians largely contributed, and no just history of the progress of the Church can omit the vast in- fluence for good exercised upon Presbyterian his- tory, in building up our frontiers and planting mis- sions in foreign parts, by these two noble organiza- tions now controlled by our brethren of the Con- gregational Church. TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 95 VII Forms of Worship.— The Praise Service A great change has befallen our forms of wor- ship. One may use the word " forms " ; for al- though our branch of the widely-spread Presby- terian and Eeformed fold has no written prayers, the methods of Calvin and Knox not having de- scended to us, yet our fathers had their unwritten forms. As a rule they adhered to them more rigidly than the clergy of to-day. Those who can remember the old-time pastors, can recall their fixed order of worship, and the method and matter of their public petitions. Some of their phrases still ring in our ears ; quaint, devout, breathing the spirit of piety, and clothed in the words of Holy Scripture. Some of these have been made obsolete by the very progress of events, as the well-worn petition that " God would open the gates of the Gentiles to the gospel n ; and that " God would break down the Chinese wall for the entrance of Christianity." Organs and melodeons, as aids to praise, were to most of our pioneer worshipers an impious " kist o' whustles." Even the tuning fork was looked upon with suspicion. It would be hard for a modern congregation to conceive the depth of in- dignation and contempt expressed in the sarcastic announcement credited to one of the old-fashioned 96 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES ministers who was preaching, by way of exchange, in a church where a musical instrument was used : " Let us fiddle and sing to the praise of the Lord in the use of the One Hundredth Psalm ! " The in- novation had a long and hard contest for admission which, to most of this assembly, is now merely a curious episode of history. There is little to restrain any pastor from in- troducing whatever form of musical service pleases him. Choirs, even voluntary choirs, were rare a hundred years ago. The precentor stood at the front or side of the pulpit, and raised the tune, frequently "lining out" the psalms, a custom which had not disappeared fifty or even forty years ago ; although your speaker has seen within the last twenty years a precentor in a dress coat, with baton in hand, standing on the pulpit platform of a metropolitan church, leading the congregational praise. Anthems, solos, responsive readings, would have raised a riot in the ordinary Presbyterian congregation of a century ago ; and the minister who would have dared to introduce them would have been served with almost as emphatic a protest as that of Jenny Geddes, whose famous stool ad- monished Dean Hannay, in St. Giles of Edinburgh in 1637, that he must not try to force " the relics of popery " upon a Presbyterian folk. How changed is all this ! The precentor has gone, or is only an occasional archaic survival. Organs, choirs, anthems, solos, responsive readings, are al- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 97 most universal in church or in Sunday school. The ancient " Twelve Common Tunes " have given place to hundreds of melodies, ranging from the highest product of the masters to the lightest jiggling and trivial adaptations of the Sunday-school or revival- ists' tune book. And the Psalms — the dear old Psalms of David in the " varsion " of Francis Kous ! Where are they ? Time was, when one Psalm Book served for all churches and all sections. The emigrant from Scotland or from Ulster found his Kous in use in the American Colonies and States. The pioneer who pushed his slow way from the eastern sea- board to the frontiers of Pennsylvania or Kentucky, carried his Kous's version with him, and found it used in the log-cabin churches among the clearings of the West. Now, to quote the indignant note of a Christian woman returned from a western journey : "A tourist would have to carry a trunkful of dif- ferent hymn books in order to join in the worship of Presbyterian churches. I have been traveling all summer, and always went to my own church, and never found the same hymn book in any two churches ! " Doubtless, we have lost something in this loss of unity. At least, our fathers were not unwise in trying to secure unity of worship in the matter of psalmody. Is not that one thing which the twentieth century might well return to, — one book of praise for the entire Church ? Is there any reason why this part of worship should not be a 7 98 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES subject for presbyterial authority equally with the use of one version of the Holy Scriptures ? The change in the character of our hymns has been one of the most striking characteristics of the century. Until the Keunion of 1870, the preference of the churches was, for the most part, divided be- tween the Psalms in Rous's version, and Dr. Watts's Imitations of the Psalms, together with his Hymns and Divine Songs. These were printed in separate parts, and the arrangement was simple and effective, to say the least. It is notable that the Psalms in some version had a prominent part. It is a marvel and a misfortune that our Church has consented to drop most of these noble and inspired vehicles of praise from its hymnology. One might regret it on the ground of historic sympathy. If you will turn to an English prayer book of the times of Queen Elizabeth, or of Edward YI, or of the Charles's, you will find that the only hymns of the Church then used were the Psalms in the ver- sion of Sternhold and Hopkins. At a later period, from the days of the Westminster Assembly on, the version of Sir Francis Rous, as amended by the Scotch Assembly of 1650, grew into favor until, among the Puritan and Presbyterian churches of England, Scotland, Ulster, and America, it held the sole place. To be sure, the New Testament Church should not be bound to Old Testament psalmody. It seems to us unreasonable and unscriptural that ut- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 99 terances which voice the fulfillment of the Messianic Psalms, and the faith of the Gospels and Epistles, and the experience of the Christian Church as moved by the Holy Spirit, should be refused a place in public worship. Never theless on the ground both of historic sympathy and of eminent fitness, the Psalms, in some metrical version or as chants, should have a permanent place in our wor- ship. They are without a rival as suitable vehicles for expressing human gratitude to God for all his benefits. There are no thanksgiving hymns of praise like those we may select from the Hebrew Psalter. Let us hope that, in that turning to the worthy history of the past which crops up in this dawn of the twentieth century, there will be a revival of the psalmody which has been consecrated through all the centuries past to the praise and service of Almighty God. Those noble utterances were voiced by the ancient people of God as they moved toward Jerusalem to their religious festivals, and " the Pilgrim Psalms " are among the sweetest of the Psalter. On the great days of worship the temples and the hillsides surrounding rang with the Psalms sung to Hebrew melodies by the people, and by the mighty choir of the Levites organized for the temple service. These are the hymns that Jesus sang as a boy, sang as a man, and from them his dying utterances were chosen. These are the hymns that voiced the worship of the Apostolic ILofC. 100 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES Church. These are the hymns that our Puritan and Presbyterian fathers sang in all their history pre- ceding the last century. They are just as fitting to- day to utter our sacred thanksgiving as at any period of God's Church, whether under the old or the new dispensation. Our new Hymnal is a book worthy of the favored place it has already taken in our Church. But it lacks one thing that a perfect book of praise should have : a selection of fifty or sixty of the Psalms of David, preferably in the version of Rous, or as near to the original as modern ideas of propriety and taste will permit. Till The Saceaments.— Ministeeial Manners In the administration of the Sacraments, baptism has suffered little change at the hands of time, ex- cept perhaps that the sense of its value has some- what diminished. There was long a feeling,— shall we call it a superstition ?— that caused the pioneer parent to mount and ride away over forest trail and prairie to fetch the minister to christen a dying child. It is rare that such an experience befalls the clergyman of to-day. The Sunday following the Communion of the Lord's Supper,— according to the custom, was wont to see a crowd of parents stand- ing before the pulpit with the children who had been born since the last observance, and the un- baptized offspring of those who had just been ad- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 101 mitted to the Church. It was a solemn and im- pressive spectacle, as the pastor moved along the throng, accompanied by the senior elder who car- ried the font, sprinkling the water of baptism upon the brows of the little ones of God's covenant. Sometimes, a whole family, four or five or six chil- dren would receive at one time the sacrament of baptism. One does not note such scenes to-day. The preciousness to the parent and the value to the child, of the Covenant which gives the Christian's off- spring a birthright in the Church, and a title to its promises and ordinances, are well appreciated by many. Yet there is hardly that almost universal appropriation thereof which was the usage of early times. We would surely expect it to be otherwise in view of the marvelous turning of the hearts of the fathers to the children, which is expressed in the spread and growth of the Sunday-school move- ment. In the observance of the Lord's Supper the change has been more radical. The ante-commun- ion fast, the four-days' meeting, the action ser- mon, the post-communion service, have well-nigh ceased. The sacramental token, a bit of metal stamped with the initial letter of the minister or of the church, or simply with the capital " M " which betokened membership, and which gave the com- municant the right to come to the Supper, has been so completely eschewed that a collection of tokens is a curiosity to modern American Presbyterians. 102 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES The " communion card " or " token card " is the sole survival of this interesting custom. The narrow tables, spread with their snowy linen cloths, around which communicants sat in successive " tables " until all were served, are no more seen. The long " rolls " of unleavened bread, with flecks of brown upon the white, and laid crosswise upon the napkin-covered plate, are gone. The very cup itself — the Loving Cup of the Master, — his symbol of the Christian Brotherhood of Blood, is fast-disappearing before the tiny individual cuplets of glass ; and the stately tankard that the elder slowly carried through the aisle from which to replenish the sacred vessels, has been displaced by the patent " filler." So much for the discovery of the pernicious and all-pervading microbe ! Surely here has been evolution per saltum, and as radical as it is rapid. It would seem that in this respect, at least, it would be impossible for change to go farther. The chief function of the pastor, according to the New Testament, is teaching. To preach the gospel, discipling the nations, teaching them what- soever things the Lord commanded, is the divine mission to which Christ's ministers are committed. Our fathers of one hundred years ago magnified their office in this regard. They labored faithfully in word and doctrine ; they imitated the zeal of the apostles and primitive disciples in bearing the glad tidings to the scattered remnant of Israel and to the unbelieving. Their spirit abides with their chil- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 103 dren. It may be truly said that the ministers of the Presbyterian Church take heed to the command of the aged Paul to the young Timothy, " Preach the word ! " But if the spirit survives, the method has changed. As the century lengthened, the sermon shortened. Dr. John McMillan, the pioneer of Western Pennsylvania, when counseling short ser- mons to his students, remarked, with a notable out- burst of progressiveness : " I have rarely known a conversion to be made beyond the hour ! " That expresses the minimum in his day. The hourglass upon the pulpit, which the preacher turned as he announced his text, gave the congregation the op- portunity to see that he did not give them scant measure. The people were rather pleased than otherwise, when he turned the glass, and started the sands a-running upon the second hour. The Genevan gown and the bands were worn by our fathers as the universally accepted badge of the Presbyterian clergyman. The innovation of preach- ing in ordinary clothes, then in " blacks," then in black frock coat, gradually made headway, largely at first through the poverty of ministers and people and the difficulty of obtaining preaching robes. The "bands" developed into the white necktie. The clerical vest and coat came into vogue, notably after the Civil War chaplains came home. Some of the divines of the middle of the century always ap- peared in the pulpit in a gentleman's full dress suit 104 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES (swallow-tail coat), and down to our day such lead- ers as Drs. Adams, Musgrave, Beadle and Albert Barnes were rarely seen, and never heard, in any other raiment. To them it seemed but simple good manners that they should appear before the Lord and the people, in the high function of preaching, at least as well dressed as when going to an evening company. Some of the fathers carried this sense of fitness to the length of wearing black kid gloves in the pulpit. To-day there is a notable reaction, and in opposite directions. Some preachers eschew all clerical gar- ments, and affect a style that in no wise distin- guishes them from other men. They are simply as " a man among men." This is the motto of their method, which certainly has beneath it at least the worthy purpose to cultivate genuine personal manli- ness. Other preachers are returning to the custom of the Scotch, English and Continental Presby- terians, as at first practiced by our American fathers, and are assuming the Genevan gown for public duty. Whether in ordinary life a preacher shall wear a clerical coat, or dress as other men, is a matter of taste. But surely if there were no considerations of propriety, and of reverence, and of regard for due order and uniformity, a sense of historic fitness would plead for the readoption of the preaching gown. It is hard for older men to take up new ways ; but every young minister may well be coun- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 105 seled to return to the good old way of pulpit dress. If a special pulpit vestment is proper, as the Church undoubtedly believes, it would seem that the his- toric and ecclesiastical robe of the scholar and divine, should be preferred to the prevailing vest- ment of black frock coat, clerical vest and white necktie. Eeviewing these changes in the methods of church worship, we cannot forbear some natural feelings of regret as we say good-by to the old ways, endeared to many of us by sweet and sacred associations. "We are impressed by their simplicity ; their adher- ence to the spirit and forms of the earlier founders and fathers of our venerable communion, and by their perfect adaptation to the conditions and char- acters of the pioneers. But we are to remember, even amidst our tears, that the Church is also under a law of development, ordered and animated by the Spirit of God, the guiding force of all ecclesiastical history. For us and for our environment the pres- ent conditions may be the most helpful. Yet the past has much to teach us ; and its temper and usages should at least modify our present views, and give a savor of historic conservatism to the spirit of restlessness and change which, under the name of progress, may be hurrying us into modes and measures of doubtful value. And who knows ? It has often occurred and may again come to pass, that the wheel shall " come full circle round," and the fashion of our fathers may become the fashion 106 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES of our children, ere the twentieth century has been merged with the mighty past. Then, the com- memorative sacrament which shall be celebrated in this historic city to hail the dawn of the twenty- first century, will be observed after the manner of our Scotch and Scotch-Irish pioneers, and the Assembly Hall of that era shall ring with the dear old Psalms in meter ; the Moderator, clerks and ministerial commissioners will appear in all public functions in the Genevan gown, and the military moustache will have ceased from the clerical lip ! IX The Growth and Development of Sunday schools The religious training of the young is no new work. It is as old as the first parents ; as the first priest ; as the first Church. The instincts of hu- manity assert the need of molding young lives into usefulness. God provided for it in the religious laws of the Jewish Commonwealth. Children were em- braced in all Israel's national covenants. Children were to be taught the fundamental truths of reli- gion as soon as they had reached years to compre- hend them. The primitive Church understood this duty, and its catechumens were an especial class in- structed with patience and fidelity in the mysteries of the new faith. The divines and parliamentary assessors, peers and commons, of the Westminster TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 107 Assembly a quarter-millennium ago clearly saw the importance of this duty. Their debates show how well they understood that the only hope of main- taining the Protestant religion or any true faith in Great Britain, lay in educating the young genera- tion. Their Shorter Catechism was the worthy product of this conviction. It is not too much to say that this effort to provide ministers, teachers, and parents, with the means of instructing young people in the principles and duties of religion, con- tributed as much as any other one cause to secure the liberties of Scotland and England, and to lay sure foundations for the civil and religious freedom of the colonies of America. It was no new thing, therefore, only a new method that Eobert Eaikes attempted. But that attempt was the signal for a revolution. It moved through Great Britain. It crossed the Atlantic. It found a hospitable reception in the new Eepublic of the West. It was adopted, adapted, assimilated. In this movement our fathers took a leading part. And now the Sunday-school army is a mighty host. It embraces the choicest spirits of the Church and of the nation. Justices of the United States Su- preme Court are enrolled in it. President McKin- ley is a past-superintendent of a Sunday school. Senators, Congressmen, Governors, officers of the army and navy, countless men of affairs and honor- able women not a few — one million and a half (1,394,630), are the leaders of the host. And the 108 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES youth and children? They are as the stars of heaven for multitude. In the United States alone there are nearly thirteen millions enlisted in the Sunday-school ranks, and in Europe more than five millions more. Of this mighty host our own communion numbers 1,085,205. Let us aid our imagination to grasp such a host by supposing our 7,000 Sunday schools to be gathered here in Philadelphia to march across the continent in commemoration of the twentieth cen- tury's advent. They start out two by two, four paces between every two schools. Twenty miles a day will be march enough for such young soldiers to make, and on the first night, the head of the column will halt at Paoli. By the close of the first week, the van is encamped for Sabbath rest a day's journey beyond Harrisburg and the Susquehanna river. At the close of the second week, the column has climbed the Alleghany Mountains, and has halted at Portage. On Monday it begins the descent of the mountain, presses on over the rolling foothills, by the rippling waters of the Conemaugh. By Thursday it is at Pittsburg, whose big-hearted populace, so strongly leavened with the bracing truths of the Shorter Catechism, has turned out to cheer our twentieth century pilgrims on their way. The third week ends with the column halted at New Galilee, on the bor- der of Ohio. Onward now it moves to spend the night at New Lisbon, in Columbiana County. An- other day's march brings the column to Alliance ; TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 109 and then, with, their young hearts a-quiver with patriotism, they enter the precincts of Canton. They march before the well-known historic house on whose porch President McKinley stands to re- view them. How they cheer, and wave their ban- ners of blue, and sing until the Buckeye blossoms fairly shake amid their broad leaves! They are 425 miles from Philadelphia. They have been nearly four weeks upon the journey, and the rear of the mighty army has not yet started from Philadelphia ! Could we take some high vantage point, and have our eyes gifted with such vision as the young prophet of Dothan received from Elisha's touch, what a scene would unfold before us ! We see a line of children, youths, boys and girls, in their bright apparel, their sweet young faces enlivened with the light of Eternal Hope, their superintend- ents, teachers, officers and pastors marching at their sides, winding through the valleys and over the hills, and along the streams, trailing up the moun- tain sides, spanning the whole vast length of Penn- sylvania, and reaching sixty miles into Ohio I These are the crusading children of the twentieth century as we see them in their fancied journey. God help them on that real journey which they are to make across the new era that has dawned upon us, and upon them ! Only here and there shall one reach the border of the twenty-first century, but let us hope and pray and labor that all may pass 110 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES rejoicing into the home of the Eternal Ages. Upon that vast array of youthful life, beauty and vigor, depend the hopes of the Church and the world for the age which opens before us. To most of us here present the grasp upon the future is but limited ; to some of us it is very faint, and to all of us it is uncertain. To the young peo- ple of our homes and the members of our Sabbath schools, these wards of the Church, belongs the future with all its possibilities of good, and alas, its possibilities of evil, as well. We may have, we must have a brighter hope and firmer faith in the success of the kingdom of Christ, as we face this century, than would have been possible with our fathers in the nineteenth century. Then Sunday schools were comparatively unknown. Their wonderful progress, their mighty movement across the Continent and through the century had just begun. ]STo phe- nomenon is more remarkable, and none fuller of hope to the Church than this growth, in and around the Church, of those who are to take the places of the fathers and leaders. X The Kevival of Lay Activities. — Woman's Work The origin of Sunday schools was the birth of a new force within the Christian Church. It opened the way for believing men and women to take part TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 111 in God's work. The religious doubts and unbelief and indifference which had encrusted and befogged the Church of the last decade of the eighteenth century, were broken and dissipated when brought in contact with this element of activity. The best cure for doubt is doing. The Sunday school saved the Christian Church from the sterility of Arianism and the anaconda folds of infidelity, by setting be- lievers to work as Christ's yoke-fellows. Men worked off their indifference ; and with in- difference unbelief faded away. Duty displaced doubt. Contact with humanity in holy toil showed humanity's need of religious faith. The effort to save the erring disclosed the need of divine aid in well-doing. In the face of the world's opposition, men cried out to God and clung to him with new trust. Under the burden of human sin and woe, they sought alike the divine compassion and the divine help. In relieving the sorrows of helpless childhood, men learned the infinite tenderness of the Christ, and the Fatherhood of God. Pity grew by what it fed upon. Hope uprose from the future, which always belongs to the young. Above all, love, the love of God and of helpless human beings, seized up the Church into its infinite bosom, until she learned, as never before, the old inspired word uttered through the mighty soul that men call St. Paul : " Now abideth faith, hope and love ; . . . and the greatest of these is love." "Woman, by nature and divine election first in the 112 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES order of child-saving, was brought into the Sunday- school service. Her smothered voice was heard again in the churches. Her swathed activities were unloosed, and her suppressed nature given larger bounds. She was emancipated for Christian work. It seemed like the emergence of a new race. It was the rebirth of womanhood into the Church of the Son of Mary. The nineteenth century is con- spicuous above all others, except perhaps the first, by its fidelity to nature and the gospel in following the divine word : " Neither is the man without the woman nor the woman without the man " ; " There is neither male nor female, but all are one in Christ Jesus." See what Christian women, and women every- where are doing and planning to do ! In business, in religious and secular education, on the platform, in literature, in professional life, in charities as well as in society and the home, she is potent, and in some of these fields is the most potent influence. It seems incredible that one hundred, yes, fifty, years ago, this vast force was almost voiceless and unused in the Church and the community. Kun back the threads of history along the century to the first decade. You put your finger on the chief origin and cause of this great revolution and refor- mation in the Sunday-school movement which brought woman into the field, and gave her a suita- ble sphere for the exercise and enlargement of her powers. God only knows what this movement has TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 113 ■wrought ; or where it will end. But let us thank him for it, or for anything else that brings the Church back to the spirit and essential methods of the primitive century. Home missions, foreign missions, all departments of our Christian service for humanity have felt the up-lift and inspiration of this new element in the Church's work. For example, the first distinctive organization of women, the Woman's Foreign Mis- sionary Society, was founded in 1870. Its contribu- tions to date have been $3,595,458 ! And there have come with these practical and pecuniary ad- vantages other and perhaps more valuable elements of service. The womanly characteristics have been transfused into the Church's veins, and woman her- self has been developed into a larger, freer, finer and more efficient being. The revival of lay activi- ties meant more to woman in personal development of spiritual power and influence than to man. But to both sexes it meant far more than this brief glance can indicate. They grew side by side, as is the natural and divine order, into the ever- advancing and widening activities of the era. To- gether they wrought upon and wrought themselves into the mighty structure of the country's progress in religious, philanthropic, educational and social development. But it must be said, in the interests of truth, that to the men of the Church, at first obstructive, then reluctant, then grudgingly con- senting, and at last heartily cooperating, the in- 8 114 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES spiring influence of mother, wife, sister, and women- friends, gave a fresh impulse in service, a new heart for duty, and a vigor, kindliness, tact and devout- ness which have made their own part in the work of God and his Church far more valuable than otherwise it would have been. XI The Gkowth of Woeld Evangelization Another speaker is to tell you to-day of the triumphant progress of the foreign missionary cause across the closed century. But we may at least sweep an eye over the field, and get a glimpse of achievements of our Church. It is true that our foreign missions, as we now use the term, were born within the nineteenth century. But the spirit of missions was strong in the hearts of our fore- fathers. Struggling as they were with the poverty, perils and untoward conditions of a new country, and with the almost overwhelming burden of build- ing up civilization and religion in the wilderness, they nevertheless cherished a deep concern for the heathen around them. The United States was then, with