THE DAY J
MISSIONS LEBI^Y

THE WORLD FOR CHRIST

A. J. F. BEHRENDS, D.D.

A Series of Addresses on Missions, Delivered at
Syracuse University on the Graves
Foundation, 1896

^r^x

NEWYORK: EATON & MAINS
CINCINNATI : CURTS & JENNINGS
1896

KIR

Copyright by
EATON & MAINS.
1896.

Eaton & Mains Fsess,
150 Fifth Avenue, New York.

INTRODUCTION.

THIS book, The World for Christ, is a
valuable addition to the large litera
ture inspired by the modern missionary
movement. Delivered as a course of lec
tures by an eminent Congregational minis
ter, upon a foundation established in a
Methodist university by an honored mem
ber of the Reformed Church, it is one of
many indications that the larger service of
the divine kingdom is the sure way to the
unity of Christians.
That universities and colleges should in
corporate with their courses of instruction
the study of Christianity, its nature and
history, its methods and outlook, is emi
nently natural, and even necessary. They
are themselves, for the most part, the crea
tion of the Church, and continue under its
fostering care. Where this direct depend
ence does not exist, an indirect relation is

4 Introduction.
easily traced. But, beyond and above this,
they are devoted to the ascertainment and
diffusion of all truth . They cannot therefore
ignore or treat lightly the most potent fac
tor in modern history and philosophy; a
force to which our existing civilization is in
every department — in government, morals,
art, literature, and social progress — im
measurably indebted, and which, whatever
some critics may think, gives no signs of
being eliminated from the course of the
race life. Indeed, the modern missionary
movement presents the clearest evidence
that Christianity is a divine, indestructible,
and world-transforming energy entered into
the heart of humanity, and that no philos,-
ophy of history can be valid which does not
reckon with it as a prime factor in the life
of man.
A natural gratitude and the love of truth
in the university and college therefore as
sure us that hereafter, as heretofore, they
will reverently study Christianity and its
past and prospective place in human history,
and also be its glad and efficient allies.

Introduction. 5
The future will not be unlike the past. From
Wittenberg came Luther, Melancthon, and
the Protestant Reformation; Oxford gave
Wesley, Whitefield, and the Revival of the
Eighteenth Century ; Harvard, founded by
the Puritans, acknowledged its debt by the
legend on its seal, Christo et Ecclesice. At
Williams began the participation of the
American Church in the new, and still en
larging, struggle for a universal Christen
dom. The recent Student Volunteer Move
ment is a further instance of the deepening
conviction that the highest office of knowl
edge and culture is to serve the Lord Christ
and his kingdom. May our seats of higher
learning more and more answer to this di
vine vocation !
A movement so important and so grand
as the present missionary enterprise needs
for support and guidance an extraordinary
spirit and wisdom. Evidently Christians
have not understood the vast proportions or
the true methods of the work to which they
are committed by the aims and the com
mand of their divine Lord. A world is to

6 Introduction.
be evangelized and to be brought to the
obedience of Christ. How feeble the spirit
and courage of the Church ! How uncer
tain and imperfect the agencies employed !
This volume, written by a vigorous and
independent thinker, the pastor of a large
and active church in the city of Brooklyn,
a member for many years of the oldest Mis
sionary Board in the United States, will be
deemed a clear yet profound, a calm yet
vigorous, presentation of the fundamental
principles of missions and of the right
method of conducting them. It cannot fail
to inspire in all who read it more profound
convictions concerning the obligation and
possibilities of this most unique and hopeful
enterprise, and to guide wisely those who
are concerned with its support and man
agement. Edward G. Andrews.
New York, Oct. 20, 1896.

CONTENTS.

i.
The Authority to be Recognized  9
II.
The Field to be Won  31
III.
The Result to be Achieved  59
IV.
The Resistance to be Overcome  85
V.
The Leaders to be Appointed  1 1 1
VI.
The Agencies to be Employed  141

Gbe Hutfoorits to be 1Recogni3eo

THE WORLD FOR CHRIST.

i.
The Authority to fee Recognized.
Members of the Faculty, and Students of the Syracuse
University, and Friends of Christian Missions :
WHEN I accepted the invitation which
has brought me here, I did so with
a singular blending of eagerness and re
luctance. My eagerness was due not only
to my profound interest in the theme on
which I was asked to speak, but also to my
early association with the denomination
which this seat of learning is supposed to
represent. I never was a Methodist. I
was born and trained in the Dutch Re
formed communion, and was early inocu
lated with the Calvinistic theology. But
when eighteen years of age, while teaching
in one of the rude schoolhouses of Southern
Ohio, I came under the influence of a Meth
odist circuit rider, who preached for a fort-

12 The World for Christ.
night where I taught by day. As I listened
to his pointed and fervent appeals the re
ligious impressions and convictions of many
years came to a head, and one afternoon,
as I tramped along the rude highway, I
gave my heart to Christ, because he had
given his life for me. My theology had
little to do with my conversion. In fact, I
consciously ignored it. And it is more
than probable that this early association has
had much to do with the gradual, but
steady, slackening of dogmatic bonds, until
I have abandoned the profession of march
ing under the Calvinist banner. And yet I
have not been able to change one uniform
for another. Upon the points in dispute I
like Augustine better than I do either Cal
vin or Arminius; and I like Paul better
than them all, for the simple reason that
he is silent where they are voluminous. So
you will understand why I always feel at
home in a Methodist crowd; and I enjoy
their Amens, provided they are put in the
right place. The years seem to roll back,
and I am once more in the primeval forest,

The Authority to be Recognized. 13
the woods which were "God's first tem
ples." I see the old sawmill and the limpid
brook, over which a log served as a bridge,
unless it was frozen in winter. I see the
rude benches and ruder desk, with the
stove in the center of the room. I see the
primitive lamps, under whose dim religious
light the preacher addressed his audience,
and the mourner's bench, at which many of
them kneeled. And though the peace of
God came to me during the silence of an
evening walk, I am afraid that I shouted
more than once when that night I, the
schoolmaster, told my story of deliverance.
I have forgotten the name and the face of
the preacher, but the place has been indeli
bly photographed upon my mind and heart.
It all happened thirty-eight years ago, and
I have never visited the spot. I do not care
to do it now, for I am sure the familiar
landmarks are gone, and I should feel like
one " Who treads alone
Some banquet hall deserted.
Whose lights are fled,
Whose garlands dead ! "
2

14 The World for Christ.
But the hearty invitation of your chancel
lor opened for me that mystic chamber
of the past within which the glory of the
Lord shone upon me, and that made the
call irresistible and effectual.
And yet my eagerness was dashed by
great reluctance. The call was for a sud
den service. Barely two months were al
lowed me for preparation, and what that
means for a busy city pastor at that time of
the year your chancellor knows as well as
myself. I could not take up any specific
field. Nor could I enter upon an historical
treatment of the theme assigned me under
the provisions of this lectureship, either
general or special, which I should have
been glad to do if a year's time had been
at my command ; for I am sure that a care
ful study of ancient, mediaeval, and modern
missions, with their agreements and their
differences, would have been instructive
and stimulating. But necessity knows no
law ; at least it admits of no choice. I can
not do as I would. I must do as I can. So,
for once, I am a Calvinist in the garb of a

The Authority to be Recognized. IS
Remonstrant. The best I can do is to treat
my theme in the most general way, from
the standpoint of a pastor who would create
and foster an intelligent and generous sym
pathy among his people in the cause of
Christian missions.
To adopt the military figure, it is a cam
paign of conquest to which we are sum
moned. The Church of Christ is a Salva
tion Army. We organize no armies, we
equip no navies, we shoulder no rifles, we
carry no swords ; but all that is essential to
a great military campaign must enter into
our procedure. We must clearly under
stand by whom we are sent, where we are
to go, what we are to do, why we are to do
it, and how we are to do it. So I shall ask
you to consider with me, in this course of
six lectures, the Authority to be recognized,
the Field to be won, the Result to be
achieved, the Resistance to be overcome, the
Leaders to be appointed, and the Agencies to
be employed. The division is a simple one,
and I have given it here that it may serve
you as a mnemonic for future use, to be elab-

16 The World for Christ.
orated by your own independent thought,
though you may not recall anything that I
may say. I shall be more than repaid if
you remember the scheme of the discussion.
We are to consider, first, the Authority
to be recognized in the prosecution of Chris
tian missions. We are under a fourfold
pressure. There are four strands in the
cord by which we are bound to the dis
charge of our high duty of preaching the
Gospel to all nations.
We must secure the acceptance of Chris
tianity everywhere if we are to preserve
Christianity anywhere. The final test of
truth in any department, whether in science
or philosophy or political economy or reli
gion, is the universality of its application,
its congruity with fact. A doctrine which
is partially true must recede. The history
of human thought shows it to have been a
perpetual oscillation between affirmation
and negation, steadily proceeding toward a
higher affirmation. It is the Hegelian proc
ess of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
The final synthesis is the universal and au-

The Authority to be Recognized. 17
thoritative formula. You may recall Hux
ley's statement that theological dogmas lit
ter the past as so many strangled and dead
snakes around the cradle of Hercules. Her
cules, of course, is science, and the compar
ison is not complimentary to the theolo
gians. But there are as many strangled
scientific theories as there are defunct the
ologies. And the Hercules who strangles
them is simply the Truth which is embodied
in the eternal facts of being. That which
is congruous with these facts is the absolute
and universal truth ; and only that which is
so congruous can survive in the face of
these facts. Working theories are good, as
tentative explanations, as convenient log
ical categories for the student ; but the work
ing theory is abandoned so soon as it is evi
dent that it cannot stand the test of univer
sal verification. No doctrine can survive
unless it can conquer. Its universal accept
ance is the inexorable condition of its self-
preservation. That is true of the Bible and of the
Christian religion. I need not detain

18 The World for Christ.
you to prove that both claim absolute
and universal authority. But even if they
made no such claim, their preservation is
impossible unless they can secure universal
recognition and acceptance. The Bible
must supplant all other religious books, or
itself be surrendered. If other sacred books
are to be treated with equal reverence, it
must itself disappear in the recovery of that
which constitutes the common substratum
of them all. Christianity must supplant all
other religions, or itself ultimately vanish
from every land. If it be only one of
many religions, we must be prepared to
surrender it in the recovery of that religion
which is the root and trunk of all. The
self-preservation of Christianity is condi
tioned upon its universal sovereignty. For
there can be but one religion, as there can
be but one science of astronomy or of phys
iology. I am speaking to those who ac
cept Christianity as the true religion, who
worship Jesus Christ as the only name under
heaven by which men must be saved. You
are determined to preserve the institutions

The Authority to be Recognized. 19
and the civilization which the Gospel has
created. You know of none other so good.
You would not exchange them for any oth
ers. You claim for them ideal perfection.
That claim should kindle in you the passion
of universal conquest; and that claim must
be discredited unless universal conquest
makes it good. We are here, as every
where else, in the grip of that law of the
struggle for existence in which only the
fittest can survive. The fittest cannot re
tire within its own province. It must either
subdue all, or run up the flag of surrender.
I cannot here enter upon the relation of
Christianity to the ethnic religions. It is
not necessary to regard them, as did the
early Christian apologists, as the creations
of demons. They may contain, as I think
they do, much of truth; but they do not
contain the whole truth, they do not con
tain the truth of salvation, which is the
heart of religion. The ethnic religions
may and should be regarded sympathetic
ally, as disclosing the universal search of
the soul after God ; but whom they igno-

20 The World for Christ.
rantly worship we are summoned to declare
unto them. If our religion be only an
ethnic product, as are their religions, ours
must decay as theirs have decayed and are
decaying. We must choose between the
two alternatives — Christianity everywhere
or Christianity nowhere. Self-preservation
carries in it the necessity of universal con
quest. The golden rule summons us to love our
neighbor as ourselves ; and the whole world
is our neighbor. Philanthropy commits us
to the evangelization of the world. That
was a remarkable meeting which was held
in the last week of January in Carnegie
Hall, New York city, when floor and gal
leries were crowded in response to a call to
protest against the departure of Mr. and
Mrs. Ballington Booth, which had been
ordered from London. The Salvation Army
leaders did not suggest it, nor did they lend
it their encouragement and support. Had
they been consulted, the meeting would not
have been held. It was a spontaneous up
rising, in which leaders in Church and so-

The Authority to be Recognized. 21
ciety gladly gave the weight of their pres
ence and speech. It is only a few years
since the Salvation Army was regarded with
almost universal suspicion. Its members
were labeled as good-natured cranks. But
the cranks have won universal recognition
for their commonsense, their patience, their
tact, their untiring devotion, their splendid
success. They attacked the slums. They
went where others rarely showed their
faces. They went there to live. They
kept at their task, carrying cleanliness into
filth, order into confusion, sweetness into
foulness, the speech of prayer into abodes
of drunkenness and blasphemy. And every
where they told men and women of Jesus,
the friend of sinners. And men who are
not easily carried away by enthusiasm, and
whose Christianity is not particularly fer
vent, were stirred by a philanthropy so
brave and strong.
It is nearly forty years ago since Ecce
Homo was read with eager interest. Per
haps its most distinguishing feature was
the contention that Jesus Christ intro-

22 The World for Christ.
duced the era of the ' ' enthusiasm of hu
manity." It recalled to me the earlier
statement of Dr. Young, that the keynote
of our Lord's ministry was the neglected
and almost forgotten doctrine of the soul,
the imperial and indefeasible dignity of
man, of every man. Be the origin of that
conviction what it may, trace it to any
source you please, the law stands clear that
you are bound to share your best with your
neighbor, to lift him to the plane upon which
you stand. It is the business of the strong
to bear the burdens of the weak; not by
making them confirmed dependents, but by
training them into independence. It is the
business of the wise to make an end of igno
rance; it is the business of the temperate
and sober to destroy drunkenness ; it is the
business of the good and pure to make an
end of wickedness and vice. And human
ity knows no territorial divisions. Man is
man wherever he is found ; and he is en
titled to all that man can be. We may not
rest until all men have the very best. Isola
tion, its deathblow has been struck. We

The Authority to be Recognized. 23
certainly may not be behind the Roman
audience which went wild with applause
when Terence uttered his famous sentence,
" I am a man, and nothing human is foreign
to me." The world is one household, where
the strong are the hope of the weak, and
the weak are the charge of the strong. If,
then, our Christian civilization is the best
which the world has seen, we are bound, as
lovers of humanity, to make it regnant in all
lands. And we must make it regnant in its
principles, not merely in its fruits ; for its
fruits cannot be made secure unless the seed
be made to take root and grow. Christian
civilization must begin with the preaching
of the Gospel.
Self-preservation and philanthropy urge
us to the world's evangelization. But there
is a higher motive which gives wings to our
feet. It is the command of the Captain of
our salvation. We are under marching
orders. The question is not, as has well
been said, whether the heathen can be
saved unless we send the Gospel to them,
but "whether we can be saved if we do not

24 The World for Christ.
obey Jesus Christ." To receive Jesus as
Lord, and to walk in him as such, is the
primary and permanent mark of disciple-
ship. The greatest of apostles frequently
described himself as doulos, the slave of
Christ, and regarded the scars upon his
body as the brand by which the Christly
ownership was visibly sealed. We have
been bought with a price. We live not unto
ourselves, but unto him who loved us and
gave himself for us. I need not multiply
quotations. Faith in Christ means complete
and abiding surrender to him. Its per
petual interrogative is the question of the
persecutor prostrate on the highway to
Damascus, " Lord, what wilt thou have me
to do?" The answer is clear and unequiv
ocal : ' ' Disciple all nations ; preach the
Gospel to every creature. " That imperative,
based upon the sovereignty secured by the
atoning death on the cross and the resur
rection from the grave, silences all objec
tion, and rebukes all hesitancy. Be the re
sult what it may, Christian loyalty permits
no option. Go we must, whether welcome

The Authority to be Recognized. 25
or not ; go we must, through bristling lines,
through dungeons and deaths, into palaces
and hovels, defying torture and the sword.
Tennyson's famous lines mark the high
level of Christian obedience :
" Into the valley of death.
Rode the six hundred.
Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them.
Cannon in front of them,
Volleyed and thundered.
Stormed at with shot and shell,
Bravely they rode and well;
Into the jaws of death,
Into the mouth of hell,
Rode the six hundred.
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die.
Into the valley of death,
Rode the six hundred."
But somebody blundered at Balaklava, else
the jaws of death would not have closed
upon the six hundred. Our Commander
makes no mistakes, imposes no arbitrary
tests upon our courage, requires nothing
which is not certain of achievement. Every
precept is fibered upon a promise. The
command is a prophecy in the imperative

26 The World for Christ.
mood. In the perspective of inspired vision
the kingdoms of this world are already the
kingdoms of God and of his Christ. And
with Paul the highest motive is not the
mere authority with which Christ is in
vested. The "love of Christ" constrains
him — sunechei — "holds me together, pre
vents me from falling to pieces, holds me
completely, urges me, impels me, gives
steadiness and strength to my conviction
and endeavor." It is Christ's love for men
of which he speaks. That forces upon him
the judgment that the death of one in be
half of all can only mean that all died. It
is as if all had been nailed to the tree ; it is
as if all had been buried ; it is as if all had
been raised from the sepulcher; it is as if
all had been crowned. All, not merely the
elect. All, not merely such as repent and
believe. The apostle makes no such qualifi
cation. He believed and taught a race re
demption. The world is a lost world ; but
it is also a redeemed world. It shares in
the universal apostasy, but it also shares in
the universal rescue. Of course, in both

The Authority to be Recognized. 27
cases the process is a moral one. Men are
not sinners against their will ; men are not
saved without their will. Neither the guilt
of Adam, nor the grace of Christ, is me
chanically imputed, by some occult ar
rangement, or constitution, or covenant;
nor is either matter of mysterious infusion.
Neither sinner nor saint is such by carnal
descent, nor by eternal predestination.
Whatever man is, he is by voluntary agency.
But this does not militate against the doc
trine of a real universal redemption. Where
sin hath abounded, grace doth much more
abound. The economy of redemption is
primary and universal, not secondary and
partial. The Lamb slain from the founda
tion of the world pictures the philosophy of
history. God was in Christ reconciling the
world unto himself. The world is a re
deemed world. Every soul is a saved soul,
though it sink into eternal perdition. The
path into the deepest hell lies over the body
and blood of Jesus Christ. No man is lost
except by an act of spiritual apostasy. He
must fall from the grace which is in Christ

28 The World for Christ.
Jesus. He must wither upon the vine into
which he has been grafted.
At this point, the Pauline theodicy in the
Epistle to the Romans is most instructive.
The unbelief of the Jew pained him, filled him
with great heaviness and continual sorrow of
heart. He declared with the utmost solemni
ty that he would not even shrink from eternal
personal perdition in their behalf, were it
necessary. But he goes on to show that no
such sacrifice is necessary. His grief does
not sink into despair, because the gifts and
calling of God are without repentance. The
unbelief of Israel does not mean its per
dition. The rejection of the Jew does not
mean his abandonment. Israel, too, shall
be saved ; all Israel, Israel as a nation, and
its restoration shall be as life from the dead.
So the wonderful logic marches, until the
cry of agony, with which the ninth chapter
opens, is lost in the triumphant doxology
with which the eleventh chapter closes.
And then comes the eager exhortation : " I
beseech you therefore, brethren, by the
mercies of God, that ye present your bodies

The Authority to be Recognized. 29
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service." The
force of this word therefore transfigures
the duty of consecration into an unspeak
able privilege. The mercies of God ! These
are the pulse of his absolute authority. His
law is great and majestic ; but his eternal
love in the law is greater and more majestic.
The categorical imperative points the way
to what must and shall be. " If conscience,"
wrote Bishop Butler, ' ' had might, as it has
right, it would rule the world." He might
have added, "if it has right, it will rule the
world." Veritas praevalebit. In every ought
there hides the omnipotence of God. The
prophets are poets, and the poets are
prophets." Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages
but record
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems
and the word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the
throne,
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the
dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above
his own."
3

30 The World for Christ.
Jesus Christ bids us disciple all nations.
That is his command, which incarnates the
travail of his soul, and he shall see of the
travail of his soul, and be satisfied. He
teaches us to pray " Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done on earth, as it is in
heaven;" and he assures us that whatever
we ask in his name shall be granted to us.
Let us fall into line, and close up the ranks,
under the flaming banner of his crimson
cross, the unfurling of which meant the
occupation of all continents and isles of the
sea ! Self-preservation urges us to the task
of the world's conversion; philanthropy
adds its mighty imperative ; the trump of
the incarnate Son of God sounds the com
manding charge ; and the eternal purpose
of God makes our march a triumphal pro
cession through the very gates of hell !

Sbe jfielo to be Won

II.
The Field to be Won.
WE have considered the Authority
under whose inspiration we are
charged with the universal diffusion of the
Christian faith, and we have found that
there can be no evasion of the responsibility
of the task. The seal upon our commission
silences all objection. We can repudiate
the task only by treason to Jesus Christ.
We cannot claim to be his friends and dis
ciples if we refuse or hesitate to do what he
commands. That should be enough. That
is enough. Obedience, however, is not
blind, and enthusiasm gains in depth and
intensity in proportion as the rationality of
its endeavor is vindicated. It is not a four
fold reason, or four separate and confluent
reasons, which I have brought under re
view, but a single reason, disclosing the
absoluteness of its authority by its agree
ment with the eternal purpose of God, as
disclosed in revelation, and by its perfect

34 The World for Christ.
congruity with the determining law of his
tory. There could have been no other
command. Its limitation would have dis
credited it, and annulled the obligation to
obedience; for the very nature of moral
law is such as to permit of no restriction.
It must rule all, or it can rule none. There
is no alternative between universal collapse
and universal sovereignty. There can be
no concordats or compromises; uncondi
tional surrender is the rallying cry and
watchword of every " ought.'" For, of law,
as Hooker says, " no less can be acknowl
edged than that her seat is in the bosom of
God, her voice the harmony of the world ;
all things in heaven and earth do her hom
age, the very least as feeling her care, and
the greatest as not exempted from her
power." If that be true, it is plain that a moral
imperative must disclose its inherent ra
tionality, and vindicate its authority by the
universality of its enforcement. It must
be structural, pervasive, aggressive, subdu
ing. I have taken it for granted that in

The Field to be Won. 35
any comparison of religions, Christianity
embodies the absolute truth ; that its repre
sentations of God and of man, and of man's
redemption by God through Jesus Christ,
are eternally fixed and unalterable. It is
the only religion which is historically true.
That assumption, however, can be made
good only by its universal and exclusive
sovereignty. It will be challenged at every
step. It ought to be challenged at every
step. Not one of us should wish its triumph
to be an easy one, if we could have it so;
and we cannot have it so, however much we
may wish it. The law of the survival of
the fittest is a beneficent law; and that
which is fittest proves itself to be such only
by its survival, by standing crowned, reg
nant, and unscathed over the graves of its
competitors. No scientific theory can sur
vive unless it can secure universal recogni
tion. No philosophical system can survive
unless it can gain universal acceptance.
No religion can maintain its foothold within
the 'most restricted limits unless it can belt
the globe with its sovereignty. The law is

36 The World for Christ.
as inexorable as that there can be but one
multiplication table.
I recur to this because there is a dispo
sition in some quarters to regard Chris
tianity as one among many religions,
with mythical or legendary or specula
tive elements of its own; purer than any
other religion, but capable of being en
riched from other sources ; and destined, in
friendly partnership with other religions,
to issue in a new and ultimate religion.
Others are disposed to regard religion as a
purely ethnic product, a matter of national
custume and behavior, which each people
is to be encouraged to cultivate in its own
way, the resultant blending issuing in a
most charming picturesqueness. Pagan
Rome made trial of this religious cosmopol
itanism and opened its Pantheon to all the
gods, and among them a place would not
have been refused to Jesus Christ. But
this cosmopolitan recognition of all the
gods brought them all into contempt. The
universal coronation was a universal degra
dation. The equality of religions was the

The Field to be Won. 37
death of religion. Mohammed was right,
" There can be but one God, and there can
be but one prophet of God." Any religion
must disappear which does not march under
that banner, and which does not compel
every other flag to dip its colors.
There are only two alternatives, either all
present religions must disappear, or one
among the existing religions must secure uni
versal and exclusive lodgment. A brother
hood of discordant religions there cannot be.
And an ultimate religion, displacing all pres
ent religions, Christianity included, displac
ing all sacred books, the Bible included, must
make provision for some prophet who shall
outrank not only Socrates and Confucius
and Sakya-Muni, but Moses and Jesus
Christ. The new religion must rise out of
the ashes of all existing religions. Such a
view not only cuts the nerve of Christian
missions ; it cuts the nerve of all Christian
faith. Christianity ceases, upon such a the
ory, to have any authority over anybody.
Its preservation anywhere is conditioned by
its sovereignty everywhere.

38 The World for Christ.
Philanthropy, too, urges us to do what
self-preservation makes necessary. The
good which we would keep for ourselves
we are under obligation to impart to
all our neighbors. And these considera
tions are enforced by the view, which
is peculiar to Christianity, that the pur
pose of redemption is logically antece
dent to the purpose of creation, that the
goal of history is the redemption of man.
In the eternal prevision and purpose of God
the world lost in sin is a world once for all
redeemed in Jesus Christ. The command
of Christ to preach the Gospel to every
creature voices that eternal purpose, and
pledges the moral omnipotence of God to
the certainty that obedience to it shall not
recoil in disaster and defeat. Emerson ad
vises us to " hitch our wagon to a star," to
ally ourselves with those forces in nature
and in history which maintain their eternal
poise. Such coursers never tire, and are
never uncertain of footing. Over the rough
est paths and along the edges of the most
perilous precipices they carry us with steadi-

The Field to be Won. 39
ness and in safety. And among all these
stars the Star of Bethlehem has the eternal
preeminence. They who obey Jesus Christ
tread the path of victory, and make their
work enduring.
The authority, then, is unquestioned. It
is invested with all the elements which jus
tify a glad and eager obedience. Let us
proceed to consider the Field which we
are to win. Jesus Christ, incarnating both
the power and the wisdom of God, sends us.
Where does he send us to? If we answer
the question geographically, nothing needs
to be added to what has already been said.
The world is our parish, as John Wesley
said that it was his. There is no land
which is not our province ; there is no race
which we may neglect ; there are no classes
which we may avoid. It is evident, too,
that the division of Christian missions into
home and foreign departments is formal
rather than real. It is convenient for pur
poses of administration, but beyond that it
has no value. Our obligation to Christian
ize the Empire State or the Western Conti-

40 The World for Christ.
nent is not one whit greater and more
pressing than our duty to evangelize Asia
and Africa. No man is at liberty to con
centrate all his interest upon one specific
place, and be indifferent to all else. Local
ization in endeavor, and even in gifts, has its
uses, for no man can do everything; but
the localization of personal enlistment should
always be under the law of universal con
quest. There is but one missionary spirit,
the spirit of the world's redemption. As
the late Dr. Williams so beautifully said, in
his comment on the plural number in the
pronouns of the Lord's Prayer, " Religion
is indeed a personal thing, but it is not
therefore a principle of social isolation. We
must visit the closet ; but into the closet we
must carry the sympathies of the race, and
bare before our God a heart that can take
in the world in its wide reach of interces
sion and fraternal regard." We are not to
be ' ' egotists in our piety and monopolists
in our prayers." And the principle holds
true of all Christian work. Specific in
form, it must also be cosmopolitan in spirit

The Field to be Won. 41
and outlook. Whatever we do we are to
do for Christ's sake, and what we do for
Christ's sake we do for the world's sake.
There must be Christian cosmopolitanism
in our local service, and there must be local
service in our Christian cosmopolitanism.
Every one of us has a specific vocation, and
a definite place in which to" discharge that
vocation ; but we are to discharge it in the
interest of a service which has the world
for its field.
Two diametrically opposite dangers con
front us here. We may forget the world
in our specific tasks, influenced by local
attachments or racial affinities or purely
patriotic motives, while the cry of the
heathen world falls upon dull ears. Such
are the people who tell us that they are
interested in home but not in foreign
missions. But if we evangelize our own
neighborhoods for Christ's sake, we do it
for the world's sake. Home evangelization
must, in the outcome, be foreign evangeli
zation ; and, therefore, it should be such
in initiative and outlook. On the other

42 The World for Christ.
hand, it is possible to be so absorbed in dis
tant communities, and in peoples of strange
speech, as to become indifferent to the des
titution which environs and attends us, giv
ing occasion to the sneering retort that we
leave our own children to go ragged be
cause we are so busy sewing for the savages.
Charity does begin at home, but it does not
end there; and, what is more, it is not
charity even at home unless the pulse beat
for all the world. The field is the world,
and you have your own particular plat to
plow and seed down and keep. Work over
against your own door, but do it, as did Ne-
hemiah's associates, in order that all the
breaches in the encompassing wall may be
repaired. Our immediate duty is to do that
for which we are fitted, and which lies near
est to us ; our ultimate duty, the aim of all
specific endeavor, is the world's salvation.
The political description of the field to be
won, however, is more important than its
geographical division. I call it political for
want of a better term. The feature which
I have in mind divides the mission field

The Field to be Won. 43
into city and country, and the city is a polit
ical rather than a geographical creation.
Our Lord began his ministry in rural Gali
lee, and ended it in Jerusalem. After his
resurrection he commanded his disciples to
preach repentance and remission of sins in
his name among all nations, ' ' beginning at
ferusalem." The command was repeated at
his ascension. From Jerusalem the disciples
were to go unto the uttermost parts of the
earth. The city was made the point of de
parture and the citadel of strength.
Paul's missionary journeys were shaped
on that plan . It was at Antioch that he was
set apart with Barnabas to his special task ;
and it was in Ephesus and Corinth that he
lingered longest, with his heart set upon
Rome. It is a singular fact that the word
"pagan" means "a rustic;" and history
tells us that paganism lingered longest in
the country districts, even beyond the age
of Constantine. The coinage of this word
"paganism" dates to the period when it
was used to describe the rural religion, when
Christianity had become the religion of the

44 The World for Christ.
cities. It was not the country which gave
Christianity to the cities, but the cities
which carried Christianity into the country
districts. City evangelization was the first
problem with which the apostolic and the
postapostolic age grappled. Rome, Alex
andria, Antioch, Lyons, Constantinople,
Carthage, were the strongholds of the new
religion, giving form to its theology and
government. The preeminence of the city is not pe
culiar to modern life. It is more conspic
uous to our eyes, and perhaps the drift
is accelerated in our time; but the city
has always been conspicuous and control
ling. The buried dynasties of the Nile
and the Euphrates were those of vast and
imperial cities. Greece was a confederacy
of cities. Rome held the scepter of the
world, making all lands contributors to her
municipal magnificence. The mediaeval
cities were the asylums and fortresses of
civil and commercial liberty. I have some
times wondered whether Cowper would
ever have written his famous lines, " God

The Field to be Won. 45
made the country and man made the town,"
could he have foreseen the philosophy which
some associate with them. They laud the
country and curse the city. They deprecate
the growth of municipalities as foreshadow
ing decay in morals and religion. Man made
the town. Yes, but who made the man by
whom the town is made? Is the social in
stinct an excrescence or a disease? The
city, as a political institution, is perfectly
legitimate, the inevitable and divinely sanc
tioned precipitate of the social instincts.
In the future, as in the past, at home and
abroad, the city must engage our most se
rious attention. In them Christianity must
be made dominant and aggressive ; and if
we find our machinery inoperative at this
focal point, we cannot be in too great haste
to remedy the defect. The old story will
repeat itself — the city will give religion to
the country, not the country to the city, just
as the country follows the fashions of the
city, not the city those of the country.
It is important to remember this at a time
when the subject of municipal government