the exception of a strip along the At- lantic seaboard, one vast heathen continent occupied by the savage Indians. The early records of Presbytery and Synod show that the responsibility for converting the Indian tribes weighed heavily upon the leaders of the little TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 115 Church in the wilderness, and that from time to time, they sought their evangelization. Their efforts seem paltry as compared with our world-wide projects and achievements. But it ill becomes us to despise the day of small things. Those heroic pioneers were planting the germs of many worthy endeavors which have developed into matters of continental proportions. The handful of seed, sown in humble faith and in straitened circumstances, is waving like the forests of Lebanon. As we lift the paean of praise to Almighty God for the garnered sheaves of the world-harvest, let us not forget that spirit of the past which gave humanity such missionaries as John Elliot, David and John Brainerd. In the early decades of the century, Presbyterian interest in world-wide missions was expressed through the " American Board of Commissioners of Foreign Missions " organized in 1810. This board absorbed the " United Foreign Missionary Society " organized in 1817 by the Presbyterian, the Reformed Dutch and the Associate Reformed Churches. It was not until 1831 that a distinctly Presbyterian foreign missionary organization was formed by the Synod of Pittsburg, entitled " The "Western Foreign Missionary Society." This formed the nucleus of the Presbyterian Board created in 1837 by the Old School Assembly, after separation from the New School. The New School Assembly continued to support the American Board until the reunion of 116 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 1870, since which event the present Board, with its headquarters in New York, has been the organ of the Church for evangelizing the unbelieving world. Its first home was at No. 29 Centre Street, still dear to the memory of some of us. Thence, in 1888, the offices were transferred to the old Lenox house, No. 53 Fifth Avenue, where they continued until 1895 ; when all the Church's Boards centered in New York were transferred to the splendid mission building at No. 156 Fifth Avenue. In that noble edifice you may stand beside one of the faithful secretaries or one of their devoted helpers, and put your finger upon the religious pulse of the world. Call the roll of the continents. Our Church is or has been in every one. Call the roll of the heathen nations. Our Church has mis- sion stations in all the great peoples of Paganism. The Indians have been transferred to the Home Board, but still both the Americas are represented there. Africa is there, — poor, unhappy, oppressed Africa, that reached out her hands to give a home to the Saviour of men, when he fled from his native country to escape the murderer's hand, and that still reaches out hands to God and to his people pleading for the gospel. Asia is represented by the splendid missions in India, Siam, Laos, China, Japan, Korea, Syria, and Persia. Europe has no official rep- resentative now, except in the sympathetic aid and countenance given to the evangelical cause in France, and in Italy where the sons of the Wal- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 117 denses are bearing throughout their sunny valleys the standard of a pure gospel which so long had floated on the peaks of the Cottian Alps. And there, too, you may come in touch with the last and largest of our American acquisitions, the Philippine Archipelago. Our beloved Church has bound a zone of Christian love and helpfulness around the world. She is catholic ; she is cosmo- politan ; she is polyglot ; she is Pentecostal ! All the chief ethnic religions she has brought in contact with Christianity. We have heard the divine Master's voice, "Go ye into all the world, and disciple the nations." How far short we have come, we know and humbly acknowledge. But it is highly becoming that we praise God on this com- memorative day for the grace he has given, and for the triumphs of his grace which he has wrought through us. This progress has not been achieved without sacrifice. Of money? Yes. But one shames to speak of that in the same breath with the costly sacrifices of the heroic and saintly men and women who have borne the cross, as our representatives, into pagan lands. We remember to-day the worthy confessors who by suffering, sickness, and silent death, have been our Lord's witnesses. We will think of the slain witnesses whom God honored with a place in the noble army of martyrs, — from our proto-martyr, Walter Lowrie, who passed through the waters to the Throne before the sea of glass, to 118 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES the last of those who witnessed with their lives, Taylor, the Hodges, the Simcoxes, who passed through the furnace of fire to the eternal corona- tion of the blessed. Strange, both our first and our last martyrs fell at the hand of the Chinese! Surely, by their blood that great empire is sealed more sacredly than ever as the possession of our Lord Jesus Christ ! XII The Growth of Philanthropy In nothing has the Church of the nineteenth cen- tury been more noteworthy than in the growth of practical philanthropy. The temperance reform has won its most notable victories in the United States. The drinking habits of Europe were inherited by our Colonial ancestors, and wine and strong drinks were commonly used by ministers and elders and people one hundred years ago. They were not, however, conspicuously devoted to liquors, as has been generally believed and slanderously asserted, especially from the perverted popular views of the so-called Whiskey Insurrection of Western Penn- sylvania. The counties of that State in which the Presbyterian element was strongest, and still largely prevails, are now the most thoroughgoing tem- perance and prohibition communities. The deliver- ances of our General Assembly in behalf of total abstinence again and again repeated have not been TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 119 excelled in vigor and point by any body of Chris- tians. The sentiment of our Church, voiced and led by our Temperance Committee, is overwhelmingly in favor of total abstinence, and of restrictive or pro- hibitive legislation against the manufacture and sale of intoxicants. That noble organization, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, has drawn an army of recruits from our communion. One of the earliest and warmest champions of temperance was the Rev. Elisha Macurdy of Western Pennsyl- vania. At a later date arose such leaders as John Chambers of Philadelphia, known as the " War Horse" of Temperance; the venerable and vener- ated Theodore L. Cuyler, who still lives and main- tains a catholic bishopric in the churches, and that incomparable and heroic champion, Thomas Hunt, whose courage, eloquence, tact and wit won him a foremost place among platform orators. The anti-slavery cause had many of its most con- spicuous advocates within our fold. The ringing deliverance of 1818, represented the sentiments of our fathers, and it was never canceled by their sons ; although it must be confessed that the days came when in many sections, it was neutralized by the advance of pro-slavery sentiment and sympathy. Yet there was always a large remnant who refused to lower the standard, and the majority of our com- municants were always opposed to slavery. Had the leaders of later davs been more faithful to the 120 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES early record, our country might have been saved the fratricidal strife of the Civil War of the '60's, Nevertheless, it came about, in God's providence, that he who gave forth the Proclamation of Emancipa- tion that destroyed American Negro slavery, was a worshiper in the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church of 7v x ashington, whose pew still remains un- touched by modern improvements, a patriotic relic of our first martyred President, Abraham Lincoln. That emancipation thrust upon the nation and the churches a duty which Presbyterians were not slow to undertake. The Board of Missions to Freedmen was organized, and with unfailing fidelity and rare success has planted and is maintaining schools, colleges, seminaries, and churches, among American citizens of African descent. No work wrought for our Master has superior claims upon our support as Christians, philanthropists, and pa- triots. In practical charities our Church has made enor- mous progress. The first American eleemosynary institutions were upon Union foundations, and they received from our membership a liberal and often a chief support in money and oversight. Distinct- ively Presbyterian charities were hardly known before the middle of the century. It was after the Keunion of 1870 that the Church awoke to the duty of providing for those of her own household, and thus proving her fidelity to the faith. Hospitals, Asylums, Homes for Widows and Single Women, TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 121 for Old Men and for Aged Couples, Orphanages, and Training Schools for Nurses — all under the name and foster of our own Church, sprang up in our chief cities and towns. Some of these are not ex- celled by any like institutions in Europe and Amer- ica. Our Assembly provides no special statistical column for such charities, and one can make no official and accurate estimate of their extent and value. But the money so placed in these holy in- vestments must mount into the millions. The good work goes on and will go on. The spirit and behest of Christianity cover with the mantle of divine love the poor, the needy, the suf- fering, the helpless, the incurables. In nothing does our Church so fully express the divine char- acter of Jesus and the infinite compassion of the All-Father. This revival of Christian charity, the only lasting philanthropy, is the Great Awakening of the closing decades of the nineteenth century. It supplemented the Great Keligious Awakening of the early years, which led men to conviction of sin and to personal consecration of their lives in holy faith to Jesus Christ, their Saviour. These elements of the religious life and character are not antagonistic. They are bound together by the benediction of God in the holiest wedlock. May they never be put asunder ! The Holy Spirit of love who wins a soul to the obedience of Christ, is the same Holy Spirit of love that sets the soul upon the pathway of human charity and helpfulness. 122 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES XIII A PREDICTION OF THE HISTORIC SPIRIT History, like natural and physical science, can never be said to have perfected its function until it can prophesy. The knowledge drawn from the past should be the safe ground for predicting the future. God's laws are changeless. Man's nature and needs are the same in all ages and races. That which has been shall be, and there is nothing new under the sun. Therefore, we may always look for the recurring spirit of the Olden Time to dominate the thought and actions of men, even though it be re- vealed under new methods adapted to the varying conditions of humanity in different eras. It is not without reason, therefore, that standing to-day on the border of a new century, and looking back over the past, and regarding the tendencies of the pres- ent, we may venture to predict some things con- cerning the kingdom and Church of Christ in whose upbuilding God has given us a worthy part. In the twentieth century Christ will remain the central figure in the Church. Theology will be Christo-centric. The advance in foreign missions, the most remarkable of the religious phenomena of the nineteenth century, will not be retarded. Christianity must push forward to its inevitable destiny. Every creature under the circle of the sun must have a knowledge of Jesus the Saviour. TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 123 Christian ethics, the pure morals of the gospel, must be carried with, and as part of, the religion of Jesus. The elevation of the human race as a consequence of its evangelization will proceed. The social problems which have exercised the human mind during the last half century will be- come dearer to the Church. The ministry and laity alike will recognize a Christian Communism ; that the brotherhood of man is an essential feature of Christianity. To eliminate it cuts the core out of our religion. The very foundation truth of Christ's system of religion, morals, and sociology, is the brotherhood of man in Christ, and the Fatherhood of God over all. More and more the Church must become one in spirit. The barriers dividing denominations and families of Christianity may not be removed, prob- ably will not be ; but they will be so lowered that over them Christian hearts, under whatever form of Christianity, can feel the beat of a common brotherhood. The Church of the future will be a teaching Church. Doctrines are essential to the vitality of Christianity. The cry against doctrinal preaching is imbecile. Christ was " Master," that is teacher. His first followers were " disciples," that is schol- ars. A religion without thought, that does not appeal to the intellectual as well as to the moral and emotional nature, cannot live permanently among men. To take doctrine from Christianity is 124 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES to emasculate it. An invertebrate preaching will never hold mankind. The Church of the twentieth century will be more and more an evangelistic Church. The methods of the earlier evangelists, Edwards, Fin- ney, Nettleton, Park, Beecher, Baker, and of the prince of all evangelists, D wight L. Moody, may not be continued, will doubtless be modified ; but their spirit will animate the Church. The gospel must be preached at home. "Beginning at Jeru- salem " is the law of Jesus. City missions, home missions, the evangelization of those next door to us, the saving of men from their sins as well as from the consequences of their sins, will be the mighty purpose of the preachers and of the Chris- tian Churches of the coming century. The twentieth century Church will continue to be a singing Church. The spirit of song brought in by the Wesleys and the early Methodists, which has been so wonderfully developed, will not be suppressed. Yet there will certainly be a return in some degree to the Psalmody of the earlier Chris- tianity. The Psalms of David have been well-nigh banished from our sanctuaries. They must come back again, and take their place side by side with the inspiring, and one might say, the inspired hymns of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The twentieth century will see the complete reconciliation between the pulpit and the labora- tory. The conflict between science and religion TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 125 must cease. There never was any real ground for it. The heavens declare the glory of God. All works of God praise him, and the Church should be the first to see this and the firmest to assert it. All new knowledge is treasure-trove for King Jesus. There is nothing in science, in itself con- sidered, to inculcate doubt. Scientific doubts do not differ from other doubts which are generated by the natural frailty of unregenerated nature, and the inevitable quest of honest souls for truth in the midst of life's deep mysteries. Most of the high priests of science in the nineteenth century have been believers in God and in Christ. Davy, Her- schel, Farraday, Henry, Agassiz, Humboldt, Helm- holtz, Yirchow, Owen, Clark- Max well, Pasteur, Dana, Gray, Carruthers, Goode, Cresson, Lord Kel- vin (Sir "William Thompson), Sir Win. Dawson — and a host of others who have stood upon the loftiest pinnacles of science have all been believers in Unseen Things. The antagonism which was so manifest in the middle of the century has already begun to disappear. The Church has learned a lesson, as well as men of science. She will not be so ready in the future to suspect scientific dis- coveries, however radical at first they may seem, but will hold out a hospitable hand to all natural truth. Science has been a most helpful handmaid to re- ligion. The world-wide triumphs of Christianity have been made possible by the achievements of 126 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES explorers, inventors, physicists, which have opened up new countries and the old continents to civiliza- tion. Commerce and the Church of Christ have advanced side by side, sometimes one leading, some- times the other. Archaeology, ethnology, anthro- pology, have contributed freely to confirm the veracity of Holy Scripture. This helpfulness will increase with every decade of the new century. The nineteenth century has seen great divisions and great healings of divisions in our beloved Zion. The twentieth century will be one of consolidation and closer union. The first breach was the out- going of the Cumberland Presbytery which proved the nucleus of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The disruption of 1837 followed, and, after a full generation of separate life, the Old School and the New School assemblies again became one in the autumn of 1869. The outbreak of the rebellion of 1861 sent another line of cleavage through the Church, which issued in the creation of the South- ern General Assembly. It is a curious historic coincidence that the great disruptions of the century, those of 1837 and 1861, occurred in the first and second sanctuaries of the Church and congregation of which your speaker has the honor to be pastor. The day shall come, though he may not live to see it with earthly vision, when the last division like the first shall be healed, and brethren who were separated by the barriers of civil war shall be reunited in the ecclesiastical faith, order, and com- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 127 munion, of their common ancestors. When that good day shall come, it shall be in order for the pastor and people of the Tabernacle Presbyterian Church to invite that Keunion General Assembly which shall bind together the Churches of the North and South, to meet in its third house of worship. This will be the happy climax of a his- toric coincidence which made the first and second sanctuaries the scene of fraternal struggle and sep- aration. God speed the day ! The twentieth century will continue to heed with growing affection and fidelity our Lord's behest, " Feed my lambs." The children of the Covenant will be acknowledged, and taught to acknowledge themselves as " Christian children," by holy birth- right members of the Church of Christ. Sabbath- school methods will change, but the nurturing spirit will abide. The Home Department will en- large and embrace the Church membership. The Bible will be loved and used with increasing devotion, and with a reverence that cannot be broken, as God's Book of Life for old and young. The asso- ciations of young men and young women, and societies of Christian Endeavor, will prove their right to a name and place in the sanctuary and under the Church's wing. The men of the Church will learn at last the value of organization for Christian work, as their sisters in the faith already have learned it, and the Church's power, influence, and gifts, will largely increase. Christians shall appre- 128 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES ciate at its full value the influence of Christian literature and a Christian press for the vindication of Christian truth, and for the maintenance of Christian character and life among the followers of Jesus. Above all else the host of God in the Presby- terian corps shall bear aloft with ever waxing fervor, faith, and intelligence, the banner of Love ; love of God ; love of the brethren ; love of the souls of men, and that holy charity which runs with daily relief to all the brotherhood of man whose wants and sorrows shall call for brotherly aid. The twentieth century will be a century of Action inspired by Duty and Love. ' ' Here by his love is his Church led forth From the East and West, from the South and North, 11 Ever a pilgrim, thro' snow, thro' heat, Thro' life, thro' death, till she kiss Love's feet. 11 Yea, my God, till her glad eyes see Love, the Lord of Eternity ! " x Fathers and Brethren : — You have met for this historic commemoration on historic ground. The national shrines which are seated here have been made hallowed in a large degree by the patriotic devotion of your ancestors. Therein Witherspoon plead for independence, and Charles Thomson, the ruling elder, kept the records of that first and great Congress that rocked the cradle of liberty. Here 1 Bishop Chad wick of Ireland : " Poems Chiefly Sacred." TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 129 Elias Boudinot presided over a Congress where the Presbyterian Bishops, George W. Duffield and Ashbel Green offered prayers to the nation's God as chaplains, conjointly with the Episcopal Bishop White. Here John Kodgers, soldier, patriot, and friend of Washington, presided over the first Gen- eral Assembly, which, small as it was, held many commissioners, who like McWhorter and Woodhull and Latta and Azel Eoe, had helped, on many foughten fields, to win our national independence. Here began the organic life of your Reverend and Yenerable Body as General Presbytery, as General Synod, and as General Assembly (1788). Here in 1758 was healed the first great division of the Church, that of 1741. Here the first Reunion Assembly of 1870 was held, as here also the great disruptions had occurred in 1837 and in 1861. Here, three of the important Commissions of the Assembly, the Boards of Education, of Ministerial Relief, and of Publication, are domiciled. Here, in your beautiful Witherspoon Building, whose very outer walls give forth " sermons in stones " of the history of your life and progress, you may visit the halls of the Presbyterian Historical Society which represents catholic Presbyterianism in America, although your venerable body holds thereto the relation of elder brother. And here you may see "without money and without price" the mute assembly of the heroes and heroines of your past history, marshaled, by 9 130 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES the liberality of Philadelphia Presbyterians and the generous support of many ecclesiastical and educa- tional and charitable institutions, in the " Historical and Missionary Exhibition" held in our beautiful Academy of the Fine Arts. Surely, you will drink in somewhat of the spirit of these surroundings. You will know more of your Church's worthy record. You will be quick- ened with new love and zeal for her, and go forth to tell unto your children, as did the Hebrew fathers at the paschal supper, the great things that God has wrought through the nursing fathers of your ancestral faith. The symbol of the Church of Philadelphia of the Apocalypse was an open door. Fitly an open door has been chosen as the device upon the Seal of your ancient Presbytery of Philadelphia. Within that door is displayed a figure of " the key of the house of David." It is the graceful and grateful office of Philadelphia pastors and churchmen to set before you that open door, and to place in your hands the key of that historic house of the Lord which has been made great by the toils and pains of the men and women of the past; which has been made greater still by the pains and toils, the sacrifices, the sufferings, the generous gifts of money, the yet more generous gifts of time and strength and health and energy, by which all that this Assembly represents has been made possible in the dawn of the twentieth century. Behold the open door ! TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 131 Keceive the key ! Enter into the house, this house beautiful. Behold the grandeur of those trophies that everywhere abound, and go forth with that key in your hands to unlock to others those historic treasures that to-day, more than ever, are made your own. THE DIVINE PURPOSE DEVELOPED IN THE PROGRESS OF TIME BY THE KEY. HENRY COLLIN MINTON, D. D. THE DIVINE PURPOSE DEVELOPED IN THE PEOGKESS OF TIME BY THE EEV. HENRY COLLIN MINTON, D. D. It is no great idea or achievement of ours which has furnished the occasion for these interesting exercises to-day. The unique event which we are celebrating came to pass altogether without our authority and without our assistance. The moving centuries never pause to avail themselves of our opinion concerning them. The old century turned its back upon us wholly indifferent to our regard, and the new one has taken forcible possession of us without consulting our interest or our consent. The broad river wends its way down toward the sea, indifferent to the ships that plow its surface, and to the busy scenes of industry with which its banks are fringed. Down its own chosen channel it smoothly glides, unmoved by the ambitions and tumults and rivalries and conquests of men. Like the noiseless flow of the peaceful river, the proces- sion of the ages moves solemnly on, unconcerned with the shifting of the scenes, heedless of the fortunes of the actors, unresponsive to the comedies 135 136 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES and tragedies which are ushered in and then, in turn, are discharged into oblivion. I suppose it should not be counted very strange if the advance out of the nineteenth century of the Christian era into the twentieth should give fresh vigor to the historical spirit and new emphasis to the historical method. Such an epoch, command- ing universal interest and signalizing in a peculiar manner, as it does, the onward passage of time, is a sublime reminder that the great volume of history is being constantly and rapidly enlarged. And such an impulse is wholly in keeping with a very notice- able tendency in recent thinking. How often are we impressively admonished that we must interpret everything we know in the light of all the history by which it came to be what it is ! With august wisdom we are reminded that the secret of all being is in its becoming. No certificate of character is valid without a sketch of the pedigree of its sub- ject. He who knows to-day but is ignorant of yesterday, knows nothing. We have no acquaint- ance worth mentioning with our neighbor unless we knew his father and his father and so on back ad infinitum. Accordingly, we are fond of calling all our knowledge, as well as all our ignorance, history. The time element is indispensable. The study of nature is natural history ; the study of the world is world-history. Man is an enigma to himself till the mystery of his origin has been TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 137 solved, till the long road he has traveled has been traced. The shining firmaments are sheer chaos till the beautiful order into which they have somehow crystallized has been traced back to its pri- mordial star-dust. The old earth on which we live is a riddle till the geological eras have been summoned and have given their luminous testimony. And so it is that nebular hypotheses and prehistoric origins have been put forth as the richest finds of nine- teenth-century research, and, with vastly extended areas and microscopic vision, the emancipated intel- lect would fain wrest its treasured secrets from the coffers of the speechless past. "We can have no other interest in this tendency of thought just now than to take note that it exists. The present moment is a cross-section of the eternal ages; the present age is but a link in the chain which stretches " from everlasting to everlasting." Progress, development, becoming, evolution, history, — whatever we may name it — is pronounced the sign by which we are to conquer, and this sign, as if by magic, makes unmeasured aeons the measur- ing units, and bewildering world-cycles as the brief span of a single day. But such a comprehensive programme means a philosophy of history. Every student of history is a philosopher in disguise. If a science of history is possible it is because history is itself scientific. We may bring our best thoughts to the study of the processes of time, but we cannot put into those 138 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES processes what is not already there. That all his- tory bears the marks of mind is a truism that is venerable with age. The larger the outlook and the clearer the view which we can command, the more convincing is the evidence of mind running through it all. The insect whose threescore-and- ten is measured off by a single round on the dial- plate of time has an infinitely smaller chance of becoming a philosophical historian than has the patient, painstaking student who follows up the successive stages in the making and maturing of a world. The spontaneous and instinctive impulse of the mind is to decipher the lessons with which the ages of the past are richly charged. The astron- omer is spelling out the schedule of the stars ; and the science of geology is the tracing of mind in its slow and steady march along the highway of the unrecorded ages. The vast cosmos of which we are a part stretches back through countless ages of time as well as out through boundless areas of space. Evolution, writ large or small, is but a high-sound- ing name for confusion if its processes are not instinct with intelligence, and guided at every point by a pervading reason and a controlling purpose. Nor is all this true only in the lower regions of inorganic matter. Life itself, that stubborn conun- drum of human wisdom, is richer and nobler only because it is more replete with the complex beau- ties of an ever-present intelligence. In the mar- velous spheres of vital phenomena, organs and TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 139 functions answer to each other as the voice of prophecy is answered by its event, as the cry of a need by its satisfaction, or as the meaning of a pur- pose by its realization; all in mutual harmony within a little system complete in itself and yet con- stituting only a fragmentary and integral part of the larger and nobler macrocosm which is itself the consummate expression of that one supreme unfold- ing purpose for the fulfillment of which the dynamic word of creative power spoke all the worlds into being. Now, if all this is true, it is yet more true when we ascend to the purer realms of free moral and responsible being. And here too, not less than on lower levels, we find men everywhere striving to thread the mazes in search of some informing prin- ciple and plan. The history of man, in its magnifi- cent perspective, meets the inquiring mind at every point with unmistakable evidences of a designing mind which controls the forces and shapes the out- lines of the whole. A Palestine or a Rome in his- tory stands out, like a mountain against the sky, as the embodiment of some one idea. Every fact has its meaning ; every nation teaches its lesson ; every age bears its own prophetic burden. Every king or sage or hero or saint whose name has withstood oblivion is a messenger to the twentieth century, charged with his own special message. Hegel saw everywhere in human history a clear-cut, logical development of pure reason ; the page of the past is 140 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES but a transcript of one progressively unfolding idea ; and although our eyes may lack the keenness of the Hegelian vision, yet even to us it must be clear that the history of man can be known at all only in so far as in some sense it is the out-working of an intelligible idea, the development of a know- able plan. It lies as a sleeping postulate in the background of our thought in all our study of man's history that in the rise and fall of empires, in the ups and downs of dynasties, in the genera- tions and degenerations and regenerations of races and customs and philosophies and religions, not less than in the making of a star or the cooling of a satellite, not less than in the forming of a fog- bank or the tinting of a rosebud, the forces which are at work are ever doing the bidding of intelli- gence ; they are in their orderly and appointed suc- cessions contributing their parts to the final con- summation of the one grand underlying and over- arching plan. This is the " one increasing purpose " running through the ages ; and men's minds are widened as they catch glimpses of its vast scope and rise to the mighty majesty of its meaning. All this is not mere philosophy, though it is soundest philosophy; it is not science merely, although there can be no science without it. It is essentially a deep spiritual reflection, a devout religious attitude. It lies at the very foundation of an intelligent faith in God, and, under God, in man and the world and the course of things. TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 141 This great truth, many-sided and far-reaching as it is, the franchise of religions, the foundation of theologies, the very possibility of a graciously self- revealing God, is not the exclusive possession of any one school or creed. It is broader than any system, it is larger than any sect. But it has been the peculiar glory of the Keformed Churches in the history of Protestantism that, in the providence of God, they have made this mighty truth the deepest foundation of their Christian faith. They have reverently compared revealed truth with the wisest thought of the human mind, and they have found them testifying in harmony that the only key which will fit the problems of world-history is in the single truth that God rules. " The Lord God omnipotent reigneth." They have emphasized the divine in the past, the divine in the outward processes of the world, the divine in the path and in the heart of man. They have seen God in all his works ; they have sought his stately steppings or seen his silent footsteps everywhere; they have found neither heaven nor earth untenanted of their God; and they have had the confidence to believe that wherever their sluggish perceptions have failed to detect with satisfying clearness the presence of the divine, still " behind the dim unknown " God has always stood " within the shadows, keeping watch above his own." Men have called this fatalism, but, unscared by names, the Eeformed Churches have only pressed 142 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES their faith more closely to their hearts. Men have called it pantheism, but, with all the calumnies and caricatures of their faith, they have all the more stoutly maintained that although man is free, yes, because man is free, God rules. They have been taunted with the suggestion that it is but the reign of Fate or Law or Necessity which they acknowl- edge, but they have ever answered back that eternal principles are not less true because pagan creeds have honored them, nor are they less vital because savage bosoms have held them sacred ; and they have insisted that because men's minds, in darker days and under cloudier skies, have failed to apprehend the personality of the power that gov- erns all, therefore we must not, in our greater light and wisdom, declare that the world must go un- governed. Men have pointed in tones of skepticism to the habitations of cruelty, they have sung plain- tive dirges over man's inhumanity to man, they have painted none too deep and dark the pictures of rivalry and strife and suffering and death, they have uncovered the bottomless pit, and, with the genius of a Dore or a Dante, have depicted the haunted abodes of the hopelessly lost, they have ventured to the very verge of that blackest of mysteries in the great round universe of thought — the fact of sin in the world of a holy God — still, as they have thrust this awful picture of night and crimson and lurid flame athwart the peaceful back- ground of an eternal God who is infinite in holiness TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 143 and wisdom and power and love, in spite of all their challenges and in the teeth of all their scorn, they have dared to insist that notwithstanding all, behind it all and above it all, "The Lord God omnipotent reigneth." To let go this one truth is to lose anchor and to drift out farther and farther upon a stormy, angry, shoreless sea. We believe that God rules because there is nothing else to believe. If God does not govern this world then there is no government and there is no world-ruler, no world- purpose, no world-history. If because men are free they can outlaw themselves from God's rule, or, if because they are free they can outlaw God from their rule, then every man is himself a god, en- throned in the closed circuit of his own petty little world. This is to make gods as cheap as men ; it is to make history a pantheon of human deities swarm- ing with gods like the classic mountains of ancient Greece ; it is to rob the world of its one living and true God for the myriads of contemptible little idols of flesh and blood, each supreme in his own self-centered, self-bound sphere. Every man's will is absolute; every man's arm is almighty; every man's seat is a throne, and against his sovereign sway the scepter of high heaven falls to pieces and the eternal throne crumbles into dust. This is chaos, not cosmos ; this is to make the world not a pantheon but a pandemonium, subject to the blind rule of the mad mob ; this is polytheism, not God the Father Almighty ; this is madness, not reason — 144 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES the madness of ignoring God, the folly of deifying self into the glory of the divine. This great truth is a fundamental element, if it be not a differentiating principle in what modern history has been pleased to name Calvinism. "We are not solicitous about names ; we have no quarrel with our sensitive neighbor who laments that the truth of God has been christened in the name of weak and mortal man. We hold no brief for the estate or for the fame of the Eeformer of Geneva. However, that man has not read history wisely or well who hastens to apologize overmuch for the venerable framers of this God-given faith. Such a faith as this is neither better nor worse because John Calvin taught it ; it is neither truer nor falser because good men or bad men have linked their names in history with it. Do men talk of the passing of this faith in these times of wide outlook and high attainment ? Let them talk rather of its passing on and over into the twentieth century with more generous recognition and with maturer and more potent influence as men's thoughts ex- pand. The essential truth of this germinal idea that there is one great purpose unfolding itself in the progress of time, that this purpose was con- ceived in the eternal counsels of the ever-living God, that it comprehends within its compass " what- soever comes to pass," — from the falling of an autumn leaf to the falling of an archangel or of an empire, from the fate of a Marathon or a Waterloo TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 145 to the feeble cry of an infant in the night — that in all its clashing and conflicting elements and in all its mighty and marvelous manifestations, it is ever and everywhere the steady, strong, self -harmonious development of that one single unchanging purpose, having its worthy aim in the more glorious reveal- ings of its divine author, and its only worthy inter- pretation in the faith that sees the invisible, — this sublime truth is for no one age or country ; it is for every thoughtful son of Adam who would fain catch rational glimpses of the vast kaleidoscopic panorama in the midst of which he himself has somehow been flung into his place, and in which, willing or unwilling, he is bound to play his little part. No name in history is so great as to add lus- ter to this mighty truth of God ; and no name in history is so illustrious but gains greater glory from being linked forever with it. If this is what the world means by generic Cal- vinism, then the least that we can say is that Cal- vinism is a self-consistent, theistic rationale of the world-history upon which men are so intent to-day. It sees difficulties, but it focuses them in the one deep dark spot in all our seeing. It subordinates smaller truths to larger ones ; it insists that second- cause contingencies and human free-agency must take their place somehow and somewhere within the scope of the greater truth that a supreme pur- pose — ever wise, ever loving and ever good — directs and controls and governs all. It pleads guilty of 10 146 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES offending the man who sneers at the logical stand- ards of sound thinking, and it is a persistent stum- bling-block to all tender souls who regard self-con- sistency as presumptive evidence that a system of thought is a system of error. The last and largest word of sound philosophy is Personality ; the Eeformed faith seizes upon that word and devoutly pronounces it God. The last word of sound empirical science is Force ; but we remember that force is only another name for Will, and Will banks up into Personality again ; and, ac- cordingly, the God of rational science is the Living and True God. If men tell us that selection is a ruling law in nature, we remind them that selec- tion, insulated from personality, is false philosophy and false science. A personal power is behind and within every process in nature, and, accordingly, the natural selection of science is transformed, in the illuminating presence of the ultimate personality, into the personal election of our Calvinistic faith. Every line in the cosmos leads back to God, but a God who does not control the world which he has made is but the puppet of the forces which hedge him in and hold him down. An atheistic world is a scientific contradiction ; an atheistic universe would turn sane philosophy into the mad ravings of a disordered brain. But our faith must give God room and time to work out his eternal purpose. His divine plan spans the immeasurable spaces be- tween the morning chorus of the new-made stars TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 147 and the angelic annunciation that time shall be no more. Our faith refuses to surrender what it can- not comprehend ; it scans the chasms which it can- not bridge ; it refers a thousand little mysteries to the one great mother mystery, and it traces every clue back to the changeless purpose of a personal, spiritual God whom the little child lisping its prayer at its mother's knee can truly know, and yet who is so great and glorious that to the wisest of the sages his " judgments are unsearchable and his ways past finding out." Possibly it had been well if such a divine phi- losophy could have been unscarred by calumny and undogged by violence, but alas, for the thorny path of truth! But, whether openly assaulted or se- cretly betrayed, it lives on perennial as the very truth of God. The slanders it has survived and the battles it has fought would have buried it fathoms deep had it been only the vain conceit of man. When men tell us that with the frigid touch of fatalism it dishonors man and assassinates human freedom, we quietly point to the page of history for its testimony. The fair blessings of liberty have ever chosen for their most congenial home those favored climes where God alone is worshiped as supreme. If we are told that the stiff logic of our faith would crown cruelty and enthrone despot- ism, we call the writers of history again to witness, and we wait only long enough to hear our own American Bancroft say, " The fanatic for Calvinism 148 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES is the fanatic for liberty." We point to the moun- tain fastnesses of Switzerland, the cradle of consti- tutional free government in Europe, and we re- member that this God-honoring faith was rocked in that same Alpine cradle. "Where shall we go to find richer blood and truer mettle than the Hugue- nots of France, persecuted at home but warmly welcomed abroad, have contributed to the free achievements of modern history ? Holland is small on the map, like Palestine of old, but Holland has been for ages the fruitful soil of the Eeformed faith and to-day, with her fair young Presbyterian queen, Holland may proudly inquire whether modern civ- ilization, minus the Dutch character and stability and love of liberty, would not have scored an en- tirely different record. Scotland, the home of Knox and Henderson and Chalmers and Living- stone, Scotland, the land of the thistle and of the heather, with its rugged fog-capped cliffs and its barren historic moors, scarred by many a conflict and furrowed by many a plowshare, dear, grand old Scotland, with all her open faults and candid follies, has hugged to her warm old heart this rugged faith of her fathers, and Scotland has long been the pro- lific motherland of great men and great thoughts and great things that have blessed the world and enriched the treasures of mankind. And what in- telligent man or woman is there who has failed to observe how many of the great Englishmen of his- tory and of the present day are Scotchmen, and TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 149 moreover, how many of these great Scotchmen are Scotch-Irish men? But every hill and valley from which this hardy Presbyterian race sprang, swept by fire and sprinkled with crimson, has been consecrated to the doctrines of the Westminster Shorter Catechism and to the principles of human liberty. " The sun that rose on freedom rose on blood." This one creed is the mother of creeds. The plan of God is the hope of man. Optimism is a vagabond in any land in which men have thrown aside a deep and abiding faith in the sovereign pur- pose of the God of nations and of men. It is no cruel and capricious despot before whose heartless sway we fall with sullen hate and reluctant fear. The sovereign God before whom we bow in loving reverence is no Moloch of brute force, raised to the infinite degree. Our God is no magnified Augustus or Napoleon. He is a God of infinite wisdom and he is sovereign in his wisdom. He is a God of infi- nite glory and he is sovereign in his glory. He is a God of infinite love and he is sovereign in his love. He is the All-Father, but he is a sovereign Father ; he is the All-Euler, but he is a Father in his rule. We do not undeify God by robbing him of every attribute but that of infinite power, and no more would we dethrone him by ascribing to him all the other attributes of the Godhead while yet we withhold from him the scepter of his right- 150 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES eousness and paralyze his right arm against the doing of his own holy will. The little ant, moved by an instinct that is God- given, toils on diligently while the summer sky is bright, and, although it does not understand the full meaning of its task, a wisdom far greater than its own is working toward its high end. The race of mankind, a toiling, seething, surging, struggling race, goes on century by century, bending toward a goal which the lowly toilers can neither clearly see nor wholly know. Each plays his own part ; each does his own work; his hand is busied with his own task and his mind is largely absorbed in his own lot. But the humble worker knows that not only beyond the clouds but here and there and everywhere, the will of God is immanent and over all supreme. His eternal purpose is slowly taking form in time as it marches on toward that " One far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves." There may be noonday brightness or the darkness of the midnight gloom ; there may be the angry fury of the storm or the peaceful beauty of the sun at the hour of his rising or of his setting ; there may be the groan of defeat and the dirge of sorrow, or there may be the shout of triumph and the song of hope ; but there is always strength for the toiler, there is always courage for the fighter, there is always a song for the sufferer in knowing that in TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 151 the final reckoning that is sure to come, the eternal thought will be gloriously expressed, the divine pur- pose will be gloriously realized. The tides of time will come surging back to the foot of the throne whence when time began they issued forth. He who is the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, shall speak the word and the great volume of time will be closed and sealed forever. He who is the same yesterday and to-day and forever is before and after and within every force, every fact, every moment, every movement, and every issue. All things are by him ; all things are for him ; all things are unto him and " in him all things consist." This is the philosophy of the truly wise ; this is the confidence of the true saint of God ; this is the assurance of God's holy word. This is the precious truth we celebrate to-day, standing on the threshold of a new century and peering into its stormy pros- pects and uncertain issues, with a tempered courage and a not unclouded vision, and yet with an ab- solutely unwavering trust in the Lord God of Israel. This is the faith for which our fathers stood, and, by the blessing of a covenant-keeping Jehovah, it is the faith in which our children and our children's children shall loyally and lovingly stand. PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY BY THE REV. GEORGE TYBOUT PURVES, D. D., LL. D. PROBLEMS OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY BY THE EEV. GEORGE TYBOUT PUEVES, D. D., LL. D. By " the problems of the twentieth century " I understand those which present themselves to the Church at the beginning of the new age. I shall not confine myself however to those which are peculiar to Presbyterianism, but rather attempt a survey of those which we face in common with other evangelical branches of the Church of Christ. I assume that we desire to grapple with the largest questions; that we are most interested in the problems which address themselves to Christian men everywhere; that we believe that we shall best meet the problems of our own Church's life by doing our share in the solution of those which con- front Christianity itself. The Christian Church has entered the new cen- tury with her banners flying and her regimental hosts in marching order. The past century has in- deed been one of struggle against foes without and within. But God has wonderfully upheld his truth and blessed it to mankind. Never was Christianity so strong a force in the world as she is to-day. 155 156 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES Never has she had so many reasons for hope of the promised and approaching victory. Yet the prob- lems immediately before her are many and serious. We are not prophets. We cannot see far into the century. We do not know what change in the horizon even a decade may witness. It is enough if we look at the immediate future and scan the situation as it lies directly before us. There are four problems or classes of problems to which, as the most conspicuous, I invite your attention. First, the intellectual problem as it presents it- self to Christian faith, the problem of pure theology. This of course must be the fundamental one, and it will appear so especially to Presbyterians since our type of Christianity has been prevailingly intellec- tual. We have been accustomed to regard Chris- tianity as a real interpretation of life and of the universe. As such it addresses itself to the in- telligence. We have never considered it as merely the expression of religious sentiment nor as simple ethics. We have always believed that sentiment and morality must have their foundation in a view of the relation of God and the world which the in- telligence apprehends as true, and that in conse- quence an attack upon the intellectual ideas which Christianity assumes or inculcates is the most dangerous, because the most fundamental, of all. The intellectual problems which confront the faith are therefore those which demand the closest scrutiny. TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 157 Yet at the very outset we find ourselves forced to meet the query, raised by modern cultivated thought, whether there is, properly speaking, an intellectual side to religion ; whether the intellectual ideas upon which we have been accustomed to base Christian sentiment and duty have real and per- manent validity. This is indeed the first phase of the religious problem of the day. Can we justify at the bar of culture the affirmations of our religion concerning God and his relation to the world? Can we justify the right of any religious authority, be it Christ or apostle, council or consciousness of the Church, to make such affirmations ? Keligion, we are told, is a matter of the heart and of con- duct. As for Christianity, it is the moral influence upon men of the impressive personality of Jesus. The intellectual ideas through the medium of which his influence has acted and in which it has clothed itself are but temporary forms of thought, natural to the several epochs in which they have originated but not fitted to continue. In fact they have never been an essential part of the gospel. They have no right to claim permanent authority. For the human mind cannot know God adequately. It is shut up within the limits of the finite. It can only form for itself more or less imperfect images of divine things. These have for their age religious value as instruments to be used for a while by the pious heart in the expression of its sentiment and as a guide to conduct. But religion does not in 158 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES reality or rightfully have an intellectual side ; and all doctrine can be regarded only as of historical interest and relative importance. It should be remembered also that this conten- tion is made in the supposed interest of religion itself. Herein lies the peculiarity of the problem as now presented. The necessity of religion is universally admitted, and it is hoped to save it from the assaults of philosophy and science by separating their spheres. Philosophy, science, and historical criticism, may pursue their way, it is said, without hindrance from religion. The first may be agnostic or even pantheistic ; the second may be purely nat- uralistic ; the third may resolve the Bible and dogma into human constructions. But, we are told, they cannot injure religion, which has nothing to do with these intellectual processes. It will still retain its original power, provided it confess its limitations and content itself with the sphere of pious sentiment toward its thought of God and of love toward man. Herein I say lies the first phase of the intellectual problem with which culture confronts Christianity. It evidently strikes at the roots of the question of what religion is. Can we admit the proposed solution? The theology of the twentieth century will turn upon the answer. Now I maintain that we cannot admit it, and, in brief, for two reasons. The one is because it is impossible to eliminate the intellectual element from the teaching of Christ TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 159 and his apostles without reducing them to the limitations of fallible men. They have given us doctrines about God and his relation to the world, about guilt and sin, atonement and the future, which enter into the very fabric of their instruction. These cannot be denied as either untrue or un- essential without denying the infallibility of the founders of our religion ; and, be it noted, the difficulty applies and the principle is in fact to-day applied, just as vigorously and just as logically to Jesus as to his apostles. The other reason is that the attempt to separate the religious and the intel- lectual sides of the human mind is, if it be possible, suicidal. The mind cannot .build its sentiment on ideas which it knows to be untrue, or govern con- duct by beliefs which it disbelieves. It cannot be permanently determined by what it affirms to be irrational. If divine things be unknowable, it can- not continue to reverence them as if they were known. It cannot give religious value to ideas which the reason declares to be of no value. Ee- ligion is either rational or it is an error. It cannot continue to sit on the limb of a tree which it has sawed off from the trunk. No ! The intellectual side of religion is real. It has a right and a duty to furnish an interpretation of life and the universe to the intelligence of man. Dogma has a place in its consciousness. It must meet the culture of the new age not by shrinking back into a shell while the battle between truth and error is fought by 160 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES other weapons, but rather, as in the centuries past, by entering courageously into the fray and main- taining the truth of the great intellectual ideas for which it has stood ; by making them clearer in statement and more convincing in argument; by asserting the rationality and the truth of its affirmations concerning God, and man, the nature of the former and the salvation of the latter ; and thus interpreting to man's intelligence the basis of piety and of duty. But, if there be an intellectual problem before religion, what is the particular form which it has taken; what is really the fundamental question which lies before Christian faith at the opening of the new century ? The nineteenth century has wit- nessed a steady convergence of discussion toward the basal questions which lie at the very root of re- ligion. The older debates were occupied with the inquiry whether the doctrines of historical Chris- tianity are supported by Scripture ; and, in the judg- ment of most, it appeared that they are. Then the debate changed into an inquiry concerning the au- thority of Scripture, and from that, still more deeply, into the question of the seat of authority in re- ligion. Meanwhile a new emphasis has been placed upon the ethical element in religion, leading not only to a disparagement of dogma but to a reinter- pretation by many thinkers of the older doctrines in the interest of their ethical content. Then the century has witnessed the rise and prevalence of TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 161 the philosophy of evolution, applied first to the world of nature and then to the history of man. "We should not doubt that in these movements of thought valuable and permanent ideas have been discovered. It has been a century of