46 The World for Christ.
is engaging wide and earnest attention.
Few will be inclined to challenge the ver
dict of James Bryce, that " the government
of cities is the one conspicuous failure of
the United States." At that point our
popular institutions are more seriously
threatened than at any other. Brooklyn
and New York now contain nearly one half,
if not quite, of the entire population of the
Empire State. Our elections have been for
many years a fierce wrestle between these
two cities and the rest of the State. It is
this which makes municipal reform of the
highest political importance to the common
wealth. It would be a most deplorable and
dangerous innovation to fence off the cities
as independent political units, carrying
Home Rule into isolation. There must be
free play between the urban and the rural
populations for the safety of each. The
entire State of New York is interested in
the government of its cities, for that will
be the drumbeat to which the entire com
monwealth keeps step. Patriotic states
manship recognizes this. The Christian

The Field to be Won. 47
Church cannot afford to be less vigilant
and untiring. The city is the great field
to be won. In the city the Church must
come to the front in all humanitarian agen
cies and in all moral reforms. It must
seize the leadership in the education and
quickening of the public conscience. And
it must do all this for the sake of the nation
and of the world. Be it at home or abroad,
the city must be captured for Christ. We
are to plant the Gospel everywhere ; but it
is a wise Christian strategy, divinely com
mended and sanctioned by all history, to
mass our regenerating forces in the great
cities of the globe for the evangelization of
the world.
What I have called the political descrip
tion of the field to be won is more helpful
to our present inquiry than its geographical
delineation. But more important than
either is what I may call the dynamic sur
vey. The real field to be won is not vis
ible, but invisible. It is the domain of
conviction and of conduct. The weap
ons of our warfare are spiritual, because

48 The World for Christ.
the territory to be conquered and held is
spiritual. That compels the Church to qualify it
self for and to seize the place of intel
lectual leadership. It is not the voca
tion of Christianity to prescribe the limits
and the methods of scientific research,
nor to formulate a system of metaphys
ics. The Gospel does not tell men ' ' how
the heavens go, but how men may go
to heaven." Still, in its own peculiar
province, Christianity must command the
unqualified assent of the intellect. It must
not only exhort, it must convince. In his
tory, in literary criticism, in personal verifi
cation or experience, it must make good its
claims. Hence the Church has always been
the friend and promoter of the highest edu
cation. Its schools at Alexandria and at
Antioch were famous while yet persecution
raged. The universities outrank the cathe
drals in the influence which they have ex
erted. Oxford and Cambridge have but
tressed every chapel and meetinghouse in
the British empire. Our first American

The Field to be Won. 49
colleges were founded to prepare young
men for the Christian ministry; the vast
majority of them at present are under re
ligious control ; and they are mainly sup
ported by Christian gifts. This movement
in the line of intellectual leadership is in
the very fiber of the Christian faith. The
sword of truth is the only weapon upon
which the Church, under God, relies. The
time can never come when the very best
intellectual equipment can be dispensed
with in the service of the Christian Church.
The demand in every department is not
only for more men and women, but for
more thoroughly furnished men and women.
The preachers who go begging for places
are the preachers who cannot command at
tention ; who have nothing to say, or else
do not know how to say it. The men who
cross the dead line at fifty or sixty are the
men who have succumbed to laziness ; who
have exchanged the fighting armor for the
gown and slippers. There must be intellec
tual vivacity and virility, an intellectual in-
cisiveness and force which cleave their own

50 The World for Christ.
way, if the Christian message is to win its
way. For it is the thoughts' of men which
are to be brought into the obedience of
Jesus Christ; and none of us should be
grudge the time and the work which will
qualify us for the intellectual leadership,
without which the world cannot be won.
But the truth is one and singular. It does
not split up its adherents into hostile camps.
And this suggests the further thought, that
Christianity must conquer its own antago
nisms before it can sweep over the world
with resistless might. The ancient Greek
Church presents us with the spectacle of
Christianity driven out of its ancestral
home by the fanatic disciples of Islam,
through the interminable controversies
which had destroyed its unity and spiritual
ity. There is no other judgment of God in
this than that which is the inevitable curse
upon all sectarian hostility. I say "sec
tarian hostility," not "denominational di
visions." For one, I care very little for
what is called "organic Christian unity;"
the universal adoption of the same theolog-

The Field to be Won. 51
ical creed, and of the same ecclesiastical
polity. It is the little things, in ritual and
government, which keep us apart. When
we come to the great essentials, the same
Gospel voices itself in all the creeds from
Nicea down to the present time. The thing
to be done is for Christian men to stop de
nouncing each other, and for them, instead,
to give each other the right hand of Chris
tian fellowship. The phrase ' ' uncovenanted
mercies of God " may well be dropped from
the Christian vocabulary ; for there will be
not a few who would say with an irate dis
putant that he ' ' would rather be damned
than to be saved by a mercy which had no
covenant in it." There must be Christian
recognition, without the condition of eccle
siastical surrender, compromise, or absorp
tion. That is surely coming ; coming be
cause the unity is not something which has
to be made, but because it is simply waiting
for honest and fearless recognition. We
are one ; the fight we have on hand is to say
that we are one in spite of our differences ;
and when we say that, we shall not find it

52 The World for Christ.
difficult to exercise interdenominational
courtesy and fraternity in the prosecution
of our common work. The passion which
must master us is that the world shall be
won to Christ ; and when that motive se
cures sole and supreme sovereignty, all
sectarian jealousies and suspicions will for
ever vanish ; and not until they do vanish,
not until cooperation takes the place of
competition, can we expect the golden age
of missionary enterprise.
There is an industrial problem, too, with
which we must be prepared to grapple, if
the world in its dynamic forces is to be won
to Christ. There is an ethics of production,
and an ethics of distribution ; and the only
ethical system which we can acknowledge is
that of Jesus Christ. Man is a moral per
sonality to the core of his being, and to the
extremest circumference of his action ; every
man is such a moral personality; and,
therefore, all compacts are seriously invalid
which do not treat him as such. He retains
his moral dignity in any sphere of work
which he may choose, or to which he may

The Field to be Won. 53
be assigned. The relations of employer
and employee, of master and servant, are
not relations of essential superiority and in
feriority, any more than the relations of
parents and children. Man is man at the
bottom of the industrial regime, and he is
no more than man at the top. It may even
be that differences in rank are wholly con
ventional, as in the modern battleships,
where it has been said the rank is all on
deck, and the brains below deck ; or, as in
State departments, where the head is de
pendent upon some subordinate.
Christianity does not undertake to assume
formal supervision over the field of indus
trial activity. But it does insist upon certain
principles as fundamental and determining.
One is the essential equality of all men be
fore God, as bearing his image and re
deemed by his grace. The products of
labor are merchantable, their value de
termined by the law of supply and demand ;
but the laborer is not an article of sale and
purchase, and that not only invests him
with personal liberty, but entitles him to

54 The World for Christ.
humane treatment. A second principle
upon which the Gospel lays emphasis is the
universal obligation of productive industry.
It proclaims the duty, rather than the
dignity, of work. The dignity is in the
duty. Only the worker wears the crown ;
the idler is a clog and nuisance, whether he
be a tramp in rags or a millionaire spend
thrift. It is every man's duty to work, and
it is every man's duty to find his own work.
And a third item in the message of the
Gospel is that humanity constitutes a real
brotherhood, in which the good of all is to
be sought by each, and the rights of all
to be maintained by each. Christianity,
properly speaking, is not a leveling system.
It neither levels down, nor does it level up.
It recognizes the essential equality in the
formal differences, and the formal differ
ences in the essential equality. It gauges
the man by what he is, not by what he does
or has. It does not teach a doctrine of
solidarity which eliminates personality ; nor
does it teach a doctrine of personality which
makes solidarity an empty name. In the

The Field to be Won. 55
golden rule it justifies self-love, and it en
joins universal benevolence. It does not
cut the sinews of self-interest, but brings
self-interest within the domain of moral
law whose scope is universal; so that he
who injures another, or is indifferent to
him, wounds himself. And in the love
which it requires toward all, it places the
emphasis upon the moral selfhood of each,
thus summoning each to the independence
which is his duty and his dignity. The
Gospel does not canonize the poor, nor does
it curse the rich. It has the same message
to both. It honors manhood, and enjoins
manly treatment. And upon Christian
manhood, in both divisions of the great in
dustrial field, it lays the duty of cordial co
operation. The field which is to be won presents
still another aspect. There are political as
well as industrial problems ; and both classes
of problems are problems dealing with man,
which makes them ethical, and brings them
under the law of Jesus Christ. Each nation
is a moral personality, not in the sense of an

56 The World for Christ.
independent and sovereign existence apart
from its individual citizens, but as the inte
gration of a body of convictions and princi
ples universally accepted. The principles
in which all agree constitute, or create, the
national personality. Written or unwritten,
they are the constitution under which the
nation has the charter of its existence and
continuance. It is clear, therefore, that the
diffusion of Christian ideas slowly but stead
ily molding public convictions, must pari
passu bring legislation and methods of
public administration into harmony with
Christian ideals. It was in this way that
slavery disappeared in the Roman empire,
and that the fierce gladiatorial conflicts were
brought to an end. Therein lies the secret
pressure under which in all civilized lands
serfdom has ceased. That has driven the
swindling lotteries and the brutal prize
fighters' rings beyond the boundaries of
the American republic. That is calling a
stern halt to the audacity of the saloon in
its defiance of all law, and in its expressed
determination to make the weekly day of

The Field to be Won. 57
rest a recurring period of drunken carousal.
The Christian ideal of manhood is steadily
leavening public opinion, and public opinion
shapes the formal statute. It is the Chris
tian ideal of manhood, too, which is the
mightiest propagandist of free institutions ;
so that while kings retain their titles, the
people are the power behind the throne,
and popular assemblies act as a check upon
irresponsible authority. The Gospel molds
the national life. And it proclaims the
fraternity of nations, who in amicable con
ference are to settle their differences and
disputes, instead of flying to arms upon the
slightest provocation.
Such is the field to be won. The great
captains of history never dreamed of an em
pire so vast. To many, even now, it seems
an unsubstantial dream. But to this con
quest we are committed by our faith in
Jesus Christ. And to it we must consecrate
ourselves, in patience, in courage, and in
the assured hope of final and glorious suc
cess.

Zhe IResuIt to be Hcbieveb

III.
The Result to be Achieved.
YOU have a right to demand that I make
clear what is meant by the Result
which the prosecution of Christian missions
should aim to secure, as distinguished from
the Field which it is summoned to win and
hold. The difference between the two may
seem to be only verbal, inasmuch as it was
contended that the Field is not geographical
or territorial, but political and moral,
covering the dynamic energies by which
history is shaped. It is man who is to be
subdued, not the place in which he lives.
And the man to be subdued is a many-
sided being, mentally restless and inquisi
tive, with social impulses, caught and held
in a most intricate network of industrial
activity, and set in political relations which
create the commonwealth and contemplate
the federation of the world. Man cannot
be touched at any vital point of his nature
without being touched ultimately at all
5

62 The World for Christ.
points. He cannot be split up into so many
sections, separately cultivated and mutually
consenting not to interfere with each other.
As my revered theological teacher used to
say, man is not a modern steamship, di
vided into water-tight compartments, sepa
rated by bulkheads, some of which the sea
may flood, while it cannot gain entrance
into others. Whatever gains entrance se
cures sovereignty over the whole man. No
man can long remain Christian in heart and
pagan in head. Philosophy cannot continue
to be theistic, if science be atheistic. Re
ligion cannot make the cathedral its throne
and fortress, if the Decalogue and the
Sermon on the Mount may be bowed out
by diplomats and statesmen.
It is inevitable, therefore, that religious
convictions, intelligently accepted and firm
ly maintained, crystallize in social, indus
trial, and political institutions which re
flect the faith. Benjamin Kidd rendered
good service when he called attention to
the fact that religion has been the might
iest factor in social evolution, and must

The Result to be Achieved. 63
continue so to be. Professor Drummond
may object to the formal logic and criti
cise the phraseology, but when he modi
fies the doctrine of natural selection by the
law of motherhood as among the higher
forms of evolution, the concession to moral
forces in the shaping of social history is
equally significant. Evolution is more an
ethical than a natural process ; or, to state
the fact more correctly, nature at the core
is ethical. The living God works in and
through nature, and apart from him nature
would neither work nor be. My only ob
jection to the formula, " Natural law in the
spiritual realm," is that it states the truth
in an inverted form. It puts the cart be
fore the horse. Law has its fons et origo in
the spiritual realm, and thence it issues to
crystallize and rule in the domain of nature.
All law is ethical in its source and outwork
ing. The universe, from center to circum
ference, from star dust to souls, in all the
provinces and ranges of being, is a moral
empire. The division of law into natural
and moral, with its subdivisions into me-

64 The World for Christ.
chanical and vital and economic and polit
ical, is a convenient device for tabulation ;
but law as law is inherent in things as con
stituted, and is only another name for that
rational order which is the precipitate of the
dynamic reason of God. So Kepler was
right when he described the astronomer as
a man who ' ' thinks God's thoughts after
him." This is the endeavor and the goal of
all science.
And this invests all law with the same
authority. Whatever its form, it is a cate
gorical imperative. The laws of matter
are as sacred as the laws of mind. The
body, no less than the soul, is the tem
ple of God; and neglect or abuse of it is
sacrilege and impiety. And if all law is
moral at root, and divine in the outworking,
it is plain that a revolution in religious con
victions must issue in a corresponding revo
lution in all the forms of human life. It is
equally clear that social and institutional
changes are most directly and powerfully
affected through changes in moral ideals
and religious convictions. The process may

The Result to be Achieved. 65
be too slow for enthusiastic reformers, who
would bring in the millennium at a stroke,
but it is the only steady and sure one. The
Gospel is like leaven, working from within
outward, and leavening the whole lump.
The leavening of all forms of human life
is the ultimate issue of Christian evangel
ization. But that is not the immediate task
committed to the Christian Church. The
three measures of meal represent the
Field which is to be won ; but the duty en
joined is to insert the leaven, leaving it
when lodged to work in its own way. There
is need of emphasizing this distinction be
tween the ultimate result and the immediate
duty. There is a disposition in some
quarters to make the vocation of the Chris
tian Church and of the Christian preacher
coextensive with formal leadership in all
needed reforms. If he does not assume the
insignia of temporal sovereignty, he must
exercise the authority of secular judgment.
Beneath his plain black there must be the
royal purple. But Jesus declared that his
kingdom was not of this world. It is in it,

66 The World for Christ.
and destined to subdue it; but in securing
the universal subjugation, his disciples bear
a specific part, and one which does not
adopt secular methods.
Social regeneration is a vast and intri
cate product, and in it many agencies co
operate. The moral personality of each
individual must be taken into account.
He is really governed only when he is
self-governed. The home has its divinely
appointed place in social evolution ; it is,
so to speak, the biological unit, and must
have free play. The school, as crystal
lizing in its courses of study the hard-
learned lessons of a wide and long experi
ence, has its peculiar vocation, with which
neither State nor Church should officiously
interfere. The State, as the organ of social
justice, has its specific problems, and with
in its sphere is supreme. Industrialism
has its own peculiar province, and must be
left free to work out its own salvation.
There is such a thing as a divinely insti
tuted confederacy of social authorities ; and
the greatest mischiefs have resulted when

The Result to be Achieved. 67
one has invaded the province of the other.
The State has suffered when the priest has
leaped into the saddle. The Church has
suffered when the State has shaped her
creeds or directed her energies. The school
has suffered when either politicians or
ecclesiastics have assumed the reins of
management. The home has been de
graded when legislation has undertaken to
destroy its monogamic constitution, either
by sanctioning polygamy or by facilitating
divorce. Industrial prosperity has had in
legislative interference its most dangerous
enemy. The ethical energy by which the
social regeneration is to be secured works
in and through many agencies, which,
while interdependent, are also independent.
Each has its specific task under the general
law of social improvement. The Church of
Christ in this confederacy of regenerating
forces is the historical organ of religion.
To bring God to men, and men to God, is
her specific vocation. To preach the Gospel
is her great and solitary business ; and the
more rigidly she concentrates her energies