great progress in religious thought. Historical criticism has illu- minated the progress of revelation in Scripture. The ethical interpretation of dogma has delivered us from a barren scholasticism. The truth in evo- lution has opened to us the historic movement of the race. The conflict with error has brought old truth to new emphasis and new truth to expression. I am simply pointing out that the result has been to bring us face to face with fundamental problems and that the one now most pressing, as Christianity confronts modern culture, is that of the definition and the demonstration of "the supernatural" in history. Can we maintain it? How shall we define it? Is God transcendent over the world and superior to finite forces ; or is he only imma- nent in them? Is "the supernatural " merely another name for "providence" or does it mean that, besides God's providential guidance of the world he has interfered to manifest himself im- mediately to men? This question underlies all religion and theology and criticism. Has God given an immediate revelation of his mind and will ? Was the advent of Jesus a real incarnation of the divine Son ? Is the human soul really born again by an immediate exercise of divine power ? ll 162 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES Or is the Bible the providentially guided driftwood of Hebrew literature ; and the person of Christ either an insoluble enigma or purely human ; and is Christian experience simply the result of the moral influence of the Eabbi of Nazareth? This is beyond doubt the intellectual problem to which the Christianity of the twentieth century must give its answer; and because it underlies all questions of criticism and theology, it behooves us to face it calmly and honestly, and to weigh the importance of minor questions in view of their relation to it. I am here to state, rather than to argue, the prob- lems of the new century. But I may be permitted to point out that the contribution which Keformed theology has to make in the solution of this prob- lem lies in the fearless maintenance of its doctrine of God. That doctrine is the center of the Be- formed system. It is, we believe, the completest statement of the biblical revelation. The Bible is emphatically the revelation of God as well as a revelation from God. It is the unveiling of the mighty Jehovah culminating in the person and teaching of Jesus. "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him." Cal- vinism has taken that point of view. God is the ultimate fact, and a complete system of religious teaching must proceed from him as the fundamental truth. So Calvinism has organized its system around the revealed doctrine of God. It has rec- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 163 ognized in him not only the absolute Author of the world but its sovereign Kuler, in accordance with the purposes and government of whom all things proceed. It has not failed to recognize his moral attributes but it has first recognized his sovereignty, self-sufficiency, independence, and authority. It has found in his will the only safe resting place in the effort to explain the reason of things. It does not fail to perceive his immanence in nature and life ; but it posits first his transcendence. It may be that it has not sufficiently emphasized his love toward the human race, though in its declaration of his infinite grace, it has embodied most pro- foundly the reality of that love. But it has com- pletely expressed the truth of his relation to the world, — in accordance with his self-revelation in Christ, — so that with this conception of God fully maintained the supernatural in history is made to rest on an indestructible basis. So long as we hold to this idea of God in its integrity, the citadel of supernatural religion is safe. To defend this basal truth would seem to be our particular glory in the intellectual battle concerning religion which is closing in upon us. We shall not help to solve this problem of the twentieth century if in any degree we abate our testimony to the reality of that living God, who " hath all life, glory, goodness, blessedness in and of himself, is alone in and unto himself all-sufficient, not standing in need of any creatures which he hath made, . . . but only 164 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES manifesting his own glory in, by, unto and upon them ; is the alone fountain of all being, of whom, through whom and to whom are all things, and hath most sovereign dominion over them, to do by them, for them and upon them, whatsoever himself pleaseth." This doctrine is the permanent safe- guard of supernatural Christianity. It is the only breakwater within which supernaturalism can live in security. It answers all objections to revelation, miracles, the Incarnation and regeneration. It is, I affirm, our special task to meet on this basis the intellectual doubt of the coming century. 2. Turning to another direction, the Christian Church is face to face with a social problem. We are compelled to ask anew what is the relation of Christianity to the social progress of mankind? How can it best make its contribution in this sphere to the life of the world ; and especially how can organized Christianity, or the Church, fulfill its mission in the Spirit of Jesus to society ? It is true that this problem has always been pres- ent, but it is now felt as never before; and the challenge has been given in no uncertain tones for the Church to prove itself the Saviour of society. This social problem has in fact become the most pressing one of the modern world. Humanity as a whole has become conscious of its rights and of its wrongs. The individualism which characterized the rising democracy of a century ago has in great measure been replaced by the social consciousness ; TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 165 that is to say, by the idea that every factor, be it the individual or be it an institution, is under obli- gation to contribute to the well-being of the social organism, so that all may share in the benefit. Ee- construction of these relations in the political, economic and industrial spheres is certainly going on with great rapidity. The movement is chang- ing the face of society and, with many blunders, yet on the whole with steady progress, is lifting it to a higher plane and to a fairer recognition of the rights and duties of man to man. In this condition of affairs, the Church cannot but have the liveliest interest. She cannot help inquiring what phase of duty and opportunity the situation brings before her. There are also certain concrete facts which call for the most serious consideration of Christian men. It is sad to note the alienation of many from the Church, on the ground that she is not in hearty sympathy with humanity in its struggle for social betterment. We are told that she would better give heed to the present needs of men than confine her attention to their future life ; that she is too often on the side of the rich and strong instead of the poor and oppressed ; that she is out of touch with the life of the common people. The social restlessness of the age has also produced an antipa- thy to all authority, and hence to the authority of religion and to the grounds on which it claims to rest. There is further a widespread tendency to 166 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES substitute social improvement on earth for the salvation of the souls of men, sociology for theol- ogy ; the culture of the physical and intellectual life for the spiritual. These facts constitute a problem with which we have to deal. At the same time never has Christ been so loudly praised ; never has the necessity of some religion been so widely acknowledged. What shall we do in view of these serious questions which we cannot escape ? So far as Christianity itself is concerned, there ought to be no question from her history that she is a mighty force for social progress. In every age and land she has wrought for freedom and right- eousness, for the physical and intellectual, the polit- ical and industrial improvement of life, as well as for the salvation of souls. She has entered into the social organism like the leaven into the meal. The process has been slow and long, with much to over- come, both in her adherents and in her foes. But she changed the civilization of the ancient world and made the new. She has ever acted however by the silent creation of public sentiment ; by the awakening of leaders of progress to the needs of men and giving them courage to proclaim their ideas ; by the quiet pervasion of the organism with more of her spirit. She will continue to do the same. In the words of Dr. Bruce, "Christianity has merely begun its workings in the world." Yet if the operations of this mighty leaven have been already so vast as history proves them to have TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 167 been, we may be sure that she will yet more effectually make her beneficent influence felt in the solving of the social problems of the new age. The serious question however is, what should the organized Protestant Churches do in the situation which immediately confronts them ? I venture to state a few guiding principles. They must not abandon the effort to reach society through the individual. They must not aim to operate through legislation so much as through the creation of opinion. They must not forget that the transformation of individual character through the power of the gospel has been and alone can be the abiding secret of the transformation of the whole physical and social life of man. No dream of so- cial organization must lead them away from the fundamental work of saving the body by first sav- ing the soul, of saving society by first saving the individual. But on the other hand they must cultivate more sympathy with the present needs of men. They must take pains to see that the charge of selfishness and exclusiveness is not true. They must correct not a few abuses which have crept into their prac- tical operations. To this end they must multiply agencies of every kind in order to minister to men. They must ex- press in practical forms the adaptation of their message to every class and to every need. They are doing this, but they must do it more intensely 168 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES and abundantly. And then their preaching must be a faithful application of duty to every man, whether rich or poor, in straight, plain language ; in the tongue of the unlearned ; the pressing not only the salvation which is in Christ on the accept- ance of all, but the duties in Christ toward God and men on the consciences of all. This, too, the Church is doing, thank God, as never before. I am not disposed to look on the social problem as wholly dark. It is being, I am persuaded, slowly and surely solved. It presents itself in its most acute form in our large cities. We only need to feel it. We must believe that the gospel of Christ contains its solution, — that it has in it the promise and power of every form of life. We must carry it, with all its attendant benefits to soul and body, to every class ; and by the persistent love of men which we have learned of Jesus set the leaven free to work in the world which unquestionably feels the need of it. 3. Still again; within the circle of organized Christianity, there is the urgent problem of cooper- ation, if not of union, among the several branches of the Evangelical Church. The longing for some measure at least of the re- union of Christendom is very strong and wide- spread. It has become one of the movements of the age. Many of the causes of division among the Churches belong to the past and are felt to be no longer in force. Others are now seen to have TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 169 been from the beginning insufficient and born of narrow views of truth and duty. There is evident a needless waste of power in the work of taking the gospel to the world. Often there exists un- happy rivalry. The multitudes in even our own land who need the ministration of the Church are so many that distribution of service is loudly called for ; while in the vaster multitudes of the heathen world there is still larger room for division of func- tion and union of effort. The inquiry comes from many lips, Shall not the new century witness some steps at least toward the outward expression of that unity of the Spirit in Christ which has been making itself more and more deeply felt in the breasts of millions of his followers ? There is certainly much to be said in the consideration of this problem and on both sides of it. There would certainly seem to be every reason for the gradual reunion of the various branches of the leading types of Protestant Christianity. The subdivisions at least may be merged into the divi- sions in their respective countries. Why should not all Presbyterians in this land come into actual union ; and all Methodists ; and all Lutherans ? May we not with reason hope that this century will witness such a measure of reunion ? And there is certainly a call for a fairer and broader application of the principle of cooperation in Christian work at home and abroad, even where 170 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES there may not be organic union. Why should we not have " spheres of influence " in Church activity ; and this not in the interest of selfish advancement, but for the glory of the common Lord ? And of course there must be the full recognition of the Christian character of all other Churches who worship the divine Christ and proclaim him as the Saviour of mankind. Yet there exist certain obvious limitations to the application of these aims and hopes. Union may never be consummated at the expense of essen- tial truth. The problem is how much truth is essential; and that is just the question which the century will work out. But union will be worth nothing, if it be not the genuine ex- pression of substantial accord in belief and life. Therefore we must move slowly. The practical question will be how and when to act. Every honest controversy will help to settle the question. Every performance also of our duty to the world will aid in a like way. As we all grow nearer to Christ, we shall grow nearer to one another. We may look to the future with the expectation that the common consciousness of Christendom will be- come more filled with his truth and spirit, and will therefore more freely and fully combine into one- ness of form. We hail the prospect ! It will fulfill the apostle's prediction and the Saviour's prayer. We may cherish the hope that the new century will see some advance toward the ideal when we TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 171 shall be outwardly as well as inwardly one in Christ Jesus. 4. In the last place, yet on the practical side perhaps most pressing of all, there confronts the Church the problem of missions, — of the world's evangelization. I will do no more than mention it, because you are to be addressed on this subject by one who has made it his specialty. It is enough for me to say that the problem is not whether we shall be a missionary Church, nor how missions should be conducted ; but how can the Church be aroused to a realization of the opportunity, the im- mensity, and the solemn duty, of the cause. The success already won by the blessing of God, has only made the task appear the more compli- cated. Its immensity appears appalling. The re- vivals of heathenism make it more difficult. The evils of civilization, which often accompany Chris- tianity, hinder the advance of the latter. Political complications are inevitable and full of peril. But there can be no doubt that the Spirit of Jesus is leading his militant hosts, and that the kingdoms of the world will become his. The chief problem, I say, is to arouse the Churches to the conviction of duty and to an adequate expenditure of men and money. We have not yet taken the work up with the zeal and devotion for which it calls. Enthusi- asm must give way to permanent conviction; spas- modic efforts to systematic consecration. The whole Church and every individual must take part 172 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES in the task. What may we not expect in the next century, if the ratio of advance attained in the past one be continued ? God help us to solve the prob- lem ; to keep the great commission in the front ; — and to hasten the conquest of the world by the only true religion in the name of the only Saviour of mankind. Such appear to be the chief classes of problems with which we are confronted at the opening of the new century, — the intellectual, the social, the ecclesiastical and the missionary. Let us meet them with calm faith and confident hope. They are not more serious than those which the past has faced. They will be solved just in proportion as the Church imbibes the Spirit of Jesus and fills herself with the Master's mind. They will be met successfully less by human wisdom than by the wis- dom of God working through us ; and this will follow if the Church brings every thought into captivity unto the obedience of Christ. For he is the solvent of all problems. He is the wisdom and the power of God. The brightest and most inspiring of all facts in the present situation is that Christ is being more glorified, more studied, better understood, than ever before. Nearer to him are all the Churches ad- vancing ; and as he fills our minds and lives, the day will be hastened when at his feet every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that he is Lord. When his reign is perfected in us, the prob- lems of all the centuries will be solved. The intel- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 173 lect and the social life of man will embody his truth and law; the Church and the world alike will own his sway. Believing in him we may face the future without a doubt ; for as surely as God is true will the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. THE SPEEDY BRINGING OF THE WORLD TO CHRIST BY ME. ROBERT E. SPEER THE SPEEDY BRINGING OF THE WORLD TO CHRIST BY MR. ROBERT E. SPEER The problem of the salvation of the world is a problem in the will of God. It is the will of God that it should not remain so, but that two other wills should be introduced to joint responsibility and privilege ; — the will of the Church, to which the gospel has already come, and the will of the world, to which the gospel is yet to go. Midway between the will of the loving God desiring to save the world, and the will of the world needing to be saved, stand the men of the Church who hold in trust the gospel of God given for the salvation of the world. The agency at the disposal of these men in swaying the will of God is prayer. The agency at their disposal in molding the will of the world is the preaching of Jesus Christ. Powerful as is the ministry of prayer in this and in all the activi- ties of the Church when rightly used, it is both a futility and a hypocrisy unless coupled with an effort proportionate to the love of God, the 12 177 178 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES Church's duty, and the world's need, to take to the world which is in ignorance of the gospel, the knowledge of its only hope and life. For us, accordingly, the problem of the salvation of the world reduces itself to the problem of the prayerful effort speedily to take Jesus Christ to the world. But can we take him speedily? It might be answered that the question is an irrelevant one. A Church that has always refused to condition re- sponsibility for action upon ability to act when speaking to the unregenerate has no right to raise questions of difficulty when confronted with her own enterprises of duty. It is conceivable that through long disobedience and neglect, the atrophy of her spiritual powers and the enervation due to her selfishness, the Church might have lost the fresh vigor and the fervent faith necessary for the speedy evangelization of the world ; but incapacities self-created cannot constitute exemptions from duty. No difficulty that the most reluctant Christian can invent can suffice to nullify for us the ever-living and imperative obligation to make Jesus Christ known to all mankind. But frankly, and confronting the problem of the world's evangelization, there is not one of us who dare allege that it is an impossible duty. We are able to make Jesus Christ known to the world at once, so far as the world is concerned. It is open now to the gospel as it never has been before. A few hundred years ago the world paused on the TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 179 seacoast of Africa, and its maps of the interior revealed its absolute ignorance of the continent. The Mohammedan world, bigoted and not under- stood, was without a single Christian missionary. The East India Company pursued the consistent policy of* excluding missionaries from its territories in India, and sought to include all India in its territories. The cannon of the Opium "War had not yet brought China the blessings of the gospel, and the curse of the traffic which gave its name of infamy to the war. The edicts which prohibited Christian faith still stood by the roadsides in Japan, while the chains of Home's political sovereignty still bound without exception the Latin states of the Western Hemisphere. The world was a sealed world ; as sealed against the gospel as was the heart of the Church against the purpose to proclaim it. Now, we stand before a world with all its gates ajar. "We have no right to say of any single country longer that it is barred against the gospel. If we say this still of Afghanistan and Tibet or of any other land, it may be truly answered that the Church has no right to call any door closed which she has had neither faith nor courage to attempt to open and pass through. To our ability to enter the whole world must be added now our knowledge of the physical con- ditions under which the mission work must be done, our acquaintance with the opinions and superstitions of its people, our experiences of the 180 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES real character of the missionary problem, of the exact difficulties it must meet, and the precise work it has to do ; while the genius of a hundred years of the most fertile intellectual activity of the race has spent itself in devising means and facilities for the use of the Church in the day when she shall awake to perceive the true glory of her mission in the world. Eot alone in taking Jesus Christ to the world at once are there no insuperable hindrances, so far as the world is concerned, but there is nothing in the equipment of the Church to forbid. It was re- ported at the Ecumenical Conference that there are now five hundred and thirty-seven missionary so- cieties, representing hundreds of branches of the Christian Church. It is a pathetic commentary upon the prayer of our Lord, " 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," but it is evidence that the Church possesses all the necessary mis- sionary agencies. She has also sufficient agents. It was reported at the Ecumenical Conference that these missionary societies have already at work upon the foreign field, fifteen thousand four hun- dred and sixty missionaries. It is declared also that in this generation there will go out from our higher institutions of learning two million young men and women. A fraction of this immense TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 181 multitude added to the force upon the field and properly supported by an army of native agents, would suffice to make Jesus Christ known to every creature before the younger generation repre- sented here this afternoon has passed away. And the Church has ample means. According to the census of 1890, the wealth of this land was $65,037,091,197. The rate of increase which prevailed in the decade ending with 1890 would make our wealth now $96,905,265,873, an increase of $31,868,174,676 in ten years. It is less than a reasonable estimate to say that one-thirtieth of the population of this country is in direct affiliation with our Church. It is notorious that we possess a disproportionate share of the wealth of this land. But assuming only that one-thirtieth of the wealth of this country is in Presbyterian hands, the census of 1900 would in- dicate that we are worth as a Church, approxi- mately $3,230,175,529 and that we have added to our wealth over and above all our expenses of living, all that we have lavished on luxury, and all that we have given, away, approximately $106,227,248 each year since the census of 1890. We have averaged during these same years, an annual contribution toward the evangelization of the heathen world of $901,262, that is, less than one one-hundredth of the annual increase of the wealth of our Church, and less than one three- thousandth of the Church's total wealth. In the Old Dispensation God asked a tithe and in the New 182 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES demanded the whole of our life and possession as his own, and now for the evangelization of the whole unchristian world our Church gives less than a tithe of a tithe, not of its income, but of what it saves out of its income. Not alone has the Church the agencies, the agents and the means, she has also available omnipotent re- sources. The power of the Holy Spirit, using her present equipment, would carry at once on the lips of a Church made up of truly earnest men, the gospel of the world's Kedeemer to all the multitudes for whom he died. " If we could bring back the Church of Pentecost to earth," said Bishop Thoburn, "or, rather, if we could receive anew universally the spirit of that model Church of all ages, the idea of evangelizing the world in a single generation would no longer appear visionary ; but on the other hand it would seem so reasonable, so practicable, and the duty to perform it so imperative, that every one would begin to wonder why any intelligent Chris- tians had ever doubted its possibility, or been con- tent to let weary years go by without a vast uni- versal movement throughout all the Churches of Christendom at once to go forward and complete the task." And what the Church could do if pos- sessed once more by the spirit of the living God, she ought to do. " It is the duty of Christians," as Dr. Joel Parker declared, " to evangelize the whole world immediately. The present generation is competent under God to achieve the work. There TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 183 are means enough in the power of the Church to do it. There is money that can be counted in millions that can be spared without producing any serious want. There are men enough for the missionary work." Whatever may have been the Church's position in any earlier day, her position now is one of perfect competence to obey literally the last command of Jesus Christ. As one of our own mis- sionaries, Dr. Mateer, a sober man, has said : " Once the world seemed boundless and the Church was poor and persecuted. ~No wonder the work of evangeliz- ing the world within a reasonable time seemed hopeless. Now steam and electricity have brought the world together. The Church of God is in the ascendant. She has well within her control the power, the wealth, and the learning of the world. She is like a strong and well-appointed army in the presence of the foe. The only thing she needs is the spirit of her Leader and a willingness to obey his summons to go forward. The victory may not be easy but it is sure." If this were a human venture men would not be wasting their time in the discussion of its practicability. Men and money in unstinted measure would be poured out if this were a war for the acquisition of territory, for the sub- jugation of nations, for the suppression of disorder. Difficulties arise before our own country in the Philippines, a small fraction of whose eight million people are in insurrection against authority legiti- mately established over them. We are already 184 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES maintaining in the Philippines an army of 50,000 men, three times the number of all the missionaries sent out by the whole Protestant Church for the evangelization of the world. Two small states re- sist the power of the British Government and, we must believe, the movement of destiny in South Africa, and Great Britain maintains there an army of 200,000 men, a force four times as great as would be required for the evangelization of the world, maintained at an expenditure that would suffice to support a missionary enterprise as glorious as the slaughter of men who believe they are fight- ing for their liberties is sad. The Standard Oil Company sends its flickering lights throughout the length and breadth of Asia, and laughs at the diffi- culties that must be overcome. There will be thou- sands of households lighted by our oil to-night in the villages of Asia where the true Light has never shined. My friends, if we were in earnest about it, if we truly believed that it was a great thing to do, a thing that must be done, if Christ were enough to each one of us to make us think it worth while to put him in the reach of our fellow-men, we could evangelize the world speedily with neither difficulty nor sacrifice worthy of the name. But what we do we mean by " speedily." How speedily must Jesus Christ be made known to the world? The missionaries in China, sensible men, misled by no hallucination and pursuing no TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 185 fanciful illusion, gave us their reply twenty-five years ago : " We want China emancipated from the thraldom of sin in this generation. It is possible. Our Lord has said, ' According to your faith be it unto you.' The Church of God can do it, if she be only faithful to her great commission. . . . Standing on the borders of this vast empire, we, therefore, one hundred and twenty missionaries, from almost every evangelical religious denomina- tion in Europe and America, assembled in General Conference at Shanghai, and representing the whole body of Protestant missionaries in China — feeling our utter insufficiency for the great work so rapidly expanding, do most earnestly plead, with one voice, calling upon the whole Church of God for more laborers. And we will as earnestly and unitedly plead at the Throne of Grace that the Spirit of God may move the hearts of all to whom this appeal comes, to cry, ' Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?' And may this spirit be com- municated from heart to heart, from church to church, from continent to continent, until the whole Christian world shall be aroused, and every soldier of the cross shall come to the help of the Lord against the mighty." What evangelization can there be that is not immediate ? If I were a heathen man, the evangelization that did not reach me in my lifetime would be no evangelization at all. And the world in which we as Christians are to preach the gospel is this present world, with its 186 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES now living multitudes of men and women for whom Jesus Christ died. As the missionaries in the Sandwich Islands declared in their appeal more than two generations ago, "It is not possible for the coming generation to discharge the duties of the present, whether it respects their repentance, faith, or works ; and to commit to them our share of preaching Christ crucified to the heathen is like committing to them the love due from us to God and our neighbor. The Lord will require of us that which is committed to us." Yet there will creep about in our hearts, lurking where the light cannot reach, the unchristian doubt : " Is it necessary for us to concern ourselves with this thing ? Suppose we can evangelize the world, why should we ? In the providential order- ing of history, eighteen hundred years have passed by and the thing has not been done. "What is there to show that a duty that lay dormant for these centuries by the will of God, is acute and pressing now?" One hundred years ago men talked this way. "Let us pray that Christ's kingdom may come," said Alexander Carlyle, opposing the es- tablishment of foreign missions in the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 1796, " as we are sure it shall come in the course of provi- dence." That was the tone of that day. That view is intelligible on the lips of unconverted men whether in or out of the Church, but it is not intelli- gible on the lips of Christians. If the world has no TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 187 need of Christ, we have no need of him. If the evangelization of China must be left to providence unaided by the Church, the evangelization of America and the support of Christian ministers here may be left to the same kindly unaided beneficence. What- ever Christ is to me he can be to every man in this world. If I cannot live without him, no other man can live without him. As he only has healed our lives, comforted our hearts, broken the chains of our sins, and given us assured hope of what lies be- yond, he only can do these things for all mankind. And not only does the world need him now, but we need to give him now to the world. The world will not more surely die without him, than we will die with him if we refuse to obey him, and look with careless, Chris tless hearts upon the world that waits for him. The Lambeth Conference touched the profound Christian truth when it declared, " The fulfillment of our Lord's great commission to evangelize all nations is a necessary and constant element in the spiritual life of the Church and of each member of it." Can you conceive of anything more fatal, more monstrous, more immoral than a doctrine which declares men lost without Christ, and then refuses to make Christ known to them ? The Church that proclaims its belief in the Lord of all, and declares that there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved than the name of Christ, and does not at once make it its supreme business to make Jesus 188 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES Christ known to the whole world, is either insincere in its professions of belief, or it presents a spectacle of a debased sense of moral integrity than which I can conceive of nothing more despicable and loath- some. It will not do for us to cover the want of present missionary impulse with the excuse of pro- spective missionary purpose. As Mr. Eugene Stock has said : " For whom are we responsible to give them the gospel? Certainly not for past genera- tions. They are beyond our reach. Nor for future generations primarily, although what we do now may have great influence upon them. But for the present generation we are surely responsible. Every living African or Persian or Chinaman has a right to the good news of salvation. They are for him; and as a Chinaman once said to Robert Stewart, 6 we break the eighth commandment if we keep them back from him.' So if we vary the form of the phrase and simply say the evangelization of this generation, this appears to be a plain and elementary duty. We may not have the expressed command of Christ for it, but we have the general command to make the gospel known to those who know it not. There seems no escape from the con- clusion that the duty to make it known to all, that is, to all now alive, lies in the nature of the case. This doubtless should be our honest and definite aim." And if the world needs the gospel and we need at once to give the world the gospel, Christ also needs the immediate preaching of his gospel to TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 189 the world. Our delay is not alone the source of loss and death to ourselves and to men ; it prolongs the travail of the soul of Christ, and defers the long expected day of his triumph. 1 ' The restless millions wait The light whose dawning maketh all things new," is only a half truth ; And what are God's present dealings with us designed to teach us if not that he is ready to do great things ? As Dr. Wilder used to say : " The largeness of God's blessing on the puny efforts already made for evangelizing the heathen, demon- strates beyond the possibility of a doubt, that we are well able to evangelize the whole world in a single generation." Bishop Moule, of Hangchow, told me when in China, that when he came to Hangchow there were forty Protestant Christians in the Chinese Empire. He has seen in his lifetime the Protestant Church in China multiplied two hundred and fifty thousand per cent., and penetrate to almost every prefecture of the Empire. Of the great province of Manchuria, a barren field twenty years ago, Dr. Ross, of the Scotch Presbyterian Church, now declares : " The gospel is speedily gaining such a rapid diffusion that we may antici- pate at no distant date its contact with every village and town in the country." While there is 190 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES nothing in God to bar our seeing all over the world repetitions of the triumph which George Pilking- ton describes in Uganda : " A hundred thousand souls brought into close contact with the gospel, half of them able to read for themselves ; two hundred buildings raised by native Christians in which to worship God and read his word ; two hundred native evangelists and teachers entirely supported by the native Church; ten thousand copies of the New Testament in circulation; six thousand souls eagerly seeking daily instruction ; statistics of baptism, of confirmation, of adherents, of teachers, more than doubling yearly for the last six or seven years, ever since the return of the Christians from exile ; the power of God shown by changed lives; and all this in the center of the thickest spiritual darkness in the world ! . . . 1 The world to be evangelized in this generation ' — can it be done ? Kyagwe, a province fifty miles square, has had the gospel preached, by lip and life, through almost every village in the space of one short year, by some seventy native evangelists, under the supervision of only two Europeans ! The teacher on Busi has by this time probably accomplished his purpose of visiting every house in that island with the message of salvation on his lips. Soon we may hope that there will be no house left in Uganda that has not had God's mes- sage brought thus to its very threshold." We need to recall in this matter that it is for God that we TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 191 are working. I said a moment ago, that if this were a human enterprise men would scorn to waste time in discussing its feasibility. Shall we have less faith in God than men have in themselves ? If the work of evangelizing the world at once as a human enterprise is practicable, does it become im- practicable when we realize that it is a divine en- terprise ? We keep falling back upon this fallacy in our thoughts about it. We need to remind ourselves of the question with which Sojourner Truth rebuked Frederick Douglass, when in one of his moods of despair as to his people ; — the question alleged to have been addressed by his wife to Martin Luther also : " Frederick, is God dead ? " My friends, who set us this work to do ? On whose errand is it that we are going ? Whose kingdom is to be established ? It was the Lord of heaven and earth to whom power was given, and nothing is impossible with him, who, when he said, "Go ye," said in the same breath, "And I am with you." Now, if we can, and we ought, shall we? The general duty of world-evangelization the Church has acknowledged for years, and neglected. Is this not the hour to acknowledge our duty once again, and perform ? But men say, is it not God's rule to work by slow and unperceived change, lodging in human life principles which creep imperceptibly outward until at last great changes are wrought before men are aware ? Do not Schmidt and Lecky and a hundred more demon- 192 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES strate " that social emancipation has been far more the result of the indirect than of the direct action of Christianity. Even slavery was allowed to exist within the borders of the Church until the leaven of the Christian spirit had so operated that slavery became impossible. Great changes come slowly." This is true ; but it was in a cataclysm of heroic wrath against the iniquity of human slavery, and of noble pity for the human slave, that at last the chains of that iniquity were broken. It is true that the forces of God work quietly and imperceptibly until the hour of judgment strikes. There were the long expectant years of prophecy borne with the agony of hope deferred, but then at last there came a man sent from God, whose name was John, and on his heels the Messiah broke upon the nation. The long centuries we call the Dark Ages threw their black shadows over the world, and the forces of God wrought silently and unperceived beneath ; but at last the thunders of the Eeformation tore the sky, and great lies were slain in an hour that had worn crowns and held scepters and damned men. 11 'Tis first the night, stem night of storm and war, Long night of heavy clouds and veiled skies ; Then the far sparkle of the morning star That bids the saints awake, and dawn arise.' ' God's method in history is to prepare, but it is also, having prepared, to strike; and his method TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 193 we must believe in the world's evangelization is the same. " Many persons mistake the way in which the conversion of India will be brought about," said Sir Charles Trevelyan. "I believe it will take place wholesale, just as our own ancestors were converted. The country will have Christian in- struction infused into it in every way by direct missionary education, and indirectly by books of various sorts, through the public papers, through conversations with Europeans, and in all the con- ceivable ways in which knowledge is communicated. Then at last when society is completely saturated with Christian knowledge, and public opinion has taken a decided turn that way, they will come over by thousands." But just when India, or any other land is ready to swing over to Christ, we may not tell. That this is the day when the trial should be made and the opportunity given, we dare not doubt. For one hundred years the forces which are pouring into the world still from the pierced hands of Christ have been fashioning in heathen lands the thoughts of men, shattering their super- stitions, cutting away old restraints, and shaping the whole course of their unresting movement. But all this so to speak indirect evangelization is but preparatory to that supreme discharge of her duty by the Christian Church, which shall show to the whole world that God has been making it ready to become the kingdom of his Son. To do this thing now is the duty of this generation. " The 13 194 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES world has too long been under the influence," as the Sandwich Islands missionaries said, " of the scheme of committing the heathen to the next gen- eration." " I regard the idea of the evangelization of the world," says one of our own missionaries, Dr. J. C. R. Ewing, " in this generation as entirely scriptural. There is not a hint in the Word to lead us to adopt the popular theory that it is the Church's task to strive, generation after generation, to gather out the few. ' The gospel to every creature '-—that means to every man and woman living now. It is the fault of the Church if from amongst the present living generation any advance to old age without hearing of Christ and his salvation." Some such noble idea as this is the vital need of the Christian Church. There was a time when the Church had to fight doctrinally for her life ; when heresy after heresy, involving the most funda- mental issues in the evangelical faith assailed her, and so hedged her in that the mere struggle for ex- istence consumed all her strength. That day went by long ago. For the Church now to spend her whole strength on that battlefield is to war with phantoms, save as the neglect of personal living duty will furnish the very soil in which fresh heresies will grow. Let her hear the call of the Lord of the harvest bidding her go out now into the highways and the hedges and the ungarnered fields, and compel men to come in. A Church wholly surrendered to Christ's personal leadership, TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 195 utterly bent upon the largest human service, filled with the passion of a great and divine love, will escape heresy by subduing unbelief. Oh, my friends, our Church needs a supreme world purpose, such as this of which I have been speaking, that will forbid our trifling away the time of God, playing with details while men die. And if you wish to lay hold upon the hearts of the young men and the young women, without whom the Church cannot live, you must offer them some such masterful mission as this. It was this that thrilled the early Church. "Yea, so have I been ambitious," said Paul, "to preach the gospel not where Christ was already named, lest I should build on another man's founda- tion ; but as it is written, They shall see, to whom no tidings of him came, and they who have not heard shall understand." You must win young men and young women by offering them the glory of a great service, which is also a great sacrifice. I know their hearts, and I tell you they are lost to the Church that does not look out upon the world with the very eyes of Christ, and hunger for it with his hunger, and teach its children to live for it and to die for it with devotion like his. It cannot be denied that the work is enormous. But its difficulties are its glory. " I will tarry at Ephesus until Pentecost," said Paul in one of his Epistles, "for a great door and effectual is open unto me, and there are many adversaries." We should have said " but." But no such thought pol- 196 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES luted Paul's spirit ; " and adversaries ; " — they con- stituted his opportunity; they did not qualify it. They made Ephesus a field of work which he could not resist. When Xavier looked from San- cian toward the barred gates of China, and cried, " O rock, rock, when wilt thou open to my Mas- ter ? " he called every heroic heart in the Christian Church to give itself to the evangelization of that sealed land. Of all the mission fields in the world to-day, is there one which stirs the hearts of true men and kindles in their souls again the ardor of the Crusades and the zeal of Raymond Lull, as Islam? Christianity from the beginning has " relished tasks for their bigness," as Stanley said of Glave, "and greeted hard labor with a fierce joy." " I am happy," wrote Neesima, " in a medi- tation on the marvelous growth of Christianity in the world, and believe that if it finds any obstacles it will advance still faster and swifter, as the stream does run faster when it does find any hindrances on the course." I have purposely said this to suggest and make room for all the objections which lack of faith and lack of love can bring to birth in our hearts. The immediate evangelization of the world, men say, would involve superficial work ; let us be slow and thorough. Slow and thorough is one thing ; slow and stagnant is another. Superficial work ! Who proposed that the world should be superficially evangelized ? I have been quoting our own mis- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 197 sionaries this afternoon, men like Dr. Mateer and Dr. Ewing, who are engaged in educational work in the most thorough educational institutions in China and North India, for the purpose of show- ing that men who are doing the most solid and substantial mission work in the world are not blinded thereby to the Church's immediate duty to make Jesus Christ known to every creature. Su- perficial work ! I suppose that in our Lord's par- able that husbandman escaped this peril who wrapped his pound in a napkin and hid it in the ground. But the Lord gave his commendation to the man who, having five pounds, traded with them superficially, on the face of the ground, and made with them five other pounds. We have be- trayed our Lord under the pretense of doing thor- oughly his work in this land, where we have sown the seed over and over again in ground already sowed, while two-thirds of the human race have been allowed to live and die in ignorance of the fact that there is a Saviour or any love of God. And in our folly we have forfeited the richest spiritual blessing at home by deliberately transgressing the plainest divine law, " There is that scattereth and yet increaseth, and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." Or, it is said that the project of evangelizing the world, practical enough theoretically, is actually imprac- ticable. Men are too much engrossed, it is said, in the pursuit of gain. 198 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 1 ' By other sounds the world is won Than that which wails from Macedon ; The roar of gain is round it rolled, Or men unto themselves are sold, And cannot list the alien cry, 1 Oh, hear and help us lest we die ! ' " But what is this but the confession that we can- not do our duty because we will not? Or, it is said that the immediate evangelization of the world is a visionary and childlike project. I think it is. And where there is no vision, the people perish ; " and except ye be converted and become as little children, ye cannot see the kingdom of God." It is a project of childlike faith and of glorious vision. And these are the visions of it : A Church obedient to her Head, warm with the glow of a great love, and thrilled with all the activities of a perfect service ; a redeemed world free from the bondage of its sin, and worshiping with glad hearts ; and in innumerable homes, and with hearts and homes alike purified, adoring the world's Redeemer ; and a reigning Saviour crowned at last, rejoicing in the love of his Church, and satisfied with the success of his work for the world. These are the visions which the evangelization of the world lifts before our eyes. Is there anything to shrink from in them ? Could there be visions more enticing ? Let us go up at once to complete this work. Whether or not the whole Church of Christ will awake to her duty, at least let us not be asleep to TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 199 ours. Whether the whole Church can evangelize the whole world or not, we can evangelize the fields for which we are immediately responsible. What Mr. Moffett says of Korea, is essentially true of all of them. " Korea can be evangelized within a gen- eration, but in order to accomplish it there is needed an added force of forty thoroughly qualified mis- sionaries of enthusiastic, victorious faith in God and his message. It would also be necessary to have on the home field, a Church willing to send them and to stand back of them in prayer, led by pastors who will influence their people to appreciate the privi- lege as well as the duty of the Church to perform its God-given office of world-wide evangelization.' ' There are many things for which we are not re- sponsible, which sweep out beyond the reach of our influence or direction. But for this one thing we are. As the appeal of the Ecumenical Conference to the Christian Church declared : " Entrusting to him the certain guidance of the great tides of in- fluence and life which are beyond our control, it is for us to keep the commandments of his Son, and carry to those for whom he lived and died and rose again the message of the goodness and love of their Father and ours. We who live now and have this message must carry it to those who live now and are without it. It is the duty of each genera- tion of Christians to make Jesus Christ known to their fellow-creatures. It is our duty through our preachers and those forces and institutions which 200 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES grow up where the gospel prevails, to attempt now the speedy evangelization of the whole world. We be- lieve this to be God's present call, ' Whom shall I send, and who will go for us ? ' We appeal to all Christian ministers set by divine appointment as leaders of the people, to hear this call and speak it to the Church, and we appeal to all God's people to answer as with one voice, * Lord, here am I, send me.'" I have ventured to speak of this great duty in other terms than those employed in the assigned subject, "The speedy bringing of the world to Christ." The speedy bringing of the world to Christ is a consequence; the speedy bringing of Christ to the world is the necessary preliminary. The world can never be brought to Christ until Christ is first brought to the world. It is vain for us to ask God for one, until we have done the other. If we bring Christ to the world, God will bring the world to Christ. And the fact that God has bidden us to do this thing, lifts our duty at once above all cavil and excuse. Let us persuade ourselves of this once for all by these three great testimonies : "During the latter part of these eighteen centu- ries," said the Earl of Shaftesbury, at the Liverpool Missionary Conference, " it has been in the power of those who hold the truth, having means enough, having knowledge enough, and having opportunity enough, to evangelize the globe fifty times over." " It is my deep conviction," said Simeon Calhoun, TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 201 the Saint of Lebanon, as the Syrians called him, in his dying words, " and I say it again and again, that if the Church of Christ were what she ought to be, twenty years would not pass away until the story of the Cross will be uttered in the ears of every liv- ing man." And the testimony of One greater than either of these, whose name is above every other name, who, in the days of his flesh, sat wearied by Jacob's well, and lifting up his eyes and looking upon the people as they came to him from the village, drawn by the testimony of the woman that he was the Christ, said to his disciples, " Say not ye there are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest ? Behold I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white already unto harvest." The fields that were white then, are white now, if we had but eyes to see, and hearts to heed. THE TWENTIETH CENTURY MOVEMENT REPORT ON THE MEMORIAL FUND THE TWENTIETH CENTUKY MOVEMENT REPORT ON THE MEMORIAL FUND 1 1 This report was read as a part of the proceedings of the even- ing, by order of the Assembly. The committee on the Twentieth Century Fund, through its chairman, Be v. Marcus A. Brownson, D. D., presented its report, as follows : The committee appointed by the General Assem- bly of 1900 to direct the raising of a fund for the strengthening of the Church and its Boards and in- stitutions, in order to a larger work in the new century, would report to the General Assembly of 1901, as follows : The resolutions of the General Assembly author- izing this movement were : " 1. That a special memorial fund, to be known as the Twentieth Century Fund, be raised for the endowment of Presbyterian academic, collegiate and theological institutions, for the enlargement of missionary enterprises, for the erection of church buildings and the payment of debts upon churches 205 206 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES and educational institutions, and for the other work of the Boards, at the option of the donors ; contri- butions to specific objects to be strictly regarded, and contributions to the general work to be distrib- uted according to the proportions which have been designated by our General Assembly as applying to miscellaneous offerings; and care shall be taken that this special effort shall in no way conflict with or diminish the regular contributions to the treas- uries of the several Boards. " 2. That in connection with the fund a central committee be appointed, to consist of seven minis- ters and six elders, whose headquarters shall be in Philadelphia ; which committee shall have a general supervision of the work, shall publish appropriate literature for the furtherance of the object, making the widest possible distribution of the same, all ex- penses to be met out of the general contributions ; and that the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly be appointed treasurer of the fund, to serve with- out expense, except for such clerical assistance as may be required " (Minutes for 1900, p. 19). The moderator announced the appointment of the following persons to constitute this special commit- tee : Ministers — Marcus A. Brownson, D. D., Phila- delphia, Pa. ; George T. Purves, D. D., New York, K Y. ; Eichard S. Holmes, D. D., Pittsburg, Pa. ; Kobert Hunter, D. D., Philadelphia, Pa. ; Eichard D. Harlan, Eochester, 1ST. Y. ; William J. Chiches- ter, D. D., Chicago, 111. ; William J. McKittrick, TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 207 D. D., St. Louis, Mo. Ruling Elders — John H. Converse, Philadelphia, Pa.; Louis H. Severance, Cleveland, O. ; Frank K. Hippie, Philadelphia, Pa. ; John Wanamaker, Philadelphia, Pa.; William E. Dodge, New York, 1ST. Y. ; William B. Gurley, Washington, D. C. The moderator was authorized by the Assembly to increase the committee (Minutes for 1900, p. 154), and subsequently, with a view to a fuller representation of the different parts of the Church, added the following persons to its membership: Ministers — James McLeod, D. D., Scranton, Pa. ; Donald Guthrie, D. D., Baltimore, Md. ; J. Kinsey Smith, D. D., Louisville, Ky. ; E. Trumbull Lee, D. D., Cincinnati, O. ; James D. Paxton, D. D., St. Paul, Minn. ; Thomas Y. Moore, Omaha, Neb. ; Kobert F. Coyle, D. D., Denver, Col. ; John Hemp- hill, D. D., San Francisco, Cal. ; Edgar P. Hill, D. D., Portland, Ore. ; A. Nelson Hollifield, D. D., Newark, N. J. Ruling Elders — H. Edwards Eow- land, New York, N. Y. ; William M. Lanning, Trenton, N. J. ; William P. Potter, Pittsburg, Pa. ; Albert P. Stevens, Albany, N. Y. ; S. M. Clement, Buffalo, N. Y. ; John Willis Baer, Boston, Mass. ; James Joy, Detroit, Mich. ; James A. Mount, Indianapolis, Ind. ; S. A. Harris, Minneapolis, Minn. ; C. A. Maynard, Milwaukee, Wis. The committee and the Church were called to mourn the deaths of Dr. Hollifield and Governor Mount, whose cordial interest gave promise of great 208 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES usefulness in this service to our Church. The moderator appointed in place of Dr. Hollifield, Eev. Dr. Lyman W. Allen, D. D., but no person as yet in place of Governor Mount. The committee, as thus constituted, has prosecuted the work intrusted to it with diligence and vigor. A meeting for organization was held in Philadel- phia, June 26, 1900, and the committee gave care- ful consideration to the work assigned to it by the General Assembly. The Philadelphia members of the committee were made the Executive Commit- tee, with power to arrange all details of the work. The treasurer of the fund, Kev. Dr. W. H. Koberts, was made the secretary of the General and the Executive Committees, and was requested to cor- respond with moderators and stated clerks of all the Presbyteries and Synods. This laborious and freely rendered service resulted in the efficient organization of our work in 190 Presbyteries and in most of the Synods. It was determined by the committee to place before the whole Church the following objects as contemplated by the action of the Assembly : 1. The increase of contributions to all the Boards of the Church. 