68 The World for Christ.
within this channel, the more powerfully
will she leave her impress upon the life of
the age ; for, in doing that, she touches the
fontal springs of social activity. She stands
as the vicegerent of God, to proclaim his
moral majesty and authority ; as the repre
sentative of Jesus Christ, to preach his
Gospel of redemption and his eternal king
ship. It is plain, therefore, that while the world
in all its dynamic energies is the Field which
we are to subdue, our immediate duty is to
secure the conversion to Christ of the indi
vidual. We must begin with man as a
moral personality, who needs to be born
again, or better, born from above. The lower
impulses shape his character and conduct ;
not necessarily the more brutal and bestial
ones, but such as spring from mere con
siderations of personal preference orinterest.
He who thus lives is born of the flesh, and
lives on the carnal plane. The best part in
him remains stifled. Man is only then man
when he is rul§d by God, when his life is
rooted in glad and habitual fellowship with

The Result to be Achieved. 69
the author and the archetype of his being,
when he is born from above, moved by
celestial impulses and inspirations. Using
the word in this scriptural sense, regenera
tion is the prime and universal necessity.
Only as a man is born from above can he be
a citizen of the kingdom of God. The self-
directed man is the man without a crown,
the man in moral collapse. His character
is fatally deficient ; his righteousness, as the
old divines were wont to say, is only filthy
rags. We may not take kindly to their
phrase, imputed righteousness ; but the thing
meant, the entrance of Christ into the heart
by faith as the power of a new creation, in
which his life subdues and molds our own,
cannot be held too tenaciously. Therein
lies the world's salvation, the conversion of
the individual to Jesus Christ, the domi
nance in each human unit of the law of the
Spirit of his life.
For to be under the law of Christ is.
man's emancipation. It is his conscious
adoption and his supernal glory. Many
of Paul's statements about law and its

70 The World for Christ.
relation to the grace of Christ have been
seriously misunderstood, as if law in the
sense of voluntary, glad, and habitual sub
mission to authority were alien to the Gospel.
The hammer of his indignant protest smote
the Pharisaic interpretations of law. Its
authority, as they expounded it, he re
pudiated. But he calls himself the slave of
Jesus Christ. The Gospel is a proclama
tion of redemption under the law of Christ.
Faith is trust and surrender, issuing in
obedience ; in which surrender and obedi
ence man secures his plenary and eternal
spiritual emancipation. That secures to
him deliverance from the guilt, the pollu
tion, the power, and the consequences of sin.
Set right with God, through the knowledge
of him in Jesus Christ, he is for the first
time set free, and his powers begin to work
in their divinely appointed way. The new
birth, under the law of Christ, makes all
things new. It is a veritable resurrection in
the depths of his being, carrying in it the
energy of a world-wide transfiguration.
It is the present and continuous salvation of

The Result to be Achieved. 71
the individual — his present and continuous
life under the law of Christ — which is to be
secured. That is the only proper objective
aim of Christian missions. Conversion in
time is not a means to salvation in eternity.
Repentance and faith are not means to
some future blessedness. Whatever efficacy
the Gospel has, it is intended to make man
ifest on earth as well as in heaven. The
will of God is to be done here in the mortal
life of men. The men and women who
were added to the Church in Jerusalem are
spoken of in Acts as those who were being
saved; the present, not the future, partici
ple. Their salvation was real. It was
present as well as prospective. Its subjects
had laid hold upon the powers of the world
to come, and so their terrestrial life became
celestial in quality and eternal in endur
ance. I would not lay less stress upon the
future blessings involved in Christian dis-
cipleship, but I would lay more upon its
present advantages and obligations. We
degrade the Gospel when we urge men to

72 The World for Christ.
its acceptance because we would have them
go to heaven when they die. A good many
of our hymns and a good many of our ser
mons are keyed to that note. It crops out
in our philosophy of revivals, and the lurid
appeals which characterize them. Paley
embodied the notion in his theory of moral
obligation as obedience to the authority of
God, under the motive of future reward or
punishment, utility being frankly declared
to be the source and the sanction of duty.
Now, fear is a legitimate motive ; but it is
lowest in rank. Duty is a higher incentive,
as voicing the authority of the reason ; and
love is higher still, as securing the highest
good in the present and personal approval
of God. The commendation of God is the
common term covering the highest good of
the present and of the future. Without
Christ, as John Newton sings, a palace is a
toy; with him the prison is a palace. I
had a parishioner some years ago who used
to thank the Lord that we were not only
bound for heaven,but that we had a heaven
to go to heaven in. He had learned that

The Result to be Achieved. 73
phrase from Methodist lips, and its music
was very sweet to me. The life of every
disciple is to be a heavenly life.
If this be the immediate design of per
sonal conversion, it cannot be that the
vocation of the Christian Church in mis
sionary endeavor is that of a rescue com
pany, saving as many souls as possible
from a wrecked humanity which the ocean
of eternal perdition is rapidly engulfing.
It is this notion which leads to the state
ment, that without the Gospel men are
forever damned; and then we immedi
ately proceed to make an exception of
infants and idiots and all others who walk
according to the light of nature. The ex
ceptions riddle the theory that the preach
ing of the Gospel is designed primarily to
save men from hell, and get them into
heaven. We are to preach the Gospel for
the immediate salvation of its hearers, for
the present redemption of the world in
which we live. I am not now speaking of
the scope of Christ's mediatorial activity.
That includes the universe and the eterni-

74 The World for Christ.
ties. But we have no mission to the angels,
nor to the spirits in prison, whoever these
may be. Our work is limited to this globe,
and to the earthly life of its inhabitants.
If we cannot get hell out of men, we have
no reason to believe that we can keep them
out of hell. If we cannot get heaven into
men, we have no reason to believe that we
can get men into heaven. And, therefore,
to make men heavenly-minded, here and
now, is the one thing upon which our hearts
should be set. I am not a Universalist in
theology ; I dare not, as under the author
ity of Jesus Christ, deny or doubt the eter
nity of reward and punishment ; but I am
just as clear in my conviction that the eter
nal destinies of souls are not the things
with which I am immediately to concern
myself ; I am summoned to preach the Gos
pel of Jesus Christ, that men now living in
sin may begin and continue to live in right
eousness. That is salvation. That alone is.
There are some who tell us that the Gos
pel is to be preached to all nations simply
as a testimony unto them, and that when

The Result to be Achieved. 75
this is done the end will come. We are
urged, in consequence, to multiply our mis
sionary forces, instantly, a hundred or a
thousandfold, if need be, so that there may
be a speedy verbal compliance with this com
mand, without much concern as to the re
sults of such a campaign. There is a the
ology of missions which fixes its thought,
not upon the world's conversion to Christ,
but upon Christ's second and final advent.
To hasten the day of his appearing is made
the great incentive. There are others who
tell us that the gathering of the elect is the
task which, under God's secret direction,
the Church is set to accomplish. Every
one of these theories projects the goal into
the future. But even in the Apocalypse
men are not snatched from earth into the
New Jerusalem ; the City of God descends,
and his tabernacle is among men. It is a
present and earthly triumph which the in
spired seer traces. Our task lies close at
hand; it is the historical triumph of the
Gospel in all lands through the voluntary
allegiance of individual souls to Jesus

76 The World for Christ.
Christ, who by the power of his grace are
to be renewed in the spirit of their minds
and established in righteousness. True,
this is only preliminary, the preface or in
troductory chapter to an eternal volume of
history, the plan of which has not been
disclosed to us, but in which Jesus Christ
retains his royal ascendency. The Lamb
slain from the foundation is also the Lord
of the eternities. The song of Moses and
of the Lamb is an unending psalm of praise.
The cross of Christ is the flashing ruby set
in the heart of the eternal sovereignties.
All this is true, but with it we are no more
immediately concerned than we are with
the cosmic preparations for the appearance
of man upon the globe. The post-historic
period is as much a sealed volume to us as
is the prehistoric age. Terrestrial history
bounds the task which is set us in the es
tablishment of the kingdom of God. In
miniature, and among mortal men, the
earth is to be made what the immortal
heavens are ; and this is to be secured by
the simple method of personal discipleship

The Result to be Achieved. 77
to Jesus Christ. If, as President Wayland
argued, the dignity of an enterprise must
be measured by the vastness of the under
taking, the arduousness of its execution, and
the simplicity of the means to be used, the
evangelization of the world is the sublimest
which can possibly enlist the energy of
man. None is more daring, none is more
difficult, and none relies upon simpler meth
ods — the preaching of the Gospel securing
personal repentance and faith.
But that lodges the assimilating and
transfiguring leaven. It revolutionizes per
sonal character, making it divine in type
and Christlike in expression. It lays the
foundations of a reconstructed society in the
Christian home, where the children are
trained in the nurture and admonition of
the Lord. Christian teachers carry its
molding power into the schoolrooms, even
where the Bible is not read and prayers are
not offered. Next, a literature crystallizes
the Christian convictions and ideals, giving
to them the forms of noblest eloquence and
of loftiest song. The nursery and the

78 The World for Christ.
death chamber echo the celestial music.
Art and architecture become the allies of
the Gospel. Genius catches the fire of
Christian devotion ; and brush, chisel, and
trowel join the growing confederacy of re
generating forces. Manners soften and
take on a finer fiber. Recreations and pas
times lose their coarseness. The brutalities
retreat and vanish. Caste loses its rigidity.
Social barricades surrender to the wider
fellowship of humanity. The fraternity of
man gets itself recognized in public opinion.
A merciless industrialism, which coins the
blood of the poor and fattens upon a
dwarfed and debased childhood, is repu
diated by Christian employers, who become
leaders in securing the rights of the op
pressed and helpless. Slavery vanishes be
fore the storm of moral indignation which
the religious view of man has generated.
An outraged citizenship lays bare the foun
tains of municipal and national corruption,
pursues the leaders to their hiding places,
remands them to oblivion, and brands them
with infamy. The king ceases to be the

The Result to be Achieved. 79
State and becomes himself only its most
illustrious subject, honored as the represent
ative and executive of natural justice.
The passion for wars of revenge and con
quest subsides, and is rebuked with unmis
takable sternness. Judicial tribunals of
arbitration supplant the appeals to shot and
shell. There is nothing imaginary in this pic
ture. We have seen it growing under
our own eyes. A handful of despised
men, under the leadership of a crucified
Galilean mechanic, has marched steadily
to the leadership of the world without re
course to the sword. The dungeon, the
fagot, and the stake, which witnessed their
heroic endurance, have been mightier than
the engines of war. The blood of the mar
tyrs has been the seed of the Church. And
the regenerating energy which the Christian
Church has supplied has been conveyed in
the personal message of the Gospel to each
soul, a message proclaiming the infinite
grace of God in Jesus Christ, and the infinite
worth of man even in his deepest degrada-

80 The World for Christ.
tion. Faith in the incarnate Word of God,
dying for the salvation of sinners, triumph
ing over death, and inaugurating his celestial
reign in his ascension, made it impossible
for any man to despair of himself or to be
come an object of contempt to others.
The history of the Middle Ages should not
be unheeded. The growing secularization of
Christianity after the accession of Constan-
tine was attended by the most baleful con
sequences. The Church became a political
institution. It assumed control of the uni
versities and the palaces, degrading learn
ing, debauching princes, and making mer
chandise of its own dignity. It may all
have been inevitable ; it may have been a
blessing in disguise ; but it certainly was
not an unqualified good, and the world's
repudiation of such a tutelage has received
the approval of history. Protestantism has
not been altogether blameless. It, too, has
dabbled in politics, and has been ambitious
of secular leadership. It cannot have es
caped an attentive observer of American life
that we have not escaped the danger of sec-

The Result to be Achieved. 81
ularizing the Gospel. In spite of our con
stitutional theory that Church and State
have their separate and distinct functions,
there are many among us who advocate the
formal cooperation of the Churches in secur
ing political and industrial reforms. They
insist that the Church has not only an indi
vidual, but also a social, mission. The
Churches, they tell us, should have been
antislavery combinations. They should
now be temperance societies and clubs for
municipal reform, and antimilitary conven
ticles. My reply to that contention is that
all this is foreign to the New Testament
charter and constitution, and that the policy
has been tried on a large scale and proved
to be disastrous. It has been weighed in
the balances and found wanting. The
_Church has a definite vocation, to lodge the
Gospel of Jesus Christ in the life of commu
nities and nations by securing personal ac
ceptance of it. All else must be left to the
free friction of intelligent discussion and
decision. For the Christian disciple is a
free man, whose right of private judgment

82 The World for Christ.
may not be abridged. Sumptuary legisla
tion, economic regulations, political instruc
tions imposed by ecclesiastical authority,
are usurpations of power to be resisted for
the Church's own sake, and because such
action involves a tutelage unworthy of
Christian freemen. These are matters in
which the individual Christian disciple
must be trusted, and urged to follow his
own conscientious convictions. The Church,
as a Church associated under the call of
Jesus Christ, must give itself wholly to so
preaching the Gospel as to secure its per
sonal acceptance. To bring men and
women to Jesus Christ, and to keep them
under the law of his life, is our sole and
supreme duty; and Christianized men and
women may be trusted to work out the
Christian civilization of the future.
I have insisted that the salvation which
the preaching of the Gospel contemplates is
a present and continuous salvation. It is
designed to revolutionize and transfigure
the mortal life of men. It fails when it
does not do that. It succeeds when it does

The Result to be Achieved. 83
that, however limited the circle of its im
mediate influence may be. The dynamic
energy so lodged in souls has expansive
power, and needs only time to transform
society. It may be said that in thus limit
ing the sphere of the Church I have de
graded her to a mere civilizing agency. I
have utterly failed to make myself under
stood if any extended reply is needed. Civ
ilization must come by Christianization,
and Christianization must come through
personal repentance and faith in Jesus
Christ. To secure, by the preaching of the
Gospel, the heavenly birth in the individual
soul, is the task of Christian missions — the
one result to be achieved — issuing ulti
mately in the conquest of all the dynamic
forces by which human history is shaped.
And such a shaping of earthly history must,
in the nature of the case, be an eternal his
tory, shaping the eternal destinies of all
who are brought within its sweep, and es
tablishing the kingdom which cannot be
shaken and which endures forever. But
these eternal issues should not blind us to

84 The World for Christ.
the fact that our immediate sphere of serv
ice is bounded by the mortal life of men, and
that the historical triumph of Christianity
is to be achieved by so preaching the Gos
pel as to secure its personal acceptance in
repentance and faith.