2. The enlargement of the work of the Boards as suggested by them. 3. The increased endowment of academic, col- legiate and theological institutions. 4. The payment of local church debts. TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 209 5. The improvement of the properties of con- gregations and institutions. 6. Church extension in cities. 7. The establishment or endowment of hospitals and other benevolent institutions connected with our Church. 8. Special efforts for strengthening the general interests of the Church, assumed by individuals, congregations, Presbyteries or Synods. It was further determined by the committee to labor directly for the welfare of the Boards of the Church and the Theological Seminaries under the control of the Assembly. It was also decided to request Synodical Committees to prosecute the work of gathering gifts for academic and collegiate institutions sustaining relations to them, and for Synodical Sustentation in Synods in which that method of home missionary work is followed ; and still further, Presbyteries were requested to stimu- late congregations to pay off any existing indebted- ness that might hinder, on the part of these con- gregations, the enlargement of the missionary, benevolent and educational work of the Church ; to make any needed improvements in church build- ings ; to establish new churches where needed, and, in general, to strengthen the denomination within their bounds. This plan has been adhered to and the cordial cooperation of synodical and presbyterial Commit- tees is hereby gratefully acknowledged. 14 210 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES The committee desires also to express its obliga- tions to former committees of the General Assembly of a similar character, particularly the Anniversary Reunion Committee, the Committee on the Centen- ary Fund, and the Committee on the Memorial Reunion Fund, whose principles of procedure have been largely followed, and whose successful work has been a great inspiration. The executive section of the committee has held frequent meetings throughout the year, having established quarters in Rooms 401-2, Witherspoon Building, Philadelphia, generously provided by the Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, without expense to the Church. In pursuance of its work, the Executive Committee, together with Rev. Dr. George T. Purves, Mr. H. Edwards Row- land, of New York, and Mr. L. H. Severance, of Cleveland, of the General Committee, met with the Secretaries of. our eight Church Boards on Novem- ber 1, 1900, in New York city. The desires and needs of the Boards were talked over at length at this conference, and the committee was informed as to the earnest desires of the various Boards for in- creased resources, in the face of multiplied oppor- tunities of advancement in every branch of denomi- national effort. By the generosity of four lay members of the committee, the entire expenses incident to this work were promptly provided for, up to the meet- ing of this General Assembly, although the com- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 211 mittee had been authorized by the Assembly to deduct the amount of its expenses from the general contributions. These personal gifts enabled the committee to announce at the beginning of its work, that every dollar contributed to the objects included in the fund would go as directed by the donors. It has been a unique feature in this work ; no such committee, in the history of the General Assembly, having thus provided for its own expenses. At the suggestion of the Secretaries of the Boards, and subsequently after careful considera- tion by the committee, it was determined to secure the services of a representative of the fund who should visit the various cities of the country, and by addressing public meetings in these centers of influence, and by communications with individuals throughout the Church, thus bring the plan before the Church at large. The moderator of the General Assembly, Eev. Charles A. Dickey, D. D., was unanimously agreed upon, and, after conference with the Session and Board of Trustees of the Bethany Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia, of which church Dr. Dickey is one of the pastors, and with the Board of Trustees of the Presbyterian Hospital of Philadelphia, of which institution Dr. Dickey is the president, the committee was able to persuade him to accept the office of representative of the fund, from December 1, 1900, to the 1st of June, 1901. 212 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES It has been of the highest value to this work, that it has been so forcibly presented by the mod- erator of the General Assembly in the leading cities of the land. Dr. Dickey will make a separate report of his work to the Assembly. The com- mittee desires to record its gratitude and the grati- tude of the Church to him for his earnest and efficient advocacy of this cause. From the office of the committee in the Wither- spoon Building, hundreds of letters to pastors, prominent laymen, presbyterial and synodical committeemen have been sent out. Eight series of circulars, setting forth in full the nature and claims of this work, have been printed and distributed throughout the Church to the number of two hun- dred thousand copies. These circulars have set forth the resolutions of the Assembly pertaining to the subject, the objects for which contributions and subscriptions were requested, the statements from the Boards and the Theological Seminaries, and with them a specially -prepared subscription blank has been distributed to the extent of one hundred thousand copies. The blank reads as follows : — " In grateful recognition of the goodness of God to the Presbyterian Church in the IT. S. A. during the Nineteenth Century, and of the great oppor- tunities for spiritual progress during the Twentieth Century, I hereby subscribe to The Twentieth TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 213 Century Fund, established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., the sum of dollars, in the several amounts and for the causes or objects designated by me on the back of this pledge, to be paid during the year 1901 to the Treasurer of the Fund, the Rev. W. H. Roberts, D. D., or to the authorized representatives of such causes or objects. [Signature] [Place and Date]." The Missionary and Benevolent Boards of the Church made request through a circular issued by the committee for the following amounts as special gifts in connection with this fund : The Board of Home Missions, seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The Board of Foreign Missions, eight hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. The Board of Education, two hundred thousand dollars, and the establishment of additional scholar- ships ranging in amount from twenty-five hundred to eight thousand dollars each. The Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work, an invested fund of five hundred thousand dollars. 214 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES The Board of Church Erection, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The Board of Eelief, two invested funds yielding a yearly income of forty thousand dollars. The Board of Missions for Freedmen, two hun- dred and fifty thousand dollars, for the endowment of Biddle University. The Board of Aid for Colleges, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The Theological Seminaries of the Church stated their needs through a circular of the committee, as follows : Princeton, five hundred thousand dollars. Auburn, three hundred thousand dollars. Western, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Lane, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Danville, one hundred and ten thousand dollars. McCormick, three hundred thousand dollars. San Francisco, one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The German Seminary of the Northwest, fifty thousand dollars. The German Seminary of Newark, one hundred thousand dollars. Lincoln University, two hundred and fifty thou- sand dollars. Omaha, two hundred thousand dollars. The committee has noted with satisfaction that synodical committees, presbyterial committees, the Boards and particular institutions have issued TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 215 separate statements showing the needs, and the claims upon the Church, of these agencies. The religious press and the secular press also have published important items of information, and have presented strong pleas for the fund. The results may not be stated with fullness at this time for the reason that we have only the be- ginning of the returns. The entire Church has been moved to thought of larger and nobler things. Magnificent advancements have been planned, but the scale upon which the work has been projected will naturally require more time than the interven- ing period between two Assemblies to bring the work to perfection. The committee is of the opin- ion that not less than twenty millions of dollars should be raised for this fund, and that this great sum may be pledged, within a year from this time, if full and hearty cooperation of pastors, sessions, Presbyteries, Synods and the friends of our educa- tional, benevolent and missionary work can be secured. It is with joy and gratitude to God that we pre- sent, through the treasurer, the report of the fund up to the date of the meeting of the Assembly. Our joy is the greater, and our gratitude is the more profound because we regard this as only the begin- ning of the gifts which the Church will bestow upon advance work in the New Century. The gratitude of the committee and of the Church are due to the treasurer, Eev. William H. Koberts, 216 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES D. D., for the abundant and untiring labor which he has bestowed, without compensation, upon the interests involved in this fund. The committee presents the following recom- mendations for adoption by the Assembly : 1. That the General Assembly calls upon every church in the denomination still burdened with in- debtedness and thus hindered from giving its full share to missions and benevolence, to take steps under the inspiration of this movement to remove this indebtedness within the next two years. 2. That the General Assembly earnestly request congregations and individual givers throughout the Church to prayerfully consider the enlarged needs and larger opportunities of the Boards, of the Theological Seminaries, of the academic, collegiate and charitable institutions of the Church, and speedily to provide for these greater needs as the Lord may enable them to do. 3. That the General Assembly most earnestly calls upon the Synods and the Presbyteries to con- tinue to prosecute this work during the ensuing year by organized effort and hearty cooperation with the General Committee. 4. That in view of the longer time necessary to gather in the full results of this Twentieth Century Movement, the Assembly's Committee be continued for another year, to report to the General Assembly in 1902. 5. That moved by the sense of gratitude to the TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 217 great Head of the Church for his abundant and long-continued goodness to our Presbyterian de- nomination, and recognizing our contemporary responsibility for the relief of the suffering, the education of the rising generation, and the salva- tion of souls throughout the world, the General Assembly hereby expresses the deliberate judgment that it is the sacred duty and blessed privilege of the Church at the beginning of the new century to strengthen all the agencies and institutions em- ployed in our work, by furnishing a sum sufficient for their enlarged endowment and adequate sup- port ; and, in addition, bringing the tithes into the storehouse of the Lord of Hosts, to seek by earnest prayer the fulfillment of the promise of abundant spiritual blessing attached to faithful discharge of such a duty. For the General Committee, Makcus A. Brownson, Chairman, Kobert Hunter, John H. Converse, Frank K. Hipple, John Wanamaker, Executive Committee. The report of the treasurer of the Twentieth Century Fund was presented, as follows : — The treasurer of the Twentieth Century Fund respectfully presents the following statement of the total of contributions up to May 10, 1901, 218 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES to the several objects of the fund, as reported to him: To the Boards of the Church $106,030 04 11 Colleges and Academies 330,642 51 44 Theological Seminaries 110,767 18 " Local church debts 1,081,654 20 " Local church improvements 1,537,913 51 " Hospitals 61,659 28 41 Young Men's Christian Associations . . 30,900 00 " Miscellaneous objects 117,464 38 $3,377,031 10 These gifts, it is hoped, are but the beginning of the Church's generosity to the fund, and it is to be noted have not interfered with the contributions to the Boards, all of whom report that they are without debt. Respectfully submitted, Wm. Henry ROBERTS, Treasurer. ADDKESS ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY FUND BY THE REV. MAECUS A. BEOWNSON, D. D., Chairman of the Committee. Me. Modeeatoe, Membees of the Geneeal Assembly and Peesbyteeians of Phila- delphia :— The course which the Twentieth Century Me- morial Fund of our Church has taken, thus far, has been precisely what the committee anticipated. It was to be expected that congregations laboring under the burden of debt, and fronting exacting mortgages which, like the tares of the parable, have grown in extent while men worked hard to have fields free from such encumbrances, and also while they slept, the mortgages knowing neither nights of slumber nor Sabbaths of worshipful rest — it was to be expected that congregations burdened and hindered by debt should seize upon the oppor- tunity presented by this proposed fund to become free in the glorious liberty of financial inde- pendence. 219 220 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES It was also to be looked for that congregations feeling the need of enlarging or improving the Houses of Praise and Prayer in which they have worshiped, or of the erection of new and more commodious edifices, in order to a larger work in the new century, should take advantage of the enthusiasm for giving, born of this great move- ment, to accomplish these much desired and most desirable objects. "We may give sincere and hearty thanks to the Head of the Church for these happy and hopeful conditions. Freedom from indebtedness means ultimately larger giving to benevolence, education, and missions, provided that further indebtedness be not incurred ; and our expression of gratitude will therefore be followed by the prayer that human wisdom and divine restraint may prevent such future complication. Surely the burned child will dread the fire. We may well render praise, also, for improved, enlarged and new houses of worship, in which the larger assemblies of joyous worshipers will become the more copious sources of cheerful beneficence which the Lord loves. Your committee would emphasize the call to all congregations still remaining in the unhappy bondage of the debtor, or hindered by inadequate facilities for worship and work, to follow the ex- ample of the joyous churches which, so early in the new century, have prepared themselves to enter into TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 221 the wider sphere of influence and into the greater works of Christian love. Your committee, however, is by no means satis- fied with the achievements made along the lines indicated, nor with the beginnings of a larger and more adequate support of the great tasks belonging to the Church in its entirety. The moneys which have been given are simply straws showing the rising winds of benefactions, which shall carry for- ward the larger blessings which are within the power of the Church to bear to a waiting world. For the reason that this movement is in its in- cipiency, and requires the intelligent interest and the increasing inspiration and close care which will come from the continued guidance of the forces called into action, by the chief court of our Church, the committee asks the Assembly to prosecute the task through another year. Here, in the birthplace of American liberty, and on the spot w T here American Presbyterianism, so great a factor in our noble form of freedom, was organized, and here, at the first meeting of our Gen- eral Assembly in a new era so replete with oppor. tunity for achievement and so bright with promise, we may surely expect to see the Church we love stirred to the depths of its eager desire and de- termination to bless our land and the world, with greater works of Christian education, Christian be- nevolence and Christian missions, which, as thus far established by our organized agencies, have spread 222 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES such happiness and hope, such comfort and con- solation, such truth and trust, near at hand and far afield. Strong emphasis must be laid upon the better endowment, and more adequate support of institu- tions and agencies, which have wrought such mag- nificent effects. They are not upstarts. They are in no sense parvenu. They are old, tried, proven forms of successful work for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. They represent the highest wisdom, the most determined purpose, the most economical and effective manners of work, the noblest consecration, which God has been pleased to seal as approved with his abundant blessing. The appeal of the Twentieth Century Fund is particularly in behalf of the organized work of the Church at large. The local congregation is urged to become free and independent in its financial equip- ment, that it may contribute to the wider interests of Christ beyond its own borders. Individuals are called to consider as worthy of their gifts, Church Extension in cities, Synodical Home Missions, com- monly called Synodical Sustentation, the Christian College, independent of aid from the Board of Aid for Colleges, it may be, but still most dependent upon the liberality of appreciative Christian pa- trons, the Theological Seminary, of all our institu- tions of learning the most important to the welfare of the Church, houses of healing for the sick and the suffering, homes of comfort for the aged, the TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 223 orphaned and the destitute — the eight benevolent and missionary Boards of the Church, that these channels of blessing may be filled to the full with streams of truth and love and grace. We must educate — our ministers, our elders, our Sabbath-school teachers, our Christian workers. Mr. Bryce, in his work, entitled "The American Commonwealth," has written : " Nothing so strikes a stranger who visits American Universities and Colleges, as the ardor with which the younger gen- eration of this new land has thrown itself into study. This is greater than that found in Oxford or Cambridge, or in the Universities of Scotland. One is reminded of the scholars of the Renaissance flinging themselves into the rediscovered philology, or of the German Universities after the war of liberation. Nowhere in the world is there growing up such a multitude of intelligent, cultivated read- ers. A civilized society like this is so much vaster than any history knows of that one's imagination is staggered at the power for good or evil rising to higher levels year by year." We ask, will this new generation of American scholars be Christians ? From this new generation of scholars can we recruit the ranks of our ministry, and meet the newer and larger needs which press upon us ? Say what we may of other institutions, their traditions, their renown, their immense and invaluable services to civilization and to Christianity in general, the men who are preaching in our pul- 224 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES pits, and the men and women who, from onr Pres- byterian point of view, are exerting the influence of educated minds upon their age, have been, for the most part, trained for their life work in our own colleges. We have a large share of the great work of education to do. Presbyterian ism has always been an earnest advocate of education, and its accomplishments in that line are among its chief glories. The present plea is not for exclusiveness but effectiveness. Most noble is the youngest of our Boards, which aids the young college and the academy in the struggle for proper maintenance. A perpetual blessing to the Church has been the Board which helps young men of ability and consecration to ob- tain full educational equipment for the exacting duties of the ministry. Let there be no retrogression in the new century ; rather let there be preeminent progression. And the crown of our system — the Theological Seminary — ought to be frequently, if not first, in our thoughts and in our plans. We must be benevolent. Christ is the head of our Church. Our Saviour healed, with gracious word and willing hand. We must build the hospital, train the nurse. The dogmatic Christianity of the seminary is completed by the practical relief and consolation of the hospital. Amidst the agonies of the Cross, the Eedeemer of men paused in the flow of his grief to provide TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 225 a home on earth for her who gave him birth, until that time when she should be with him, forever, in the skies. We, ministering in his name, must give a home to those who " do his will " and are to him as " a sister, a brother, a mother," and who are, in old age or in bereft condition, homeless and des- titute. Words fail to express our obligation to the aged servants of Christ and the enfeebled and infirm, for whom the Church does care with tender thought, but who need, sorely need, far more than they now receive, while the increasing number of annuitants of the Board of Ministerial Eelief reduces, year by year, the small stipends on which they lean so grate- fully, so expectantly, as their only material staff in the valley of the shadows. We must he a Missionary Church. Our right to exist is involved in this. We believe in the glory of God as the chief end of man. " The whole world is to be filled with his glory." The greatness of the greatest work of the Church grows in our thoughts with each year of attempt and achieve- ment. On the bridge of the centuries, looking backward to review accomplishments, looking for- ward to see possibilities, we are enraptured. Diffi- culties can no longer deter. Disasters cannot dis- hearten. Determination dominates us. A century of organization will be followed by a century of vast achievement. And our determination is so confident, because above, about and beneath our 15 226 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES purpose is the unalterable and triumphant decree of the sovereign God — sovereign in grace, as in power. There is a divine logic of missions. The major premise in the commanding argument is the attitude of Him who gave his only begotten Son for a world's salvation. The minor premise is, a Church " willing in the day of his power." The conclu- sion is, "the fullness of the Gentiles," and u all Israel," "saved." Bearing our full share in the work of a world's redemption, we purpose maintaining God-approved plans for the evangelization of cities, of country districts, of the black belt in the Southland, of ex- ceptional populations of our country. We will erect more churches for struggling congregations ; we will gather into Bible schools the children of the missionary fields, and distribute the Bible and Chris- tian literature ; we will go into the vast regions be- yond the Father of Waters, where life is strenuous and sin is strong, and onward to the frozen North, and then turn to the islands of the southern seas, where the flag we love is now the pledge of free- dom, and the Cross we preach shall have fresh con- quests — and on, ever on, until we have done as much as in us is to reach, with the gospel of salva- tion, the last people and the last person thereof, on the face of the globe. These tasks of education, benevolence, and mis- sions, require money for their execution — much money — not meager but munificent amounts. If TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 227 you ask why this exceptional effort is made just now, the answer is quickly forthcoming. Every institution, every Board connected with our Church, depending at all upon the yield of invested funds, has found itself leaning upon a rate of inter- est halved, while its opportunities and obligations have been doubled. Moreover, the historicity of such efforts in our Church gives warrant for this particular movement. "We have had frequent financial revivals, and, by the aid of these, the Church has advanced, under God, to her present position of power. Our appeal, in behalf of these great interests, at the opening of this new epoch, as the time oppor- tune for advance — our appeal is addressed to one million and seven thousand communicants, to two million five hundred thousand adherents of the Pres- byterian Church, and to one million and eighty-five thousand Sabbath-school scholars. Our appeal is to men and women of great wealth, who are Christ's disciples and bearers of the loved and hon- ored name, Presbyterian. Our appeal is to every church of our order, and every member of every church. Our appeal is to a communion which, dur- ing the century closed, poured out before the Lord, for education, benevolence and missions, eighty- seven million dollars, and to which the Lord gra- ciously added, by confession of faith, in that period, two million two hundred thousand souls. Well might our Church, so blessed with spiritual 228 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES favor, so enriched by the treasures of earth which her members hold and control, inaugurate a mighty advance of her organized work with such a gift of gratitude as is so earnestly, so prayerfully requested, by the representatives of her vast enterprises. Well might this glorious day of review and outlook come to its close, ripen in its consummation, with the high and holy resolve to arise and heed this call. THE DUTY AND OPPORTUNITIES OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY BY THE Rev. SAMUEL J. NICCOLI^, D.D., LL. D. THE DUTY AND OPPOETUNITIES OF THE PEESBYTEEIAN CHUECH IN THE TWENTIETH CENTUEY BY THE Rev. SAMUEL J. NICCOLLS, D. D., LL. D. Fathers and Brethren : — It would be to our discredit as representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ, to ask on such an oc- casion as this, and at so late an hour in her history, "What is the supreme mission of the Church?" To confess that we had not yet discovered it, would be to proclaim ourselves unworthy of our position. It was declared long ago, and with such plainness of definition that there is no room for doubt or speculation concerning it. The divine Founder of the Church has said, " As thou hast sent me into the world even so have I also sent them into the world." The mission of Jesus Christ defines the mission of his Church. It is an unchangeable one, the same in the twentieth century that it was in the first ; and so it will continue while time lasts. The Church of the twentieth century, if true to Christ, has no new gospel to preach, no other 231 232 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES foundation to lay than that which has been laid, no other Book from which to teach men, than that in- spired and infallible one of which she has been the custodian for ages, and no other power by which to save men and subdue the nations, than that which comes from a crucified, but now risen and exalted, Saviour. She has no other work to ac- complish than that defined in our Lord's last command. But while the great mission of the Church re- mains the same, her opportunities for service and the corresponding special duties do not. With the changing times come new duties ; and there must be a wise discerning of the times by the followers of Christ if they would