Gbe "(Resistance to be Overcome

IV.
The Resistance to be Overcome.
IN one of his discourses to the multitude,
who were in eager haste to range them
selves under his leadership, our Lord re
minded them that the terms of personal
discipleship were unusually exacting. The
daily cross was its badge. Men must be
prepared to sunder every tie of blood and
to hate their own life. Ostracism, shame,
imprisonment, exile, martyrdom, must have
no terrors for them, and must be discounted
in advance. They must be faced and en
dured without surprise. And then, as if
touched by their painful attention, and to
remove any suspicion that he was disposed
rudely to repel them, he reminded them
that no man would be so foolish as to
build a tower without carefully calculating
its cost, nor so rash as to throw down the
gauge of battle without weighing the prob
abilities of success and defeat. They were
exhorted to act intelligently and deliber-

88 The World for Christ.
ately, to prevent any possible relapse which
unforeseen and unwelcome hardship might
precipitate. They must be ready for the
worst if their faith was to be victorious.
He himself had done that when he came to
do the will of his Father, and, therefore,
the world could not crush the buoyancy of
his spirit. Singing a hymn with his bewil
dered followers, he went forth to endure the
agony, the scourging, and the crucifixion.
Paul walked in his Master's steps. The
loss of all things was something for which
he was prepared, and therefore he gloried
in tribulation and rejoiced in his infirmities,
which were the perpetual legacy of his suf
ferings. The knout, the dungeon, and the
ax had been discounted in advance, so that
he regards his blood as only the fitting li
bation with which his apostolic ministry is
consecrated and crowned upon the altar of
devotion. This is the condition of all effective work.
Enthusiasm must be intelligent, comprehen
sive, and farsighted in its outlook. Courage
and recklessness are not synonymous. The

The Resistance to be Overcome. 89
brave man does not throw his life away, nor
does he meet his foe without proper equip
ment. It may be that he has only a sling and
a few smooth pebbles, but he will select these
with the greatest care, and use them with the
utmost dexterity ; nor will he underrate the
fury of the antagonist whom he has chal
lenged to combat. The conversion of the
world by the preaching of the Gospel is a
herculean task. We must not minimize the
difficulties. We must count the cost. We
must be prepared for many checks and re
verses, just as in every hotly contested war
the pendulum of battle swings between ad
vance and retreat, between victory and de
feat. There is an enthusiasm which suc
cumbs at the first touch of disaster. It is
lacking in intelligent prevision. If our zeal
is to be unquenchable it must be supported
by knowledge. If, therefore, I ask you to
consider the Resistance which must be over
come in securing the historical triumph of
Christianity, I am only following the urgent
command of Christ himself and complying
with the dictate of sober sense. Only in

90 The World for Christ.
this way can we banish timidity; only in
this way can we have a courage which is
undaunted and tenacious. Such a review
will serve a double purpose. It will pre
vent discouragement and the disposition to
retire from the field, and it will provoke us
to be wise in the plan and the conduct of
the great campaign.
We may as well recognize the sad and
stubborn fact that in preaching the Gospel
we encounter the bitter hostility of the nat
ural heart. This is not the place for enter
ing upon a consideration of what is known
in theology as original sin, or inherited- de
pravity. It is an intricate and difficult
theme, which after fifteen hundred years of
debate remains as great a riddle as ever.
It is difficult to see how sin can in any
proper sense be transmitted from father to
son, carrying with it inherited guilt; and it
is equally difficult to explain the universality
of sin without some such theory. Augus
tine does not convince me, and Pelagius
does not satisfy me. The realism of the
first is unintelligible to me, the sharp indi-

The Resistance to be Overcome. 91
vidualism of the other is superficial. Per
sonality is not so distinct and independent
as to reduce moral solidarity to a name ; nor
is the moral unity of the race such as to
make personality an illusion. To my read
ing, at least, Paul does not advance a phil
osophical solution. His popular phraseol
ogy and analogical references are unduly
strained when they are made to yield a uni
versal metaphysics, as appears plainly from
the fact that theologians are still unable to
agree in their interpretation of the fifth
chapter of Romans. Such being the state
of the controversy, I have been disposed to
read Paul as making a plain historical state
ment, and instituting a plain historical com
parison between Adam and Christ, without
reference to theories of transfer or imputa
tions. The simple facts are that Adam
sinned, and that all who have descended
from him are sinners ; and these are facts
which must be universally conceded upon
any theory and upon no theory. The car
nal mind is enmity against God. It arrays
itself in deliberate hostility against him.

92 The World for Christ.
The message of forgiveness and redemp
tion, while it is good news, is nevertheless
an unwelcome one, because it is associated
with conditions which provoke resistance
and resentment. The angels proclaim it
with song ; the earth answers it with curses.
Its advent hastens the tragedy of history,
and the crucifixion is the world's reply to
Heaven's mercy.
It is strange ; it is sad ; but it is true.
The mystery of the atonement is no greater
than the mystery of that crime which nailed
our Lord to the cross. And the mystery of
that enmity is perpetually repeated. The
Christian is amazed that there ever should
have been a time when he was indifferent
or hostile to the Gospel. In the fresh en
thusiasm of our conversion, or in the early
ardor of ministerial service, we imagine that
souls must and will instantly yield as soon as
we can make them understand our message.
Our illusions speedily vanish. Men listen
with indifference, with incredulity, with
amusement, and when we crowd them closely
they answer us with ill-concealed contempt

The Resistance to be Overcome. 93
or hostility. It may be our fault, for we are
not always wise ; but it is not wholly our
fault, and we retire amazed and .perplexed.
The brute will not .refuse the grain you
give it, but man spurns the bread of life.
We glory in revivals,'but revivals. are them
selves the most startling and.? significant
evidences of the violent hostility x>f the nat
ural heart. It should not be hard to lead
men to Christ. It is hard, and the difficulty
is to be measured by the persistence with
which many refuse, to yield. . Men are
blind, and men are obstinate;' they do not
know what is best for them,' and when they
know what is best they continue, as Ovid
long ago said, to follow the worse, " Video
meliora proboque, deteriora sequor." This
does not argue the hopelessness of moral
recovery, but it does set in strong and star
tling relief the difficulty of that moral recov
ery which it is the design of the Gospel to
secure. The hostility of the natural heart is the
most universal and radical form of the re
sistance which the Gospel encounters". It
7

94 The World for Christ.
is as bitter at home as it is abroad. The
preservation and aggressive progress of
Christianity, even among ourselves, involve
us in a perpetual struggle. When we
thrust the slender columns of our picket
forces into the lands of heathenism, we dis
cover that we are threatened in the rear as
well as in front. The missionary has often
been the pioneer. His passion for souls
has carried him across the seas, and into the
heart of unknown continents, peopled with
cihiel and savage tribes. Even Columbus
was moved by religious zeal, and Living
stone made an end to the Dark Continent.
But the path blazed by the herald of the
Gospel has speedily become the highway
of adventure. The savage is ignorant as
well as immoral, and he is easily duped.
He knows little of the value of his products
and possessions, and is ready to exchange
them for cheap and tawdry trifles. His
animalism makes him the easy victim of
temptation, and the white man's "fire
water " finds a readier welcome than his
books. The slave trade has finally been

The Resistance to be Overcome. 95
outlawed by the consent of all civilized na
tions, but the rum traffic has thus far suc
ceeded in defying the moral sentiment of
the world.
It is needless to enter into specific details.
It is matter of common knowledge that the
pioneers and agents of commerce have
crowded hard upon the preachers of the Gos
pel, and the work of debauchery has fol
lowed the messengers of righteousness. The
ships have emptied their cursing and drunk
en sailors into the ports, and good men have
looked on in helpless agony and alarm . It
would seem as if good were being done that
evil might come ; and there are not a few who
regard the evangelization, for example, of
the Sandwich Islands, as a most stupendous
blunder, making its natives the easy prey
of the vices of civilization. Would it not
have been better to leave them in their pa
gan darkness until we ourselves had become
a little more Christianized? There are
tribes and races which, with the preaching
of the Gospel among them, seem to enter
upon the period of their extirpation. There

96 The World for Christ.
is not sufficient vitality in them to survive
the moral test to which they are subjected.
Whether that extirpation could have been
avoided in any case, whether they would
not have ultimately dwindled away, so that
their extirpation and supplanting have only
been hastened by making an end of their
isolation, is a question too large to be en
tered upon here, though I am disposed to
regard the latter suggestion as the true one.
The fact remains that the Gospel not only
provokes the hostility which is natural to
every human heart, but its advance is chal
lenged and checked by all the selfish and
wicked passions which run riot under cover
of civilized and nominally Christian nations.
Hardly less embarrassing is the fact that
the literature. which caricatures and. discred
its Christianity follows the Gospel into ev
ery new field. Its assumptions and logic
and conclusions may be repudiated at home,
but in the new lands they have all the at
traction of novelty and find welcome audi
ence. The spirit of controversy is aroused,
and Christianity is charged with inherent

The Resistance to be Overcome. 97
and hopeless weakness because of the wide
rejection of its claims in the lands where it
is the only religion. India and Japan are
passing now through this stage of polemics,
which is causing deep anxiety among us,
but which was inevitable and which must
be fought out to the end, even as our own
Christianity has emerged from the slough
of Gnosticism and of Neoplatonism. The
situation calls for wisdom and patience ; it
is not ground for discouragement. The re
sistance was and is inevitable.
A third form of resistance which the Gos
pel encounters is the coarse animalism of
idolatrous tribes and races. The progress
of civilization has eliminated the idolatry
of polytheism from all races which lay claim
to any literature. It survives only in tribes
of low intelligence and dwelling in isola
tion; and there it is associated with the
most revolting habits. It has often been
noticed, as evidence of the regenerating
energy of Christianity, that among such
peoples the Gospel has found ready entrance
and wrought most signal changes. And yet

98 The World for Christ.
it should not be forgotten that Christianity
began with the picked races of the world,
the elect trinity of history, and that the
picked races are to-day the strongholds of
the Christian faith. The rescue of savage
tribes is part of the mission of Christianity.
Savagery must come to an end, but it may
come to an end by the disappearance, in
process of time, of the tribes which practice
it. There are not wanting signs that the
process of elevation is qualified by one of
elimination. It may be that some tribes
are so brutalized and so destitute of moral
energy that they may be regarded as inca
pable of being preserved, and that they
must ultimately disappear or be absorbed.
It is among such races that the most violent
reactions have occurred again and again,
as in Madagascar and the islands of the
Pacific, filling the Christian heart with dis
may. It is a form of resistance which
makes Christian institutions uncertain of
tenure, but one which we should face cour
ageously, never slackening our earnest en
deavor even in the face of tribal disintegra-

The Resistance to be Overcome. 99
tion and disappearance. For this, too, sad
as it may seem to be, is a part of that re
generation which the Gospel contemplates.
It is a higher form of resistance, and one
much less easily overcome, which confronts
us in such lands as those of Japan, China,
and India. These peoples are hardly poly
theistic and idolatrous in the proper sense.
Their formal polytheism is pervaded by the
metaphysics of pantheism, as in India,
where all things are regarded as embodying
the divine ; or by the philosophy of agnos
ticism, as in the teachings of Confucius,
who, very much in the temper of Mill and
Spencer, does not trouble himself greatly
about either God or the future life. The
religion of Confucius is ethical and practi
cal ; it deals with the prosaic present and
with earthly relations, while it lacks the en
ergy to make its rules effective. The reli
gion of Buddha is mystical and transcen
dental ; it revels in ecstasy and absorption,
and in its pantheism ethical distinctions
vanish. In both religions the personality
of God has practically disappeared.

100 The World for Christ.
It has often been said that the basal lack
of the Asiatic. peoples is the sense of sin.
That is true. But the sense of sin is pro
voked only by the recognition of the holy
personality of God; and a recent traveler
records his conviction that a grasp upon God
as personal and holy is the greatest need of
Japan and China. Paul is right, " By the
law is the knowledge of sin" and the sense
of law will be shadowy and shallow unless it
is recognized as embodying the imperative
of personal holy authority. The question
of God as personal and holy will be the su
preme question for Asia, challenged by the
agnosticism of China and by the pantheism
of India ; just as it was the supreme ques
tion between Christianity and Greek phi
losophy with its oriental admixtures. It is
the great question for every day and na
tion, and in its right settlement the fact of
the Incarnation assumes its determining
place' in religious thought. An intellectual
"revolution^ deep and widespread, is immi
nent in the lands of the East. These peo
ples are not in process of decay. They

The Resistance to be Overcome. 101
have astonished the world by their achieve
ments. Japan* has bounded out of its ob
scurity. China is not so somnolent as it
seems. ' There are volcanic forces in India.
These millions will not always remain con
tent to live under foreign protectorates.
The first pulses of a new patriotism are be
ginning to beat in their sluggish blood.
They will insist upon their share of polit
ical independence, and their place in the
brotherhood of nations. And in religion
they will claim the same independence.
The message of Paul, the Jew, was not ac
cepted by the Roman empire until its
claims had been subjected to the severest
examination. The Latin Church created
its own theology; the Greek Church did
the same ; and in every nation into whose
life the Gospel has entered the same process
has taken place. The theologies have dif
fered in form, and their independence in
formal statement has made the essential
agreement only more marked. The God
of Europe is the God of Asia.' The Christ
of Europe is the Christ of Asia ; in fact, he

102 The World for Christ.
was an Asiatic by birth. The Bible of Eu
rope is the Bible of Asia ; in fact, it is an
Asiatic product for the most part. The
valley of the Euphrates was the nursery of
monotheism, of the doctrine of God as per
sonal and holy ; and we must not imagine
that our formulas will be accepted without
challenge. The old battle will be renewed
on Asiatic soil, and, while we need not
doubt the issue, it is wise to recognize the
resistance which the Gospel is summoned
to overcome.
That resistance is such as to sweep even
Christian men from their ancient anchorage.
They have gone to convert the heathen, and
have surrendered to paganism. I had a
classmate in the theological seminary who,
thirty years ago, went as a missionary to
China. He abandoned his calling and his
faith, became a mandarin of the "third but
ton," and for many years has been associated
with the Chinese legation in the courts of
Europe. He writes of the "iced champagne"
which he drinks when the heat of summer
is oppressive, and talks flippantly of the

The Resistance to be Overcome. 103
' ' so-called " Holy Land and of the ' ' historic
cross of the carpenter philosopher," which
annoys him at every step as he travels from
Munich to St. Petersburg. He has devel
oped into a Confucianist. Such relapses
are not surprising. They have marked the
Christian history from the beginning ; but
even the apostasy of the Emperor Julian
did not stay for one moment the Galilean's
conquering march. There is such a thing
as reversion in type, a return after domes
tication to the original and wild state.
There is a dash of the pagan in everyone of
us; there are survivals of savagery in our
highest civilization; and not one of us is
aware what tremendous conserving energies
are incarnate and active in the intricate en
vironment by which our lives are shaped.
And a similar solidarity of thought and
conduct confronts us when we attempt to
lodge the Gospel in the life of Asia.
In counting the cost we must take account
of Mohammedanism. It is not insignificant,
either in the number of its adherents, or in
the intensity of their convictions, or in the

104 The World for Christ.
ardor of their enthusiasm, which mounts
into religious fanaticism. They believe
themselves to be the elect race. Reverses
do not subdue them. Conversions to Chris
tianity are rare among them. We are
" dogs " in their estimate. They alone, of
all races, treat us with supercilious con
tempt. Their thirteen millions dominate
Asia Minor. Eighty millions or more are
scattered through Asia, of whom more than
half are in India. They are supreme in
Persia, and form a compact body in China.
A hundred millions are in Africa, dominat
ing its greater half, from the Mediter
ranean to the center of the continent.
Islam boasts of two hundred million adhe
rents. Jerusalem and Constantinople are
in their hands. The Crusades failed to
wrest the first from their grasp, and for the
second they would fight with equal fierce
ness. The unspeakable Turk has been Eu
rope's nightmare for more than six hundred
years. Two hundred years ago his cannon
thundered at the gates of Vienna. The
sultan snaps his fingers in the face of the

The Resistance to be Overcome. 105
world. The Armenian atrocities have sent
a thrill of horror throughout the civilized
world, and Christendom seems smitten with
paralysis. It is easy to denounce England for its
apathy, but one half of Islam's follow
ing is in lands under English rule and
contiguous to it. India and Egypt have
to be reckoned with in dealing with the
Turk; and with Russia standing at bay,
and Germany indifferent, and France thirst
ing for African dominion, England is in a
sorry plight. Her lines of battle would
stretch from the Ganges and the Himalayas
to the Soudan, and from the Soudan to the
Channel. Her Indian empire would rock
to the center.. Her African colonies would
be endangered. It is not an easy matter
to dispose of: two hundred million religious
fanatics. ; It may be that the'- Ottoman em
pire would collapse at the first determined
touch ; and it may be that the attempt would
prove to be the Armageddon of history.
It certainly does not follow that England's
hesitancy is due either to indifference or to

106 The World for Christ.
cowardice. It is the cost which she is
counting. For Islam is unchanged. The
old ferocity leaps in its veins. As a reli
gion, it is vastly superior to the idolatry
which it supplanted, and to the Christianity
which it conquered, and to the paganism by
which it is surrounded. It has often been
said that the conversion of China is the su
preme task of Christian evangelization ; but
the conviction is deepening that the final
and severest grapple must be between the
Crescent and the Cross. And this last
chapter will be written in anguish and
blood, comparable only to that with which
Christian history opens in the fierceness of
the Roman hostility. For the humaneness
which entered into Roman law has no place
in the institutions of Islam.
An equally inveterate and more ancient
feud exists between the Christian and the
Jew; and. the scorn of the Jew is only less
pronounced than the contempt of the Mo
hammedan. Our missionary work among
the Jews has been uniformly difficult and
discouraging, and the Pauline theodicy in

The Resistance to be Overcome. 107
the ninth and eleventh chapters of the
Epistle to the Romans carries in it the inti
mation that Israel's conversion must come
from within rather than from without-, that
it must be inaugurated by an era corre
sponding to the great Protestant Reforma
tion. There are signs of disintegration in
Judaism,. but these are counterbalanced by
a solidarity which, in Europe, at least, has
aroused a new anti-Semitic movement ; and,
as yet, we wait for Israel's restoration to
the faith which was cradled in its syna
gogues. Perhaps you will think the picture suffi
ciently dark and discouraging. But there
is an invisible resistance which is more ap
palling than all the rest, if the witness of
Holy Scripture be true. For we wrestle not
only against flesh and blood, against human
prejudices and passions, but against princi
palities and powers and spiritual wickedness
in high places, against the prince of the
power of the air. The visible antagonism
we can measure and tabulate ; the resources
of the invisible foe defy our calculation.

108 The World for Christ.
Not the spears of men alone must be broken
upon our shields, but the fiery darts of the
devil. I am aware that in many quarters
Satan is regarded as a personification, not a
person. But, for one, I cannot rest in this
rhetorical interpretation. It certainly does
violence to the testimony of Christ, and to
the language of Paul. And in a volume
which recently found its way to my study
table, the reality of present demoniacal pos
session is supported by a mass of carefully
sifted evidence which is positively startling.
The book to which I refer is a volume of
nearly five hundred pages from the pen of
Dr. John L. Nevips, who died in the fall of
1893, and had been a missionary in China
for forty years. It is worthy of careful
perusal, whatever judgment may be passed
upon its conclusions. There is, at least,
no good ground for denying Satanic agency,
and this makes it wise to take it into ac
count in measuring the resistance which the
Gospel must be prepared to overcome.
I have done. My task has not been a
pleasant one, but it could not be evaded.

The Resistance to be Overcome. 109
The review should have a salutary effect.
It should stiffen the fiber of our courage.
It should lead us to settle our differences
and concentrate our energies. We have no
powder to waste upon each other. The
devil laughs while we quarrel, just as the
sultan chuckles when America gets mad
and Christian powers snarl at each other.
It should enlarge our patience and keep us
serene when reverses overwhelm us, when
the fruits of half a century go down in a
night. They do not go down. Every Cal
vary has its Easter ; and He who wrenched
the gates of death from their hoary hinges
will subdue the world of mortal men, and
overwhelm the powers of darkness with
confusion and eternal disaster. Upon the
flaming heavens he has set his fiery cross,
and by that sign we conquer !

Zbe Xeabers to be Hppointeo

V.
The Leaders to be Appointed.
IN the great commission, as phrased in the
first gospel, the eleven apostles were
commanded to disciple all nations, and to
secure their obedience to all that Christ had
enjoined. And among the things enjoined
was the preaching of the Gospel to every
creature. So that conversion carried with it
consecration to missionary service. Every
believer was to be an apostle, a messenger
of Jesus Christ. In the early Church, ad
ministration was the only thing which was
delegated to certain men appointed from
the body of disciples. Deacons were offi
cers charged with the care and the distri
bution of moneys contributed for the poor.
Bishops, as the word suggests, were over
seers, whose duty it was to maintain such
discipline as the membership required.
The synagogue was the pattern of the
church, and in the synagogue the officers
discharged administrative functions. They

114 The World for Christ.
simply ruled. They were neither priests
nor prophets. They could not sacrifice at
the altar, and they had no monopoly of
teaching. The right of public address be
longed to every man who was qualified to
exercise it, under such restrictions as were
demanded by public order. The priestly
office terminated with the perfect offering
of Jesus Christ, who remains the sole and
eternal High Priest of the new dispensation.
The prophetic office has survived in Chris
tianity, and, by the express terms of the
great commission, its duties and privileges
have been laid upon the entire membership.
It is not the prerogative of a class ; it is the
vocation of each, in accordance with the
prophecy which Peter quoted on the day of
Pentecost : "It shall come to pass in the
last days, saith God, I will pour out of my
Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and
your daughters shall prophesy." Whatever
the miracle of tongues on that memorable
day may have been, the one hundred and
twenty, and not the eleven alone, shared in
its anointing; for " they were all filled with

The Leaders to be Appointed. 115
the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with
other tongues, as the Spirit gave them ut
terance." Later, the same gifts descended
upon a company of Gentiles gathered in the
home of Cornelius, and in the presence of
Peter, who witnessed the fact with undis
guised amazement. The prophetic office
became a universal vocation, which could
neither be given nor taken away by Church
authority. It inhered in the Church as the
Body of Christ, and was, consequently,
shared by every member of it. Its deco
rous regulation was the only thing over
which the congregation exercised any
power. This, among other things, led to the
prohibition of women speaking in the pub
lic assemblies, as offensive to current social
usage ; but the fact that Philip had four
unmarried daughters who were among the
recognized preachers in Caesarea shows that
among the Jewish churches the more lib
eral policy of the Old Testament continued,
and woman's public share in the ministry
was not regarded with aversion. The que§*

116 The World for Christ.
tion appears as one in suspense and deter
mined by local usages and social customs,
adjusting itself to the state of general pub
lic opinion. It is not a question whether
woman shares with man in the right of
prophesying, but how the right shall be
exercised so as not to shock the feelings of
the hearers. The general principle applied
was that God is the God of order, not of
confusion. As to the right of prophecy it
self, it does not seem to me to admit of
doubt, and it is demanded by the very gen
ius of Christianity, which recognizes no
distinction of sex in its ethical injunctions,
that it was regarded as a universal voca
tion. Every believer is called, in some
way, to the ministry of the word. To
preach the Gospel is the duty of each ; in
fact, the Church has nothing else to do.
Of course, such a view must largely modify
the traditional notions as to what constitutes
a call to the ministry. If the vocation be a
universal one, the only matter which re
quires careful consideration is how each can
most effectively discharge the duty which is

The Leaders to be Appointed. 117
binding upon all. For preachers are needed,
not only in the pulpit and on the days set
apart to public worship, but on the street
and every day of the week. The Sunday
school teacher is the prophet of her class.
The mother is the prophet when infant lips
repeat her prayer. The merchant is the
prophet when he carries his religion into
his business. The politician is the prophet
when he carries his conscience into the
caucus. All this, I am perfectly aware, is com
monplace. We are never weary of in
sisting that there is no clerical class, that
nothing is more sacred than the secular;
and yet we perpetually go back upon our
theory by talking about a special call to the
ministry. I certainly believe in such a call,
but I do as certainly believe that any honest
work is a divine vocation. Every man and
woman is called to do that which he or she
is fitted to do. In this sphere, at least,
obligation is determined and measured by
ability. What Christians need to learn is
that they are the stewards of God and the

118 The World for Christ.
servants of Jesus Christ; and when that
conviction shall seize the Church, the pulpits
will be manned as they never have been
before. The right men will gravitate to
them as naturally and noiselessly as the day
dawns. ' ' Are you going to send your son
to college?" a father was asked. "No!"
was the prompt reply ; "I am not going
to spend five thousand dollars on a five-
dollar boy." I used to laugh at that story;
I have ceased to regard it as funny. It is
coarse and vulgar; for the boy thus con
temptuously labeled may, if he only find
the place for which he is fitted, render as
large, and even larger, service to humanity
and to God, as another whom it has taken
five thousand dollars to equip for his work.
It is no man's discredit that he cannot
preach ; it is no man's sign of superiority
that he can preach. We are all kings and
priests if we do our very best, and if we do
it to please Him who loved us and gave
himself for us. To that we are all ordained
by the laying on of the palms that were
pierced for our salvation.

The Leaders to be Appointed. 119
If the call to the formal ministry is a
matter which must be determined by care
ful and conscientious inquiry of personal
fitness, under the general law of Christian
consecration, in the use of what has been
well called " sanctified common sense," the
same principle applies to the choice of the
foreign field by any who have chosen the
Christian ministry as their vocation. The
question is one of fitness; and it may be
laid down as a general rule that where the
mind works untrammeled, where it surren
ders neither to prejudice nor to ambition,
its free preference will be an expression
of its fitness. The choice will be as the
man is. It is just here that the crisis of
moral conflict may come. Many a man
kicks against the pricks, and many another
man runs before he is sent. It is not a
light thing for any of us to be content
with what we are, though I believe what
my friend, Dr. Storrs, once said to me,
that ' ' a man must work like sixty to be
himself." But our freedom lies in" our
obedience, in our joyful surrender to Him

120 The World for Christ.
who separates us from birth to a definite
service. So far as this is Calvinism, I am sure that
no Methodist will find fault with it. We all
believe in the election to service, though even
this election is not unconditional, overriding
the free will in man and irresistible in its
pressure. You may miss your calling, but
you can find your appointed place only as you
are obedient to the heavenly vision. Obe
dience to that call of duty will be your free
dom. The ought will prove itself to be the
fit. The way may be made plain to you at
a very early period, and it may be that the
vision will tarry many days. There came a
time in Paul's life when he was convinced
that from his very birth Christ had sepa
rated him to preach the Gospel to the Gen
tiles, but years passed before he broke away
entirely from the synagogue. It was a hard
thing for him to do, and yet it was the in
evitable necessity laid upon him unless he
proved false alike to himself and to Christ.
Of all the apostles he alone was fitted to
become, by native equipment, by training,

The Leaders to be Appointed. 121
and by experience, the apostle to the Gen
tiles. Neither Peter, nor James, nor John
could have done his work ; and he could
not have done theirs. But his specific duty
was not determined by anything special in
the call as such ; it was determined solely
by his personal fitness. He fell into his
place as water runs down hill when he
once made up his mind not to confer with
flesh and blood, but to take the place for
which from birth he had been set apart.
Men are sure to find their right places
when they are simply anxious to serve the
Lord Jesus Christ. If in doing that they
remain at home, they are no worse ; and if
they leave their kindred, they are no bet
ter. Some have given as a reason why
they are disposed to enter the foreign field,
the fact that conscience enjoined them to
go where the need was greatest. But that
would compel us all to go ; and that would
have sent every disciple in Jerusalem into
the pagan provinces. Besides, it is hazard
ous to say where the need is greatest,
whether in China or the United States, in

122 The World for Christ.
Peking or in Syracuse. The truth is, that
where the question is one of universal con
quest, there can be no discrimination of one
section as against another. Each man must
determine his duty for himself, permitting
neither sentiment nor romance to influence
him unduly.
If we may regard the apostle Paul as the
typical foreign missionary, an analysis of
his qualifications may help us to decide the
question to whom the leadership in the for
eign work should be intrusted. And in his
case the physical qualifications were cer
tainly very inferior. I doubt whether he
could have passed muster in any of our
missionary boards. They would have re
ported against his application, unless, in
deed, his own fiery personal conviction had
overawed them. For I imagine that he
would not have pleaded in tears, but would
have spoken to them as Farel did to Calvin
at Geneva. A sound body is not to be de
spised, but Paul is not the only man in his
tory, the might of whose spirit triumphed
over the flesh. In great physical weakness

The Leaders to be Appointed. 123
did he preach the Gospel. His bodily pres
ence was offensive to the supple and ath
letic Greeks, and his speech was contempt
ible to their cultured ears. But his word
was in demonstration of the Spirit and in
power, and all were swept by the torrent of
his massive eloquence. An abounding
physical vitality and a stalwart form did
not enter into the qualifications which made
him unsurpassed in the sphere of his spe
cial service. And they have been wanting
in many of our most successful missionaries
at the front.
The truth is, we know too little of the
secret of physical endurance to apply the
test. Surprises are of daily occurrence.
The strongest and most compactly built
fall suddenly at our side, while apparently
physical wrecks pull through the threescore
years and ten to the amazement of all who
know them. Forty years before he died
Dr. Howard Crosby was told that he could
live only a year or two ; yet he managed to
be a pretty lively invalid. There are ener
gies lodged in an earnest soul, fearless of

124 The World for Christ.
death and passionately intent upon making
the most of life, which will carry it triumph
antly through many a physical stress and
strain. The mind-cure and the faith-cure
are to me shallow and silly vagaries ; and
yet, that the soul rules the body and that
God supports the sinking frame are matters
about which I have no more doubt than I
have of my own existence. I know that
once and again I have shaken off the
"grippe" by a pulpit sweat. The forced
action of the heart, sending the pulse up to
a hundred and forty, burned the insidious
poison out when medicines could not reach
it. There is no miracle in such cases, but
the mind does triumph over the body.
The qualifications of the great apostle
to the Gentiles were mental and spiritual.
And first among them was the training
which he had received in Tarsus, his native
city. Paul's acquaintance with Greek cul
ture has probably been overrated. The Pla
tonic philosophy and the Aristotelian logic
do not seem to have influenced him. His
style is Hebraistic and his logic is rabbinic.