faithfully discharge their mission. That the new century has brought us face to face with new problems, new conditions of life, and changes in the world, which if they had been foretold to those who lived at the beginning of the nineteenth century, would have appeared in- credible, is a fact so often dwelt upon that it has become commonplace. There is also, a growing conviction that still greater changes are near at hand. There is a concurrence of signs attesting this. As by some prophetic instinct, devout men feel that God is preparing a new and glorious revelation of his kingdom ; and that he is rallying the forces under his control for new conquests. It is a time of confusion and unrest, of breaking away from old customs and beliefs. Men are musing, TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 233 searching after truth, and exploiting new opinions. They are casting aside old environments, challeng- ing old faiths, and testing all things. Social and political changes affecting the temporal destinies of one third of the human race have taken place be- fore our eyes with a rapidity that creates amaze- ment; and the end is not yet. Knowledge has broadened ; the discoveries of science have con- quered space and time and brought the ends of the earth together. There is no land of which we can say as in former centuries, it is remote ; no nation whose condition does not concern us. Trade and science in their work have confirmed a fact long ago proclaimed but dimly seen in the past, that God " hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth." We are realizing as never before the brotherhood of hu- manity, the solidarity of the race. No nation can live unto itself. It is in the midst of such condi- tions that we, as a Church, stand. What are the op- portunities and what is the duty, of the hour ? We must not arrogantly claim for ourselves a supreme position in the Church Universal, nor assume to direct and discharge all its ministries. We are only a part of it, a branch raised up as we believe for a special service ; and our history ought to interpret, at least in part, our special mission. There ought to be that in it which justifies our separate and dis- tinct organization, and warrants its continuance. If not, it is high time that we should abandon our 234 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES claims and move for a dissolution. But we are not in doubt, nor do we come to the present hour dismayed, distracted, and uncertain, as to our mis- sion. One fact is evident beyond dispute; the Presbyterian Church has borne steadfast and un- compromising witness to the truth as we have found it in the word of God. She has been dis- tinguished as a doctrinal Church. She has fear- lessly written out her creed, large and full, that there might be no misunderstanding of her testi- mony; and she has maintained it at no small sacrifice. Discarding forms and rituals as of little value, and utterly rejecting the commandments and traditions of men, she has sought to set forth the doctrines taught in Holy Scripture. Whether her creed is the best that can be written, is not now the question ; but this much is certain, that among all the branches of the Church of Christ she has in- sisted most strenuously upon the supreme authority of the word of God, and has given to the world the most complete and orderly statement of its doc- trines. Eemembering the words of the great Head of the Church, that he came into the world to bear witness to the truth, she believes that one of the first duties of the Church is to teach men the testimony of Jesus Christ, and, with this conviction unchanged, she faces the world of the twentieth century. It is admitted that it is a time of rest- lessness, changing opinions, and unsettled beliefs. Multitudes, some with eagerness and some with the TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 235 accents of despair, are saying, " Who will show us any good?" But what is all this but an oppor- tunity to witness for the truth ! It is no time for silence, or for the casting away of sound doctrine, or for setting our sails to catch some breeze of popular favor. This confusion, this multiplication of fantastic notions in religion, this testing of creeds, is in one sense not an evil sign. Better this than apathy, or the complacent and unreasoning deadness of a superficial orthodoxy. John Milton said, "Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions ; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making." In a time of confusion and doubt we need most of all to hear the voice of certainty; the clear, strong, and conscience-com- pelling accent of the truth. The Church of Eome, ever on the alert, has sought to supply this need with her doctrine of papal infallibility. Have we any testimony to make ? If so, now is the hour to speak. Let us not mislead ourselves with the cry " work, work," and then in some quiet peaceful day settle our beliefs. No! the truth first, and the truth always. It is the instrument by which we must work, the sword by which we must conquer. The Church that the twentieth century needs, the one that is to be foremost in controlling its destinies, is the one that shall have the purest and plainest scriptural creed, and that will fearlessly and honestly preach it. 236 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES I have said that our Church has been character- ized in the past as doctrinal, and this feature has been no small part of her strength and glory. Whatever truth we possess we must keep to the end. But if we have made any new discoveries of truth in the inexhaustible word of God, if we have obtained any broader and clearer views of divine teaching, it is equally our duty to proclaim that to the world. As faithful witnesses for Christ we must tell the whole truth as we know it, and in its right relations. Furthermore that truth must be expressed in adaptation to the needs of the times. There is no need to change our testimony in order to please men ; that would be to betray the truth ; but change in form is often required to meet the needs of men and of the times. Man's sin determined the form in which divine grace was revealed, and a sin-ruined humanity was the mold in which gospel redemption was cast. Just so credal statements, if they are to be service- able, must be framed in view of the needs and con- ditions of the times. The alignment of truth must change in its advancing warfare. The doctrines placed in the forefront at one time are not those that ought to occupy that critical place at another. A creed is not an unchangeable product, and, when it would take the place of the unchangeable word of God, when scholastic theology would make a palimpsest of Holy Scripture, and prevent further light breaking forth from its pages, it is high time TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 237 for the Church to awake and to assert its freedom under its ancient charter. For myself, I hold that we have no reason to abandon the venerable Con- fession of Faith made by our fathers, but the rather to write it larger and clearer. By God's grace we know something they did not, or at least did not clearly express. A growing Church will not be marked by a shriveling creed, nor by one that in- cludes only the alphabet of the Christian faith ; but by a larger and growing testimony to the truth. There is such a thing as the development of doctrine in the consciousness of the Church. Change may be made from greatness to littleness ; but there is also a change from glory unto glory, which it is our privilege to make through the Spirit of God. As American citizens, we have a banner which none of us would ever wish to see changed. Its colors were caught from the pure heavens above us ; it is associated with all that is glorious in our country's history. It is the emblem of liberty, law and human brotherhood, the world over. It is the visible creed of the rights of man. It pro- claims the sovereignty of the people, the reign of a Christian democracy. The sight of it thrills our pulses, and sets our hearts to beating with emotions of loftiest patriotism. Under its folds we have liberty, peace, and security ; and palsied be the hand that would erase from it a single stripe or star. Yet could some patriot who helped to carry it from Boston to Yorktown now look upon it, he would 238 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES say, "It is the same dear old flag, but I see that it has changed ! The field, the field is not the same ! " Yes, truly ; there is more of heaven's con- stellations in it, a greater splendor of the stars. It tells of a wider sovereignty, of new conquests, and of increased multitudes gathered under its protect- ing folds. It is the old banner of the past and yet it tells of progress. So let it be with that old blue banner which symbolizes our faith, the banner of the covenant theology. Let it be unchanged, yet changed ; let there be more of heaven's grace in it, a brighter luster of holy truth, a wider sweep of its folds, and then let us bear it to the ends of the earth for a testimony unto Christ our Lord. But we owe also the duty of service. That this duty inheres in the very nature of the Church needs no argument in a presence like this. Our Lord came " not to be ministered unto but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many " ; and his ministry, if we are true to him, is to be perpetuated by us. It is also so clearly defined that no one who reads the gospel with an open mind need misunder- stand it. That gospel bids us feed the hungry, clothe the naked, minister to the sick, befriend the poor, and lift up the fallen. It teaches us to regard the temporal welfare of men and to seek the good of society. It lays its hand upon all human rela- tions and pursuits to purify and ennoble them. What is called civilization is, in its last analysis, ap- plied religion ; and the nature of the religion de- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 239 termines the nature of the civilization. But beyond this and superior to it, is the ministry of the gospel with reference to the higher, the spiritual and eter- nal interests of men. Its effects in what is called Christian civilization, manifold and beneficent as they are, are only its by-products. It seeks as its chief end the redemption of man from sin and his exaltation as a child of God to eternal glory. For this sublime and world — embracing service, God has endowed his Church not only with the supernatural and all-essential gift of the Holy Spirit, and his written word of truth, but also with subordinate and personal gifts such as mental endowments, in- telligence, scientific knowledge, wealth, and inven- tions. In one respect the Church is no stronger now than it was in the first century, when a little company of disciples went forth to conquer the world with no other endowment than the might of the Holy Spirit, and the simple gospel message ; and these must ever be the secret of her strength. Forgetting them, and relying on her numbers, her wealth, her institutions, and her intelligence, she is destined to disastrous defeat. But God has been pleased to grant additional gifts for the ministry of healing and helpfulness to men ; gifts which are better in their use than those miraculous ones which characterized the apostolic age. The wonder- worker is not necessarily a better man through the exercise of miraculous power. Our Lord has told us that many shall say unto him at the last day, 240 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES " Lord, Lord, have we not cast out devils in thy name, and in thy name done many wonderful works ? " To whom he shall say, " I never knew you." But the man who consecrates and uses his gifts of intelligence or wealth, or power to the service of Christ is by that very ministry made a better man. Such service demands self-sacrifice and that is the royal way to advancement. Let us then consider the condition of our Church with reference to these special endowments. What a contrast between our position to-day and that of our fathers who met in this city a little over one hundred years ago ! They were few in numbers, we are many; they were weak in earthly re- sources, we are strong; they were poor, we are rich ; they were limited in their opportunities, ours are boundless and open to the ends of the earth. Their facilities for labor were few, ours are great and multiplied : books, schools, colleges, print- ing presses, organized institutions, travel made easy, time and space conquered, all that science has discovered, powers of nature waiting like swift and mighty angels to do our bidding — all these are at our service. Such is our endowment, as we stand, at the threshold of the new century, and surely it does not require the wisdom of a sage, or the fore- sight of a prophet, to interpret its significance. We must remember the peril as well as the greatness of our position. History shows us how nations have advanced to a high degree of civilization, power TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 241 and wealth, and then, their meridian passed, began to decline, and at last perished in dishonor. It is usually said that wealth and luxury destroyed them ; but the deeper reason is, that they were faithless to the divine law of true progress. Not their wealth and power, but their selfishness, led to their decline. Unwilling to share with others their high privileges, they lost the power which makes a nation great, and which extends and perpetuates its life. The same law applies to the Church. There is a notable illustration of it in the history of Israel. They were raised up and richly dowered, not for their own sakes, or that they might hold a monopoly of special blessings, but for the sake of others. Through them all nations were to be blessed. But they became exclusive, selfish, glory- ing in themselves and despising others. Forgetful of their high mission, their strength and glory passed from them, and others were called to take their place. So will it be with us as a Church, if we fail to have a sincere and heart-controlling interest in the great mission to which Christ has called us. A selfish Church glorying in its own greatness is already under a curse. The moment we begin to boast of ourselves as the elect of God and forget others, that moment our decline begins. The enormous wealth of the present time in which our Church has so large a share, and the very civiliza- tion which the gospel has helped to create un- doubtedly have brought with them corresponding 16 242 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES perils; but the way of escape for us is not to renounce wealth, and to lead society in the name of Christianity back into primitive conditions and the limitations of poverty, but the rather by increased consecration to Christ and more unselfish living, to use all our abundance for the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth. As to our opportunities, they are so manifest that he must be blind indeed who cannot see them. But why should I weary you with a list of things to be done ? Who does not know that advances and achievements are possible to the Church now, which were not so a hundred years ago, nor even at any previous time since the Christian centuries began. The highways are prepared, every barrier is thrown down, every heathen nation on the globe is open to the labors of the Christian missionary. How significant in this respect is the condition of China, representing one quarter of the population of the whole world. Her swarming multitudes are stirred as never before. They are angry, enraged, humiliated, despairing, longing, but they are think- ing and that means much for the future. It is God's ploughing time there, and now is our oppor- tunity to cast the seed. How mistakenly do those read the history of God's dealings in the past who tell us that, since our missionaries have been mur- dered, and thousands of Christian converts have bap- tized the soil of China with their blood, since our mission stations have been burned with fire and TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 243 the labor of years has disappeared, since foreign aggression has aroused the hatred of the people and stirred up their prejudices to an unwonted degree of violence, our opportunity for the evangelization of China for the present at least is lost. Was it so in Syria, when the infant Church at Jerusalem was scattered abroad by persecution ; and when bigotry, hate, and malice, pursued them to distant cities ? Was it so in the Koman Empire when the power of the emperors and the prejudices and fanaticism of the populace were united to crush the Church ? Did she then, while her martyrs were dying by the thousands in the arena, lose her opportunity to conquer Kome? Was it so in India when the storm of revolt and religious fanaticism swept over it like a tropical hurricane, and left our mission stations in ruins ? Were the gates of opportunity closed there because of the martyrdom of some of the noblest of our missionaries ? What do our missionaries, who having passed through their baptism of fire and blood still live, say with reference to the outlook in China ? Do they proclaim the cause lost and stand terrified and unnerved saying, " Send us where you will but do not bid us return to a hopeless field to labor in face of obstacles that can not be overcome " ? They have suffered much from the revilings and slanders of those who call themselves Christians, but no one yet has dared to dishonor them by putting such words on their lips. 244 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES Equally significant in opportunity, is what is called our home field. In the mysterious provi- dence of God, possessions undreamed of have come under the sovereignty of the Eepublic ; and, what- ever our courts may decide with reference to the constitution following the flag, one thing is cer- tain, the gospel must go with it if our free institu- tions are to be successfully planted among the sub- ject races. Without it no laws, no constitution, can lift them up into the high state of freemen. As a Christian people we are especially under obligation to give to those who have come under our care the very best that we possess, and woe be to us if we fail in our duty. We must gird ourselves for the work of a true expansion, or else what we have gained by the sword will result in our shame and ruin. All branches of the Church in America have an interest in this work, but upon no one is the obligation more distinct and imperative than upon us as Presbyterians. Ours, historically, is the established Church of the Eepublic, established not by but in her laws, her constitution, and her form of government. The genius of Presbyterianism is the genius of Ee- publicanism. The ideal social state, the democracy of the future will not be one ruled by a hierarchy, but one in which all are kings and priests unto God. But no view of our position as a Church at this critical time would be complete if it did not embrace our relations to men and society in our native land. TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 245 Here in this land of ours, which God in his provi- dence has so strangely exalted and placed in the forefront among the nations, are to be solved the problems that vitally concern the advancement of the kingdom of God ; and here we must find our opportunities for highest service. Opportunities are the angels that wait on duty. Sometimes they come clothed with such splendor and beauty that we are eager to follow them. Again, they come in plain everyday garb so that we scarcely heed them ; and still again they come in such dread array that they terrify us and we are ready to flee. They are robed as perils, they seem to threaten us, and we call them dangers. We must distinguish be- tween our facilities and our opportunities. The physician's instruments, his medicines, and his skill, are his facilities ; but when the plague comes with its terrors, and the sick and the suffering lie in his pathway, there is his opportunity. Discipline, alert- ness of movement, and improved weapons, are an army's facilities ; but when the foe with uplifted banners and advancing columns confronts it, there is its opportunity. So with us; what are called perils to society are in a true sense our opportuni- ties. The perils of wealth and of the slums, of grow- ing vice, immorality, ignorance and superstition, of anarchy and discontent among the poor, and greed among the rich, of an education that is godless, and of a gross materialism that is blind to the real good of life, — all these are manifest. They 246 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES threaten us, and they must be met and overcome if the new century is to mark an advance for humanity. We are beginning to see as never be- fore that the gospel has something to do with society, and that if it cannot be eyes to the blind, help to the needy, protection to the oppressed, and bring peace and comfort to all men here, it will not commend itself to them as having the promise of the life which is to come. For this work we have as a Church, a richness of facilities in organi- zation, wealth, knowledge, numbers, and position ; but are we alive to our opportunities ? Have we not been more content with our privileges than we have been eager to minister to others ? The masses of the people, and especially the world of labor estranged from our Church, misunderstanding us, and misled by a Christless gospel, proclaim that something is wrong. Serious thinkers are be- ginning to realize that there must be some new adjustment or adaptation of our Christian forces, or, at least, that a new enthusiasm for service must be awakened among us, or we will be left in the rear, and others will be called of God to take our place and win the crown of the overcomers. Between atheistic anarchism on one side, which is individualism gone mad, and pantheistic communism on the other, which would rob the individual of his rights and merge all into a common life, a Church like ours should stand witnessing to the true and divine order of society. She should proclaim, as she TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 247 has done in the past, the sacredness of the individ- ual and his freedom under God, and at the same time the brotherhood of men and their equality as the children of God. But to do this she must like her Lord, be willing to live with the poor and to gain their confidence by her unselfish services. If other Churches build Christian schools and colleges and universities, erect hospitals and asylums, send missionaries and deaconesses to the destitute and lowly, and preach the gospel to the poor, while we stand idly by boasting of our past, to them will be given the glory of saving our land for Christ ; while upon us will be the curse of Meroz. We may well dread for ourselves that conservatism of material prosperity which chills sympathy and benumbs the conscience. In the last century we yielded, to our hurt, to the blighting influences of human slavery. Now the commercialism of the age threatens and infects us. We must get rid of it, and in the spirit of self- sacrifice and self-denial go out to serve our fellow- men. Let us remember that in all the past the Church has conquered by her martyrs, and not by her millionaires. Her prayers, tears, and sacrifices, have been her power. We are tempted at an hour like this, to engage in prevision ; or at least to dream of what the new century will bring to the race. But the curtain that hides the future will not rise at our bidding. This much however we know, for it is the assurance 248 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES which the cherished faith of our Church brings us ; God's eternal purpose in Christ Jesus runs through the ages, and history is the revelation of it. It can- not be defeated. This century, like those which preceded it, will help to carry us on to the glorious consummation. The position which we occupy in this age-long movement is a most solemn and re- sponsible one. We are the heirs of the past. Apostles, martyrs, confessors, saintly men and women who have toiled for the salvation of others, and who have borne heroic witness to the truth, intrust their gains to us to transmit them to the future. It is given to us by our indifference to retard, or by our fidelity to hasten, the coming of our Lord. Certainly it is no time for discourage- ment or lamentation. Jesus Christ was an optimist with regard to his w r ork. With a world in dark- ness round him, with a Church that would not receive him, with few followers, and one of them a traitor, with the shameful death of the cross before him, and the powers of darkness assailing him, he said, " this gospel of mine shall be preached among all nations for a witness unto them." " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." In view of all that has occurred since then, and of the outlook given to us in the dawning of the twentieth century, can any one of his followers be pessimistic ? Nay, rather let us shout in the as- surance of hope, and gird ourselves for the service that awaits us. We need to be more hopeful, more TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 249 confident, and more enthusiastic, for we follow a leader who knows no defeat. Let us here, round the ancient altars of our faith, be anointed afresh for our work. "Ours the needed Truth to speak, Right the wrong and raise the weak ; Ours to make earth's desert glad, In its Eden greenness clad ; Ours to work as well as pray, Clearing thorny wrongs away, Plucking up the weeds of sin, Letting Heaven's warm sunshine in ; Watching on the hills of Faith, Listening what the Spirit saith ; Catching gleams from temple-spires, Hearing notes from angel choirs ; Like the seer of Patmos gazing, On the glory downward blazing j Till, upon earth's grateful sod, Rests the city of our God." "FELLOW-WORKERS UNTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD" Colossians 4 : 11. SERMON BY THE Rev. CHARLES ANDREWS DICKEY, D. D., Retiring Moderator "FELLOW-WORKERS UNTO THE KINGDOM OF GOD " Colossians 4 : 11. seemon by the Rev. CHARLES ANDREWS DICKEY, D. D., Retiring Modeeatoe In this letter to the Colossians Paul identifies the redeemed Church with the promised kingdom of God. " The saints and faithful brethren in Christ which are at Colosse," are to be delivered from the power of darkness, and to be translated into the kingdom of God's dear Son. These heirs of the kingdom are described as those who have redemp- tion and the forgiveness of sin, through the blood of the first-born Son, and image of the invisible God, creator of all things, including all thrones, and all dominions, and all principalities, and all powers. And the crowning glory, the chief expression of the preeminence of Christ, is declared to be that he is " the head of the body," and that the body is the redeemed Church. Making mention of other churches to which he 253 254 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES had ministered, and of other ministers who had shared his labors, Paul, with the redeemed Church and the kingdom of God closely associated in his thought and service, says, These are " fellow- workers unto [or toward] the kingdom of God." It has seemed to me fitting to address you, the representatives of the Church, as " fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God." Let us make the king- dom of God our meditation and confer together about the service which we may render to realize the King's wish that the kingdom may come. The kingdom of God occupies a prominent place in the Holy Scriptures. The spirit of all history, and more especially of sacred history, is the testi- mony of the kingdom of God. The Bible is the handbook of the kingdom of God. Men are only mentioned, and events are only recorded, because of their connection with the kingdom of God. The songs that make the Bible a poem and an anthem of triumph, the prayers that express the longings of souls and the reverence of faith, the dreams and visions that spread their supernatural light from Abraham's tent door to the retirement of Arabia, and from Jacob's pillow of stone to the solitude of Patmos, the mountain of fire that lighted the wilderness, the dazzling ritual that prefigured the Cross, the anthem of angels that announced the Advent, the tragedy of Calvary that consummated the Atonement, and the Easter dawn that confirmed the revelation and redemption of the kingdom of TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 255 God, these together make the Holy Scripture the constitution, the revelation, and the history of a kingdom which has its beginning in the eternal purposes of a sovereign God, and we have the as- surance of God that when the kingdom has been finally established, it shall never end. The record of Christ's ministry, the most of his discourses and pictures, and every event of his life, from his humble birth and the adoration of kings, to the departure from Olivet, under the escort of angels, and back to abandoned glory to complete the gift of the kingdom to the Father, all this is the testimony of the kingdom of God. When the amazed apostles turned their faces from the cloud that carried away their King, and in obedience to his command began the subjugation of the world to his scepter, they proclaimed the promise of the King's return to be crowned by the universe of God, as " Lord of all." Bible students have given great prominence to the study of this kingdom, which occupies so con- spicuous a place in the "Word of God, and recent study has been devoted with great diligence to this subject. I shall not attempt to contribute anything unfamiliar, but this kingdom of God seemed an ap- propriate theme for this significant time. We are looking backward to discover possible progress, and we are looking forward to gain inspiration for bet- ter service, and therefore, charged with a divine commission, entrusted with the Word that contains 256 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES our orders and reveals the " great mystery concern- ing Christ and the Church," I thought it fitting to present for your consideration this theme of revela- tion, and to address you as " fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God." The kingdom of God may be considered in four general aspects. First, as the revelation of an eternal plan and purpose of God, by whose power and for whose glory all things exist. Second, as eetaeded by the unwillingness of those who should be the subjects of this supreme and rightful Euler. Third, as eedeemed from sin by a plan of love and grace, devised and executed by the offended Sovereign; and, finally, the kingdom eestobed, triumphantly established over all resistance, the blessedness of its subjects, and the glory of its King. This kingdom, the primary purpose of which is the glory and praise of God, has its existence, abso- lutely, in the will of God and by the decree and power of God. David's prayer on the occasion of giving up his throne to Solomon, fully expresses this sovereign sway of God. " Thine, O Lord, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty : for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine ; thine is the kingdom, O Lord, and thou art exalted as head above all. " Both riches and honor come of thee, and thou reignest over all ; and in thine hand is power and TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 257 might ; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name." The Psalms abound in such confession and praise. " The kingdom is the Lord's : and he is the gov- ernor among the nations." " The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heavens; and his kingdom ruleth over all." For any creacure to dispute the authority of God is treason, and to refuse obedience and willing serv- ice is rebellion. Therefore, to comprehend the na- ture of the divine kingdom and the relation of all other beings to the Supreme Being, we must observe that the kingdom of God is rooted and grounded in creation. God's right to rule is founded on his relation to all things as their Creator. Every- thing must be subservient to the will of its maker. Everything that the omnipotence of God makes possible, and everything that the will of God re- gards desirable, must be included in the kingdom of God. The absolute dominion of God has its foun- dation in the absolute ownership of God. To the crown of creation, the perfect man, God delegated dominion over the creatures beneath him. But man lost his dominion by losing his perfection and by putting himself in opposition to the will and dominion of God. The order of creation suggests the purpose of God to glorify himself in a kingdom in which man, made in his own image, after his own likeness, 17 258 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES whose life was the Spirit of God, should be the con- spicuous subject. Having " called light from the darkness that covered the face of the deep," having spread the firmament and gathered the waters, hav- ing given the continents their form, having filled the earth with sustenance, having lighted man's abode by night and by day and made it fully ready for his dominion and blessedness, God estab- lished his kingdom and bade his subject to occupy it for his own gain and blessedness, and for the glory of his Creator. The only condition of occu- pancy was obedience. The will of the sovereign and holy Creator must be the law of the sub- ject, for though a son of God, bearing the image of his Father, the creature could have no right, no liberty, not in harmony with the will of the Sovereign for whose glory the kingdom was es- tablished. But just as true, the sovereign must receive an obedience springing from the full and loving con- sent of his subjects. God could not be satisfied with slaves for subjects. Loyalty must spring from love, the subjects must be free and willing, and find their consent and obedience in perfect confidence. The Sovereign set life and death before his subjects and left them free to choose. Adam might have been the representative of a race of kings, but he listened to the enemy of God, disobeyed God, and opened his eyes on a flaming sword that closed the gate of life ; and realized that " sin had entered into TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 259 the world and death by sin," and that he repre- sented a race of slaves. God's plan of love was frustrated. His guilty subject was in rebellion. Darkness, deeper than the chaos out of which light had been called, en- veloped creation, and the murder and corruption, and evil of every sort, that hurried humanity to destruction and grieved a righteous God, thwarted the purpose of God and his kingdom on earth, for mankind seemed a failure. The carnal mind be- came enmity against God, and the wild, downward rush of fallen nature brought mankind to such a state that God, in righteous wrath, was compelled to wash the polluted earth with a flood, reserving a single family for the preservation of his kingdom. In the family of Noah, God kept his kingdom of grace, shortly to be more plainly revealed. When God banished his rebellious subjects and closed the gate of his kingdom, he gave them a strange promise to keep alive their hope. " The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." It was a dim ray of light in the darkness, but later revela- tions enlarged and confirmed the promise. Silent centuries elapsed, when suddenly the silence is broken by the voice of an offended, loving, patient, God. The crash of the fall could not prevent the plans and purposes of the grace of God. In eternity, before creation or fall, God devised a scheme of grace by which the kingdom should rise out of the ruin of sin, and the subjects of grace es- 260 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES cape the shadows of death. God waited until his new representative was ready to receive his revela- tion of grace and transmit it to the heirs of re- demption. Against the background of many cen- turies of darkness stands the most majestic figure, save the Son of God, that appears in the race that God's grace would redeem. The son of Terah is the shadow of the Son of God. What experiences and visions and dreams may have filled the seventy- five years of life spent in his own land, and among his own kindred, we are not told, but we know that when God called Abraham " To go out into a place, which he should after receive for an inherit- ance, he obeyed, and he went out, not knowing whither he went." " For he looked for a city," a kingdom " which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." The first step of " the friend of God " manifested the obedience that might have saved the kingdom in creation, and the faith that was to be the condi- tion of the kingdom of grace. The reverence of the race has confirmed the election of God, and the three religions which represent the living God, and confess his sovereignty, honor alike the memory and the headship of Abraham. By the choice of this one man, by covenant and promise, by a trial of faith that strangely suggests the Holy Temple and the Holy Cross by the nearness of Isaac's altar to them both, by a trial of faith that strangely sug- gests the Atonement, God brings this kingdom of TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 261 grace, out of the chaos of sin and death, to be fore- shadowed for centuries, but in the fullness of time to be established on the earth by the King in person, and to be extended through a redeemed Church until it represented universal empire and the undis- puted reign of God. The descendants of Abraham, keeping the cove- nants and promises, and living in communion with the living God, who had entrusted his kingdom to their keeping, are driven by want into the bondage of Egypt, and by the heel of oppression, the family, growing to a nation, is hardened into a courage that should conquer freedom and plant the kingdom of God among the kingdoms of men. While the people grew by suffering, God was training a leader and a lawgiver in Midian. Ban- ished from Egypt, Moses found courage to return and boldly proclaim the message of God at Pha- raoh's throne. " Let my people go that they may serve me." Kesistance was overcome by judg- ments, the people of God, who had become a nation, crossed the sea that buried their oppressors and met their King at Sinai, ready to proclaim the laws of the kingdom of God. The Mosaic period of the kingdom of God is full of significance and suggestion. It marks the con- stitution of the kingdom. The Supreme Euler pro- claims the laws of his kingdom. The conditions that make for righteousness are declared with great exactness. The relations of subjects to their Sover- 262 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES eign, and of subjects one with another, are definitely fixed and guarded by laws. A code of morals is given which would insure perfection by its complete observance. The proclamation of Sinai is a plain declaration that the kingdom of God is to be a kingdom of righteousness. But how is righteousness to be attained ? How are poor, wayward, wicked men to please God with perfect righteousness ? Does God mean to mock the hopes of struggling humanity by making im- possible conditions of entrance into his everlasting kingdom ? The institution of the passover before the exodus, and the prominence given to the cere- monial law, answer the question for the love and grace of God. The book of the law consists mainly of directions to the Cross, of foreshadowings of the atoning death, which is to be accomplished as the kingdom of God progresses. Feasts and offerings and sacrifices, a tribe of priests to insure the letter of the law, these, set forth with marvelous minute- ness, significantly proclaimed at the constitution of the kingdom that it is a kingdom of grace and not a kingdom of merit, a kingdom of faith and not a kingdom of works. These offerings and sacrifices, in themselves of no avail, the blood of which could not wash away sin, only suggested the blood of sprinkling that would speak the better things, promised and hoped for in the kingdom of God. Moses interpreted the ceremonial law when he de- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 263 clared " The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me ; unto him ye shall hearken." Thus equipped, Abraham's family left the wilder- ness and, as a chosen nation, took possession of the promised land. The nation and the Church were one. The same laws regulated citizenship in the nation and membership in the Church. Israel, among surrounding nations, was intended to be the leaven of the kingdom in the midst of a lost hu- manity. To use a striking figure of an eminent writer, " Israel was God's river flowing on to make the whole earth glad, and the wicked, worldly empires, through which it flowed, were but stag- nant morasses and pools." Defections and defeats, with occasional reforms and victories under loyal leaders, bring the chosen nation, the representative of the kingdom of God, to face the question of a visible king. A visible kingdom, as it appeared to Israel, not yet able to realize the spiritual character of the kingdom of God, required a visible king. In wrath God abdicated his throne and allowed Israel to choose a king. The tragedy of Saul was the calamity of Israel. Then God condescended to name a man after his own heart, and the throne of David was the glory of Israel and the reign of David was the glory of God. David's reign was a prophecy. David was eminently a type of Christ. He recognized himself as reigning in the stead of his greater Son. The kingdom of God as related 264 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES to the person of Jesus Christ, finds continual sug- gestion in the reign of David. The Psalmist of Israel deserves the title, Psalmist of the kingdom of God. In the name of Christ he challenges all enemies to oppose his kingdom. 1 1 Why rage the heathen, and vain things Why do the people mind ? Kings of the earth do set themselves, And princes are combined To plot against the Lord and his Annointed, saying thns, Let us asunder break their bands, And cast their cords from us. He that in heaven sits shall laugh, The Lord shall scorn them all." This deep vein of devotion, and loyalty, and con- fidence regarding the triumph of the kingdom of God, runs through the Book of Psalms, and par- ticularly characterizes those psalms which prophesy and praise the Messiah. But the glory of David departed. A divided kingdom, scattered tribes, and bitter defeats at the hands of enemies, sadly retarded the kingdom of God. The failure of royalty, the impossibility of putting the kingdom of God in the keeping of human kings, brought conditions which the plans of God met, with other seers of the kingdom and other seekers after God. The dynasty of prophets insured two significant developments. Not only did the prophets restrain and rebuke kings, who disregarded the sovereignty of God, and the right- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 265 eousness and blessedness of their subjects, but they were given sight to see the glory of the coming kingdom, wisdom to discern its spiritual character, and, above all, an acquaintance with the holy, heavenly Person who was to come and establish the kingdom, and in and through whom the king- dom was to be revealed and finally triumphantly restored. "When Israel wept by the rivers of Babylon, and mourned the captivity that seemed the end of hope, they gave better heed to the teachings of their prophets. Away from the holy temple which they reverenced and from the holy city which kept everything sacred pertaining to the worship and kingdom of God ; separated from their rituals that seemed so essential to acceptance with God, their spiritual sense was quickened by their bitter dis- tress, and they were brought to realize the spiritual character of the kingdom of God. In touch with sad, lost men, who were not Israelites, they began to understand that the kingdom of God was not confined to Judaea, but that Judasa was a center, from which it was God's purpose to influence and mold surrounding nations and bring them, by his grace, into his eternal kingdom. A distinguished writer, referring to the spiritual and universal character of the kingdom of God, as set forth in the teachings of the prophets, says : "The formation of a spiritual community in the days of the prophets, was a new thing in the his- 266 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES tory of religion. Till then no one had dreamed of a fellowship of faith, disassociated from national form, maintained without the exercise of ritual services, bound together by faith in the Divine Word alone. It was the birth of the conception of the Church, the first step in the emancipation of spiritual religion from the form of political life." Daniel describes, with peculiar clearness, the re- lation of the kingdom of God to the kingdoms of men. Summoned by a restless king, both to recall and to interpret a dream that had disturbed him, Daniel, informed by God, foretold the destruction of successive earthly kingdoms and declared that the stone " cut out without hands," which became a great mountain was the symbol of the kingdom which the God of heaven would set up, which should never be destroyed, but stand forever. With what sublime imagery, and how frequently, does Isaiah describe the triumph of Christ and the Church, and the final glorious restoration of the kingdom of God. But I would emphasize more particularly the prophetic association of a suffering King with the triumphs of the kingdom of God. The person of Christ, unique, alone, transcendent, stands out in prophetic vision the essence and center and determining influence in the establishment of the kingdom of God. " The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." The consciousness of the redemption of the kingdom by the life of the King, is more or less apparent in every prophetic utter- TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 267 ance concerning the kingdom and the King. The strange dual nature, that comes nearer, but remains a mystery, in the gospels, is the continued theme of prophecy. In this dual nature, the King and the subject mysteriously meet. " What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh," viz. : establish a kingdom of righteousness, God reveals his purpose of doing by " sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and by a sacrifice for sin, condemned sin in the flesh : that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled." The " Wonderful, the mighty God, the Prince of Peace," is " the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." Immanuel is the wounded One, the bruised, the despised, the re- jected, the Lamb brought to the slaughter. This is the mystery of godliness, the kingdom that sin made the kingdom of death, redeemed back, and made a kingdom of life by the grace of the Sover- eign, expressed in a willing sacrifice of himself, in the actual death of the Cross. The Atonement is a vivid illustration of the cost of the kingdom and of life, in the experience of every one who passes from death unto life. Christ declares " The kingdom is in you." Eedemption is individual. The struggle, and temptation, and re- sistence, and sacrifice, the war in the soul between flesh and spirit, illustrate in every redeemed life the conflict by which the kingdom of God, and of righteousness, and of the Spirit, triumphs over the kingdom of this world, the kingdom of the flesh. 268 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES The center of the kingdom of God is the Cross of Jesus Christ. Around the Cross eternities revolve. Calvary marks the spot, the battlefield, whose victory restored the kingdom of God. The fruits of the victory are being gathered as the centuries roll, and " when the end comes the conqueror will deliver the whole kingdom that he purchased with his blood, to the Father," and the coronation song is already written, " Thou art worthy . . . for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. . . . "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing. . . . Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever." The proclamations of the herald of Christ, the teachings of Christ himself, and the faith in which the apostles went everywhere preaching the gospel of the kingdom, confirm the prophetic visions of the kingdom of God. Between Malachi and the ministry of Christ there is the silence of four centuries. Christ and his herald found dull ears for the reception of their message. " A few feared the Lord and spake one to another." A remnant of seekers after God, and fellow-workers toward the kingdom, were ready for the message and for service. The voice in the wilderness renewed the call of priests and prophets TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 269 to repentance. Christ entered his ministry with full consciousness of his authority, and with full knowledge of the death which he must suffer to establish the kingdom of God. The boy knew his Father's business and devoted himself to the work of the King. The model prayer of Christ makes the kingdom the first desire. The person of Christ confirmed the description of the prophets. Jesus Christ not only assured the kingdom, he was the kingdom. His life was the model of the kingdom. To be in the kingdom was to be in Christ. To be of the kingdom was to be like Christ. We have the fatherhood of God, only through the brother- hood of Christ. Moral and spiritual sonship was lost in the wreck of sin. Our new sonship is our regeneration by the spirit and the grace of God. Believers, redeemed by grace, are admitted into a kingdom that was never destroyed. God and his well-beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit and angels who never fell, kept the kingdom for redeemed men. Christ extends the blessing of the kingdom to as many as will believe, to as many as the Father will give him in return for the price he paid for their redemption. Admission into this kingdom is not determined by the righteousness of those who seek it, not by the edict of the King, not by any law, not by any form, nor by association with any institu- tion ; admission is determined by relationship with Christ, whose is " the kingdom, and the power, and the glory." The commission of the apostles is very 270 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES plain, " I appoint unto you a kingdom (as the Father hath appointed unto me a kingdom) to sit on thrones and to eat and drink with me in my kingdom." The fullness of the kingdom is the likeness of the king. The blessing of the kingdom is not a new patch on an old garment, not new wine in an old bottle, but to be a new creature in Christ Jesus, to have a new life by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. Nineteen hundred years of faith and patience, and conflict, and martyrdom, and prayer, and fel- lowship in work, have passed, and the kingdom keeps coming. It has already come. It is a reality to a " number numberless," who have already had " ministered unto them an abundant entrance into the everlasting kingdom." The miraculous ministry of the Messiah, begin- ning with the mystery of the Incarnation and clo- sing with the mystery of the Resurrection, fulfilling the prophetic visions and executing the purposes of God to establish a spiritual kingdom among men, gives place to the ministry of the Holy Spirit, who, through the Church, should continue the work which should finally restore the kingdom of God as a kingdom of grace, and exalt to undisputed su- premacy this Messiah " whom God hath set at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and do- minion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come : and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 271 be the head over all things to the Church, which is his body, the fullness of him that filleth all in all." A handful of faithful followers, with confidence in their ascended Lord, and relying upon the promise of the Spirit, waited in a little upper room, neither disheartened nor discouraged by the unbelieving mob that crowded the streets of Jerusalem. Yery soon their faith was rewarded with flaming tongues, and the conquest of the world began. The kingdom of God is not identified with any state or nation. It is a federation of redeemed men, a federation of believers, a federation of loyal followers of Jesus Christ, who is the head of the spiritual body, and heir to the throne of the king- dom of God, among all people, and kindred, and tongues, and tribes, regardless of their earthly al- legiance. This belief is the inspiration and spirit of mis- sions. The people of God, the citizens of the king- dom of God, whatever may be their nationality, are moved by holy zeal, and by loyalty to their king, to extend the kingdom that they love and to pro- claim its true blessedness to every creature. The scepter of earthly power departed from Judah, the throne of David is occupied by his greater Son, and henceforth the history of the Church is the history of the kingdom of God. This new spiritual kingdom was set up in the midst of the proudest and most powerful empire that had ever reached for universal dominion. The kingdom 272 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES of Christ must succeed through much suffering, and it has suffered with a courage that only confident faith could inspire. By turns persecuted, courted, and corrupted by Rome, hampered by the compli- cations of civil and ecclesiastical powers, subduing cities which soon yielded to the fascinations of fleshly lusts, almost lost in the dark ages, yet ever nurtured by a remnant that kept the oracles and kept its faith, the Church, the retarded kingdom of God, is born again, and the dawn of the Reforma- tion reveals the hidden destiny, and assures the triumph of the kingdom of God. As a part of the Church of Christ, bearing our part of responsibility for the final triumph of the kingdom of God, we may claim no small share of the labors and of the fruits of the Reformation. This free republic that honors us with citizenship, and that protects our religious liberties, was founded by our Reformation ancestors and upon Reformation principles. Together with other Christian nations, who have received their civilization from the Refor- mation, we control the destinies of the world. The providences of God that mark the advent of this new century, make American citizenship a grave responsibility. These providences have opened doors for Christian missions that give assur- ance to our strongest faith, and call for the best service of fellow-workers unto the kingdom of God. It will not be necessary for me to detain you TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 273 with any application of the subject to which I have asked your attention. We have a history of which we are not ashamed. We have an equipment full of efficiency; and we have opportunities which should suggest a deep sense of responsibility. But I am reminded that an order of the Assembly will devote a whole day to the consideration of Presbyterian progress and of Presbyterian prospect. Kepresentatives, well qualified for this special serv- ice, have been chosen, and we wait with confidence for their reports and prophecies. A special appointment of the Assembly has given me an opportunity to visit many centers of in- fluence, and to see the work that our beloved Church is doing to advance the kingdom of God. And in closing I desire to bear testimony to a few things that should give us great encouragement at the opening of the new century. I have greatly enjoyed the close fellowship of my brethren. I have found a deep reverence for the Word of God and a courageous defense of its revealed truths. I have found loyal support of the ancient Confession that stands for the sovereignty of God, and proclaims the laws of the kingdom of his love and grace. I have found only faithful serv- ice and fraternal spirit. The Church is peace. The Church is one in heart and hope, and purpose. There are no roots of bitterness springing up to trouble us. With united purpose the Church is set for the defense of the gospel of the kingdom of God. 18 274 TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES We have a noble ministry, nearly eight thousand strong, and the depleted ranks are being filled by colleges and seminaries, whose faithful work praises them. The ministry is strengthened and supported by a noble eldership, nearly thirty thousand strong, whose service in both Church and State, is for the glory of God. Ministers and elders lead a noble membership, more than a million strong, a body of devoted believers whose lives and generous gifts testify to their fidelity. And not our least joy and hope is our reserve, a million and a half strong, that is being trained in ten thousand Sabbath- schools, by devoted teachers, for work unto the kingdom of God. The highway that unites the cities of the Pacific Coast, winds through mountains and valleys of sur- passing beauty. The picture that lingers in my memory is Mount Shasta, rising fourteen thousand feet above the sea, standing alone in the plain, wrapped in its own solitude and in its mantle of snow. I gazed upon its silent glory for hours, and at sunset, when the mountain was taking on richer colors, and revealing greater charms, we were very close to it, when suddenly it disappeared. Before I could recover from my surprise, the shadow was gone, and the mountain stood out boldly in its full beauty. We had passed near the base of a bleak iioot-hill, and this low foot-hill had hidden the great TWENTIETH CENTURY ADDRESSES 275 mountain. Thus, we lose sight of the kingdom of God. The foot-hills of our unbelief and needless strife, and worldliness, hide from our vision "the mountain of the house of the Lord that is to be established in the top of the mountains and exalted above the hills," " unto which people shall flow, and to which many nations shall come and say, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord." MAY 3 MAY - 3 1902 1 COPY DEL. TOCAT.D1V, MAY 3 1902 MAY 12 1902 Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide Treatment Date: May 2006 PreservationTechnologies A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 1 1 1 Thomson Park Dnve Cranberry Township, PA 16066 (724)779-2111