The Leaders to be Appointed. 125
But he knew the pagan mind by daily con
tact with it from childhood, and Greek was
not to him a foreign tongue. He could
speak it, and write in it, more easily and
fluently, and with more precision, than his
apostolic contemporaries ; and the men who
were most intimately associated with him,
such as Timothy and Titus and Luke, had
the same advantage. There is such a thing
as linguistic facility. Not all men can ac
quire a foreign tongue with ease, and it is
still more difficult to enter into the mental
life of another people, and so master its
speech from within. But unless the latter
can be done, the language will remain an
unfamiliar and unwieldy instrument. To
preach the Gospel in a foreign tongue de
mands a certain mental elasticity and alert
ness, which is not a common gift ; and he
who discovers that the college exercises in
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew are a weariness
to the flesh, and a torture to the spirit, may
as well make up his mind that the Lord
never intended that he should go to China.
Let him be content to preach in his mother

126 The World for Christ.
tongue, which will probably tax him to the
utmost. Nor, in the second place, should it be
overlooked that the foreign missionary
among the apostles was the most carefully
educated of them all. He had gone from
Tarsus to Jerusalem, and sat at the feet of
the great Gamaliel. He was the only col
lege graduate. There may be room for lay
evangelists, with the scantiest of educa
tional preparation, in lands where Chris
tianity has become naturalized — though
even here the necessity of a thoroughly
equipped ministry is greater than ever;
but the men who are to subdue the pagan
ism of Asia and Africa cannot be recruited
from the ranks of the undisciplined. He
who sets his heart upon such a task should
give earnest heed to the inexorable demand
of the most thorough educational discipline
available.. The picket line of an army re
quires the keenest eyes -and the best marks
men. A third qualification of the apostle Paul
was his thorough grounding in the teach-

The Leaders to be Appointed. 127
ings of the Old Testament Scriptures. He
had mastered his Bible. The new things
in the Gospel of Christ were shown by him
to be "according to the Scriptures." The
ancient faith had revived in the new. Not
its novelty, but its antiquity, mastered him.
His radicalism was the intensest and most
vital conservatism. To the unbroken his
torical continuity of revelation he held fast ;
and with this impulse behind him he threw
himself upon the wavering and disintegrat
ing columns of paganism. They must be
men of clear and intense theological convic
tion who follow in his steps. They must
be rooted and grounded in the historical
verities by whose proclamation Christianity
has won its way. At home it may answer
for the preacher to be the mental inferior,
in many respects, of those who sit in the
pews ; he may even have hearers who are
his superiors in theological knowledge ; but
it is disastrous for a tyro and a novice to
undertake the conversion of a pagan com
munity. There is something in the slug
gishness of the Asiatic intellect which im-

128 The World for Christ.
presses us unfavorably. Thought seems to
move at a snail's pace. The silent stare
suggests mental somnolence. We miss the
alertness and quick responsiveness of the
Occident. But it may be fairly doubted
whether, if the relations were reversed, and
we should sit at the feet of oriental teach
ers, they would not regard us as exceed
ingly stupid. They certainly master our
alphabet more easily than we master their
vocabulary. There are in East India many
natives who use our English tongue with
marvelous facility, and not a few have ex
hibited a rare suppleness and grace in rhe
torical expression. It certainly cannot be
said that the Asiatic races are wanting in
native mental vigor. It is, as Sir Arthur
Balfour suggests, in social integration that
they are seriously lacking; without which,
beyond a certain point, communities remain
stationary. Their stagnation is the result
of isolation — isolation from other races and
governments, and isolation among them
selves. They become ropes of sand, instead
of vital and progressive, political organ-

The Leaders to be Appointed. 129
isms. When, as in the case of Japan, that
social integration has once set in, and pa
triotism has come to its birth, the world
looks on in amazement at the ease with
which the leap is made from the dark age
to the modern time. It is salutary for us to
remember that man is man, wherever he is
found. There are not many simple-minded
children of nature ; and the kindergarten
methods of religion are not the ones by
which the current paganisms will be van
quished. The leaders in that crusade must
be men who have a virile theology, drawn
from the infallible word, and held with in
telligent tenacity.
The absence, in the apostle Paul, of the
speculative mood is as noteworthy as his
firm adherence to the prophetic word and
his singular penetration of mind in its use.
He was a great, a clear, a solid thinker ; but
he was not a metaphysician. That some
should describe him as a poet and mystic
is one of the curiosities of literature. Fre
quently does he approach the line which
divides induction from speculation; but

130 The World for Christ.
he never crosses it. There is a sobriety in
his exposition which is amazing in one
whose mental action is so intense. It can
be explained as due only either to deliber
ate self-restraint, or to the absence of the
speculative tendency. The contrast is im
mense when you compare his reasoning
with that of Origen, or Augustine, or Hegel.
And in this respect he is, in my judgment,
the typical preacher of the Gospel to heathen
nations. The world by wisdom knows not
God, and the speculative theologians will
never remove the fatal ignorance. The
emergence of theological speculation is in
evitable; and in settled Christian commu
nities there will always be some who will
be attracted by it. It cannot be kept out of
the pulpit, nor out of the pew. It will
claim a place in our reviews, and demand
audience in our assemblies. But the spec
ulative tendency is always disposed to min
imize the plain facts of history, and to tone
down the sharp contrasts of moral life. It
gravitates toward a monism which looks
very much like pantheism, and glories in

The Leaders to be Appointed. 131
an evolution which makes sin more an
infirmity of nature than a crime against the
law of God. It may be evangelical, but it
cannot be evangelistic. Its language is too
cumbrous for practical use. It confuses
plain men. And the language confuses
them simply because the type of thought
is misty and mystical.
I do not condemn the speculative thinker,
but I do say that such a man is constitu
tionally unfitted for the foreign missionary
service. You are aware that for a dozen
years the American Board had a theological
controversy on its hands. The question
under discussion was that of Probation after
Death. That the Scriptures were silent on
the subject was conceded even by its advo
cates. They only claimed that it was a per
missible hypothesis, and that missionaries
did not part with their speculative freedom
when they accepted a commission. And
clearly, this contention could not be gain
said ; and yet, somehow, there was a vague
feeling that men who were more inclined to
construct a speculative theodicy, than to rest

132 The World for Christ.
content with a revealed theology, in which
there must be a border line of silence, should
not be encouraged to offer themselves for
foreign missionary service. Some, indeed,
insisted that the theory of probation after
death was a heresy as destructive as the
denial of the divinity of our Lord. The
majority could not be induced to take that
ground. They regarded the notion as of
no practical value, and as incapable of scrip
tural proof, though good and true men had
given it their support. Principal Fair-
bairn goes much farther, and contends
that moral probation must be eternal in
the nature of the case; which, again,
is neither self-evident nor capable of
proof. The learned principal is in no danger
of being repudiated by his brethren, but he
certainly ventured upon ground never in
vaded by the apostle to the Gentiles. I
have frequently had occasion to notice the
mental habit of our most efficient home mis
sionaries, and I have always found in them
the predominance of the practical over the
speculative temperament. The instrument

The Leaders to be Appointed. 133
was fitted to the work, and the adjustment
was perfectly natural. The metaphysician
is out of place in a camp of miners. In fact,
metaphysics is a hindrance in any pulpit,
and the hearers most given to speculation
are the first to weary of a metaphysical
preacher. A true metaphysics there is and
must be in Christianity, as the religion of
a divine and eternal redemption ; but you
might as well send men into the untrodden
forests with razors for axes, as to commit
the evangelization of the world to specula
tive theologians. Audacity should stay at
home; it is the cautious and conservative
thinker who is needed at the front.
No man ever surpassed the great apostle
in the positiveness of his teaching. He in
voked an anathema upon any one who
should venture to preach any other gospel,
even though he were an angel from heaven.
And yet there was not a particle of fanati
cism in his constitution. The intensity of
his personal conviction was fibered upon an
equally remarkable breadth of mental sym
pathy. He knew how to think, and to

134 The World for Christ.
speak, the truth in love. The Jews hated
and persecuted him, but he recognized the
honesty of their blind zeal. The supersti
tions and idolatries of the pagan world he
traced to a vague seeking after God, which
had resulted in an ever- widening ignorance
through the growing supremacy of an im
moral life. The law of God he declared to
be written upon every human heart. He
was sympathetic in his iconoclasm ; not
sympathetic with the religion in which the
pagan world was buried, but sympathetic
with the souls which had woven these
shrouds, and in which their spiritual life
and hope had been stifled.
This is the true sympathetic attitude.
Christianity cannot yield its claim to suprem
acy. It will not enroll Christ in the Panthe
on. It will not consent to found a fraternity
in any Parliament of Religions. But the
Christ whom it proclaims and worships is he
who lighteth every man. He is the Word
from everlasting, energizing a world uncon
scious of his presence, whose life is the light
of men. The attitude of early Christianity

The Leaders to be Appointed. 135
to the pagan culture was sympathetic, as
well as critical. Its elements, of truth were
freely recognized and appropriated ; its de
fects were mercilessly exposed. Philosophy
became for many the vestibule of entrance
into the Christian faith. In fact, the proc
ess went so far, that many maintain that
the primitive Gospel was so thoroughly
Grecianized as to make it almost impossible
to eliminate the original elements. I can
not but think this judgment to be extreme,
and that much of what is called Greek col
oring is simply in the grain of universal
logic ; but it serves to show that the Pauline
sympathy was not an unimportant factor in
the conversion of the Greek and Roman
world. The classics were not consigned to
the flames. The poets and the philosophers
were not gibbeted. They retain their place
in our literature and in the curriculum of
our Christian colleges. Christianity is an
assimilating religion, because it traces all
rational and moral life to the Eternal Word,
who in Jesus Christ became flesh. Thus,
-its attitude of antagonism is also an attitude

136 The World for Christ.
of sympathy. Its iconoclasm issues in
emancipation. Him, whom men ignorantly
worship, it proclaims unto them. This
sympathetic attitude, which recognizes the
identity of all religions at the root, while
firmly holding fast to the exclusive and sov
ereign authority of the Gospel, is an indis
pensable qualification for the Christian
missionary. More than once the brief record in the
Book of Acts shows us the apostle Paul tell
ing the story of his wonderful conversion.
He did this before the excited and infuri
ated throng at Jerusalem, and again in the
presence of Festus and Agrippa. And the
form into which he casts the argument in
the seventh chapter of Romans, shows how
deeply grounded his doctrine of salvation
was in his personal experience. He knew
that he had passed from death unto life.
Christ dwelt in him by faith, and he knew
when and where it was that it pleased God
to reveal his Son in him. He never in
sisted that others must conform to the type
of his personal experience ; in fact, he ap-

The Leaders to be Appointed. 137
pears to have been the only apostle in whom
Christian discipleship was marked by a sharp
transition ; but there can be no doubt that
this vivid personal experience had much to
do with the tumultuous energy of his apos
tolic ministry. Luther reminds us of him,
in whom the spiritual change was equally
marked; and the pioneers of Methodism
could tell a similar story as to when 'and
where they were converted to God. Such
men are needed when a new era of spiritual
life opens — men in whom personal ex
perience and doctrine coalesce. All the
great leaders in modern revivals have been
men of that stamp. Their conversion to
Christ was a momentous turning-point in
conscious conviction and choice..
It is a mistake to make such an experience
a universal test, either for the pulpit or for
the pew. Still, it is a power anywhere and
everywhere, and it gives tremendous ad
vantage to the man who is summoned to
.face, year in and year out, the incredulity,
indifference, and scorn of unbelieving and
pagan communities. The hiding of his

138 The World for Christ.
power, under God, must be in his own ex
perience, with which he may confront and
convince his hearers. Nothing, we are
told, is more oppressive in pagan lands than
the mental and moral atmosphere in which
the life moves. There is no ozone in the
air, nothing to support and quicken the
weary toiler. He lives in a vacuum, in per
petual danger of suffocation. Such a man
must generate his own oxygen, must have
such an abounding vitality of personal con
viction and experience that it cannot suffer
from the malarial contact. Every preacher,
at home and abroad, should be able to
say with Paul, ' ' I know whom I have be
lieved;" and the more emphatically he can
make that confession the better is he qual
ified to take his place in the picket line of
Christian advance.
It may seem, in the review, as if this
catalogue of qualifications, essential to in
sure success in assuming the burdens of
missionary service, must discourage men
and women from devoting themselves to it.
But if we have not erred in our estimate of

The Leaders, to be Appointed. 139
the field which is to be won, and the resist
ance which is to be overcome, we cannot
have supposed that a low grade of leader
ship could meet the stern demand. The
foreign field needs the best, and must have
the best. It requires the clearest personal
Christian experience, the most steady poise
of mind, the most careful and thorough edu
cational discipline, the most genuine and
cosmopolitan sympathy, and the firmest
theological equipment, which can be found
in the ranks of the Church. It is the great
est task committed to her hands, and to it
she may well consecrate her choicest re
cruits.

Zbe agencies to be Employe©

10

I

VI.
The Agencies to be Employed.
T is fortunate for us that there is such a
thing as a history of Christian missions.
We are not inaugurating a new campaign,
in which wisdom can be gained only by
long and severe experience. The day of
experiment lies far behind us, so far, indeed,
that its outlines have become dim to us, as
jagged rocks, and precipitous walls, and
perilous paths fade away in curving lines
of grace. From the ridge of the Col de
Balme, Mont Blanc is a vision of beauty ;
the mountain climber comes back with a
different story. We stand appalled, some
times, before the obstacles which must be
overcome in securing the universal triumph
of the Gospel ; but it may fairly be doubted
whether our present task is comparable, in
audacity and difficulty, to that for which the
early Church girded itself under the leader
ship of Paul. His is still the most heroic
figure in history. ' ' Never, " writes Uhlhorn,

144 The World for Christ.
"in the whole course of human history,
have two so unequal powers stood opposed
to each other as ancient heathenism and
early Christianity, the Roman State and the
Christian Church. Apparently, the weak
est of forces confronted the strongest. Re
member the enormous power of the Roman
empire; consider not merely the material
resources of the State, but also that heathen
ism had possession of every sphere of life,
public and private ; that it filled the State
and the family, and ruled all culture; and
bear in mind, besides, the tenacious power
dwelling in a cultus which has prevailed
for centuries. Contrast with this the Chris
tian Church as it was in its beginnings,
totally destitute of all this might, possess
ing neither political power nor wealth,
neither art nor science, a little company,
in the world's judgment, of unlearned
men, fishermen, publicans, tentmakers,
with only the word of the cross, the mes
sage that the promised Messiah had ap
peared, that in the crucified and risen One
there is salvation for all peoples. Verily,

The Agencies to be Employed. 145
the kingdom of heaven is like a grain of
mustard seed, small and insignificant; is
like leaven, little as„compared with the mass
of the meal ; but it is a living seed, it is a
transforming leaven, it bears within itself
an energy which is not of this world, and
therefore is mightier than the whole world."
As the tentmaker of Tarsus journeyed from
Antioch to Troas, and from Troas across
the Aegean Sea to Philippi, and thence to
Thessalonica, and Berea, and Athens, and
Corinth, and thence by way of Ephesus to
Rome, with plans carrying him as far as
Spain, who would have dreamed that this
man, hated by his own countrymen, ridi
culed by the philosophers, heard with im
patience by the cultured, scourged, stoned,
shipwrecked, chained, imprisoned, be
headed, was undermining the foundations
of paganism, and wresting the scepter of
power from the hands t>f the Csesars? It is
all simple, sober history. A fierce and long
wrestle it was, the outline of which cannot
even here be traced ; but the imperial city
to-day condenses the terrible struggle and

146 The World for Christ.
the decisive result in that remarkable con
trast between the ruined arches and columns
of the Forum and of the Palatine Hill,
and the great church, with its vast and airy
dome, which hangs over the spot where
Nero reveled in the horrible butcheries of
his Christian subjects. On your left, as you
descend the Capitoline Hill, you may pass
down the winding stairs of stone to the
dungeon in which tradition says Paul was
immured; and then you may go to the
great cathedral beyond the walls, which
beare his name, and upon whose splendid
marbles and mosaics Pius IX alone spent
sixty million francs; while the greatest
church among the English-speaking nations,
in the very center of the world's metropolis,
and dwarfing by its magnificent proportions
all other structures, bears the name of this
converted Jew. Ransack the past, and
match the story if you can. It cannot be
done. They were proud men whom the
Gospel subdued and won. They were strong
men, whose swords and lances had made
them sovereign. They were men of keen

The Agencies to be Employed. 147
penetration, incisive in criticism, biting in
sarcasm, haughty in their bearing. If Nero
is a type of Roman brutality, Celsus is a
sample of Roman acumen. In no subse
quent period has the disparity between the
Christian Church and its adversaries been
so great. Constantine surrendered to save
his throne; and even Julian, with his
masterful resources, could not sweep back
the flood. For three hundred years the
battle raged, but paganism went down,
with the Coliseum, moss-grown and de
serted, as its monument. It may be true,
as Hobbes has said, that the papacy, which
came after, was only the ghost of the Roman
empire, sitting crowned upon its grave.
That paganism was vanquished and buried
is the significant fact. If, as Thucydides
says, history is only philosophy teaching
by examples, the future of all heathenism,
when confronted by the Gospel, is written
in the fate of Rome. That is our answer to
the sneer of modern skepticism, in the
Church and out of it. We reply, with Uhl-
horn, that Christianity is sure to conquer,

148 The World for Christ.
because in its conflict with the paganism of
Rome it has conquered, capturing the cita
del and holding it. Next to the trumpet
tones of inspired prophecy and promise,
there is nothing so calculated to stir the
pulses of Christian ardor as a review of the
period between Paul's martyrdom and the
edict of Milan in 313, a period of less than
two hundred and fifty years.
The victory was the triumph, under God,
of Paul. And as, in considering the quali
fications of those to whom is intrusted the
leadership in the world's conversion to
Christ, we studied the great apostle as the
typical pioneer, so in the choice of the
agencies which are to be employed, we can
do no better than to study carefully the
methods which he and his successors used,
and the power upon which they relied. The
old weapons have not lost their edge, and
there are none which can take their place.
The apostle tells us that in his preaching
he endeavored to commend the truth to
every man's conscience in the sight of God.
He acted upon the assumption that the

The Agencies to be Employed. 149
Gospel had an ally in every man's moral
nature ; or, as we should say, that every man
is Christocentric in his essential constitution.
The soul is naturally the captive of Jesus
Christ ; in him, and in him alone, its needs
are met. This conviction pervades the
ancient Christian literature. It is recog
nized, and made basic, in the Alexandrian
doctrine of the Logos as the immanent
reason in the cosmos. The fiery Tertullian
gives expression to it when he describes
the soul as naturally Christian. Augustine
affirms it when in his Confessions he ex
claims : ' ' Thou hast made us for thyself,
and our heart is restless till it rests in
thee." There is no flattery of human
nature in this. The African theologians
taught the moral corruption of the natural
man in phrases too rude and sweeping for
our modern acceptance. They did not dis
count the bitter enmity of the unregenerate
heart. The will was described as com
pletely enslaved. The depravity was total.
None the less did they insist that what was
natural to man was also unnatural to him,

150 The World for Christ.
and that he was conscious of this eternal
schism in himself. In the Pauline phrase,
the law of God is written upon every man's
heart, and from its recognized authority
there is no release. It pursues the most
flagrant and persistent transgressor. His
thoughts perpetually accuse and condemn
him. He is self -judged, and from that self-
judgment he cannot escape.
Therein lies the guilt of man ; he is con
sciously without excuse. And therein also
lies the hope of man's recovery ; he can be
saved, for whether condemned or saved, the
divine movement must secure self-move
ment. Conviction must be self -conviction ;
repentance must be voluntary and spontane
ous ; captivity to Jesus Christ must be the
captivity of free self-surrender. Deliberate
ly did Paul refrain from the arts of enticing
speech. He did not seek to please, but to
convince. He did not appeal to the ear, but
to the conscience, to the moral reason in
every hearer, which cannot be bribed. He
knew, in bitter and prolonged personal expe
rience, how unavailing was such an attempt.

The Agencies to be Employed. 151
His rage had only driven the iron deeper
into his soul. Peace had come to him only
by faith in Jesus Christ; and he had the
rational audacity to assume that all souls
were alike; that the conscience in every
man was responsive to Law and Gospel, as
the vibrating needle is to the pole. Every
preacher of the Gospel, at home or abroad,
must assume that ; taking it for granted that
in every human heart abides the witness of
God, that every soul is made for Christ, and
Christ for every soul.
But the apostle does not stop with this
responsiveness of the moral nature to the
Gospel. He speaks of his preaching and
its results as a demonstration or proof of the
Spirit and power of God, of the moral omnip
otence of the Holy Ghost. The moral
nature is not regarded as autonomous and
self -centered, but as moved upon by the di
vine Spirit. The Gospel had an ally in
every human heart, but it had also an ally
in the Holy Ghost, whom the creeds honor
as the "Lord and Giver of Life." The
Gospel carries a message which is as true for

152 * y The W6rld: for Christ.
heaven as it is for earth", for God as it is for
man. In it the righteousness of God is ex
hibited, as well- as man's salvation pro
claimed ; in fact, man's salvation is secured
only by the exhibition and communication
of the righteousness of God. The Gospel
is congruous to man's nature, and it is con
gruous to God's nature. For neither is it a
makeshift, an arbitrary and artifical scheme.
It proclaims the eternal verities. It in
carnates the wisdom of God ; and because it
does this, it is the power of God. I have
heard Methodist ministers speak of ' ' Holy
Ghost preaching." I do not take very kind
ly to the phrase, but the truth in it should
master us all. The biblical doctrine of the
Spirit is the most delicate and difficult of
all, and a crude formulation of it has led into
many vagaries and excesses. The Holy
Spirit is the Spirit of truth, of holiness; of
reverence, of sobriety and soundness of
mind, of self-control, of patience, of for*
bearance and good will, of humility and
charity. It is easy to run into extrava
gance on such themes as the baptism of the

The Agencies to be Employed. 153
Spirit, the enduement with power by the
Spirit, the anointing with the Holy .Ghost,
as a specific gift to be sought and secured.
But we cannot emphasize too much the ne
cessity of honoring the Holy Spirit in the
world's regeneration, and cultivating a live
ly confidence in his universal and almighty
alliance with us in securing the triumph of
the Gospel.
If we inquire how the apostle secured for
his preaching the exhibition of the power of
the Holy Ghost, we shall find it in his state
ment, immediately preceding, that when he
came to Corinth he had determined to know
nothing save Jesus Christ and him crucified.
It has been suggested that his failure with
the philosophers at Athens had opened his
eyes to the futility of adopting any other
plan. If may be doubted whether such an
inference can be made good, as it is evident
that his discourse was interrupted just as he
had touched upon his theme. We have only
the introduction, the sermon was prema
turely cut short. But it is plain that, under
the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the one

154 The World for Christ.
thing to which Paul addressed himself was
the preaching of Christ and him crucified.
He had done this in Galatia, before he came
to Corinth ; he had done this in Damascus,
before he went into Galatia-; and he con
tinued to do this to the last. The Holy
Spirit is honored when Christ is preached ;
he is dishonored when anything else is
preached. Jesus declared that the office of
the Spirit was to bring to remembrance and
make plain the things concerning himself,
to reveal the place occupied by him in the
eternal purpose of redemption. And when
he defines the Spirit's vocation as convicting
men of sin, righteousness, and judgment,
he associates these several ministries with
his own person — " of sin, because they be
lieve not on me ; of righteousness, because
T go to my Father, and ye see me no more ;
of judgment, because the prince of this
world is judged."
We are in the habit of speaking of the
illuminating, the quickening, the inspir
ing, the comforting influences of the Holy
Spirit. All this is based upon the frequent

The Agencies to be Employed. 155
comparison, in Scripture, of his agency to
that of light and fire. But light is not the
immediate object of sight ; it is the medium
in vision. And here I can do no better
than to quote the felicitous words of the
late Archibald Alexander Hodge, from the
sixth of his Popular Lectures on Theological
Themes : " The rays of light radiated or re
flected from any surface to another never
reveal themselves ; they only make manifest
or reproduce by reflection the surface from
which they come. Thus everyone sees by
means of the rays radiated or reflected the
very image of the sun and moon in the water
and all the features of the landscape in the
mirror. So it is always in the work of the
Holy Ghost. He never speaks of himself,
but he always receives of Christ and commu
nicates to us the Christ and his redemptive
grace . The rays of light never picture them
selves, but the stars from which they come.
So the Holy Ghost never excites in our con
sciousness thoughts and emotions relating to
himself, but always those which relate to the
Godhead and to the incarnate Christ. There-

156 The World for Christ.
fore it is, that although the Holy Ghost in
spired the Scriptures, and although he is
the immediately present and constantly
active person of the Godhead in our hearts
and lives, yet there is comparatively so little
conspicuity given in Scripture and in Chris
tian thought to the personality of the Holy
Ghost. He is ever speaking, yet not of
himself, but of Christ."
That is well said. I do not see how it could
be better said. Holy Ghost living is Christ
living in us. Holy Ghost preaching is the
preaching of Christ. To be filled with the
Spirit is to be full of Christ. To be endued
with the Spirit is to be clothed with Christ.
To be guided by the Spirit is to be guided
by Christ. Looking steadfastly. at the face
of Christ, we are changed from glory to glory
by the Spirit of the Lord. His beauty upon
us and in us ripens into the graces of the
Spirit. We must cleave to Christ because
the Spirit cleaves to him, dwells in him in
infinite measure, and incessantly proceeds
from him. And the preaching of the
Gospel, which is to be honored by the

The Agencies to be Employed. 157
demonstration or evidence : of the: Spirit's
presence and power, must be the preaching
of the incarnate Son of God," dying for the
sins of men, and rising again for their
justification. That is the Gospel, and
where that is left out the Spirit is hindered
and dishonored. There may be much that
is true and beautiful, there may be a
good deal of sound theology, there may be
a very beautiful and attractive body of pre
cepts, but the fair body has no soul when
Jesus Christ is not the beating heart.
There is no power of God unto salvation,
except in that Gospel whose sole and supreme
message is the divine Christ as the almighty
Saviour of sinners. That message the Holy
Ghost always honors, even when men re
ject it ; and he honors no other message,
though the world applaud.
It is the living Christ, risen and regnant,
whom we are to preach, as did Paul. But
our knowledge of the living Christ is me
diated, by our knowledge of the historic
Christ. The Christ in history is the Christ
of history. Without the New Testament
11

158 The World for Christ.
our knowledge of Christ would vanish. He
would remain, but his image upon our
minds and hearts would disappear. Hence
the same apostle who preached only Christ,
exhorted Timothy to preach the word and
to continue his diligent study of the Scrip
tures. We can carry the Gospel of Christ
into any land, and into all lands, only
as we carry the Bible, the whole Bible in
both Testaments ; for the ' ' testimony of
Jesus is the spirit of prophecy." There
fore it is that as soon as our missionaries
master the speech of any tribe or people,
they immediately begin the translation of
the Bible. Christ cannot be preached in
any other way. The great salvation cannot
secure firm historical lodgment apart from
the record which contains its history. And
as soon as that is done, a thousand and one
questions arise which must be clearly and
satisfactorily answered. A Christian litera
ture is a necessity.
Some, indeed, speak in disparagement
of a book religion, and sound the warning
cry against Bibliolatry. There never has

The Agencies to be Employed. 159
been much danger of that. It is, of course,
quite possible to make claims for the Bible
which the Bible itself does not make,
and which a sober criticism will hesitate
to accept. The Bible may be authorita
tive as a guide in the revelation of re
demption, without being a court of final
appeal in cosmology or chronology. It
may be reliable in its biography and history,
without being absolutely inerrant in specific
detail. Certain it is that events in the life
of our Lord are not marshaled in exact
chronological order in the gospels, nor have
we much more than a charcoal sketch. But
the main lineaments of the wonderful story
are easily traced, are thoroughly consistent,
and in their simplicity carry conviction of
their credibility. The Synoptic and the
Johannean problems have ceased to alarm
us, and the dissection to which the older
books have been, and are, subjected cannot
set aside or invalidate the phenomenal rank
of the Old Testament literature, and the
part which it played in re-Christian history.
I sometimes think that we could get along

160 The World for Christ.
without a theory of inspiration ; but there
seems to me, at present, to be more danger
of an undervaluation of the Bible, than of
an overestimate. There is no special call
for excusing or recommending its neglect.
An historical religion must have an historical
record as its complement and guarantee.
Religion must be made wholly independent
of historical facts, if it can maintain its place
without a book. But Christ is Christianity,
The incarnation, the atonement, and the
resurrection belong to the historic domain ;
and for such facts we must have contem
poraneous and trustworthy evidence, or sur
render the Gospel which is based upon them.
The only way in which such evidence can
be preserved is in written records.
It is the greatness and power of Chris
tianity that it has such records, which
from Celsus down to Renan have main
tained their unimpeachable historical trust
worthiness. And we should regard it as
an immense advantage, in our conflict with
paganism, that we can make it plain that
we have not believed, and that we do not

The Agencies to be Employed. 161
proclaim, cunningly devised fables — that
the Christ whom we preach got himself em
bodied in a book, written by men who had
known him and had conversed with him,
who were eyewitnesses of his glory on the
mount, and after his resurrection. The
triumph of Christianity must continue to
be, what it always has been, the triumph
of a book of which Christ is the heart ; for
even the Roman Church, with all its venera
tion for tradition, guards with jealousy the
deposit of sacred Scripture, and no Protes
tant theologian has given to the holy word
a higher place than has the present vener
able pontiff and bishop of Rome.
The Use of the Bible in securing the
triumph of the Gospel compels us to recog
nize another indispensable agency, the
establishment and equipment of schools of
sacred learning. The Church may not
arrogate to herself the supervision and con
trol of the entire educational discipline. It
is not her business to make scholars, but
Christian disciples. In making disciples,
however, she comes with historical records

162 The World for Christ.
in her hands, and that lays the necessity of
scholarship upon her. There is a province
of truth in which her explorations must be
thorough and unwearied. There are tasks
for linguists, and archaeologists, and ex
plorers, and critics, and historians, and the
ologians. Antioch and Alexandria were
the pioneers in a succession of great schools
which must continue to the end of time,
and which must strike their roots deep into
every nation which is to be evangelized.
Robert College at Constantinople, the col
leges at Aintab, Marash, and Beyroot, the
Doshisha in Japan, with scores and hun
dreds of secondary schools of Christian
training, have been among the mightiest
evangelizing agencies of the Orient. If I
mention only these, it is because the list is
too long for complete enumeration. To
sketch them all would be to write the his
tory of modern missions. Every denomina
tion has been compelled to lay the founda
tion of institutions of Christian learning;
in Asia, at the western frontier, among the
Negroes of the South. The theological

The Agencies to be Employed. 163
seminary, however meager its curriculum,
crowds hard upon the Christian evangelist;
and, in process of time, it must be fully
equipped to meet the demands which are
sure to be made upon it. Our own young
men are not unfrequently discouraged to
visit the lecture rooms of European univer
sities; and I am afraid that, by some, a
knowledge of German and French is re
garded as a dangerous thing. The remedy
is to have better schools here, where noth
ing shall be evaded or ignored, so that the
closest contact with the keenest European
thought will not result in mental perplexity
and unrest. The cure for imperfect knowl
edge is more knowledge at home ; not a
prohibitory tariff upon imported thought,
nor a narrow denunciation of foreign schools
as breeding places of heresy. And what
we need in Christian America is needed in
every land to which we carry the Gospel.
Note now how these agencies, which we
have passed in rapid review, constitute an
organic unity, so that you cannot use one
without using all the rest, The individual

164 The World for Christ.
conscience responds only to the vital impact
of the Holy Ghost; the Holy Ghost dis
plays his presence and power only as Christ
is preached ; Christ cannot be presented
apart from the Holy Scriptures; and the
Bible compels a constant vindication of its
authority, and a careful interpretation of its
contents, which makes Christian scholarship
a necessity to every church. Nor can we
afford to lose sight of the fact that the
entire enginery of evangelization must be
come indigenous to every race. The seed
which we plant must grow in its own soil,
and make provision for its own increase.
There is no na'tural evolution from barba
rism into civilization. But unless the seeds
of a higher civilization become naturalized
in a barbaric race, its redemption cannot be
secured. Each nation must work out its
own salvation ; and in working out its own
salvation it is likely to fall a prey to all the
infantile diseases which are inseparable
from ultimate maturity. The time must
come, in every foreign missionary field,
when supervision must cease. It may be

The Agencies to be Employed. 165
prematurely withdrawn, and that is cruelty;
it may be needlessly prolonged, and that is
tyranny, which is sure to produce resistance
and schism. Because we have given our
money, it does not follow that it gives us the
right to a perpetual guardianship. If we
did not give our money to Christ, and for
his sake, it were better that we had kept it in
our pockets. If we gave it to Christ, and
for his sake, then we should be more than
willing to retire from our sponsorship.
That problem is beginning to confront us.
Native preachers and native churches are
demanding larger freedom and less inter
ference. The demands may be extrava
gant ; but they are the signs that the period
of Christian infancy is past. And to native
preachers and native churches, in the. end,
-must be surrendered the task and the re
sponsibility of national Christianization.
That carries its dangers with it, but the
dangers can be reduced to a minimum by
¦ generous consideration and sympathy on
our part. We can cultivate fraternity
when we have surrendered lordship. We

166 The World for Christ.
can counsel as elder brothers when we cease
to command. Nor should we forget that
our own Christianity has been compelled to
run the gauntlet of its foes without external
authoritative supervision. The Gospel has
survived and widened its conquests among
ourselves ; why should we not trust its in
herent and subduing energy wherever it
has gained an intelligent foothold ? If,
during the most exacting period of its his
tory, when its adherents were in hourly
danger of their lives, Christianity shook
itself free from the coils of Gnostic and
Neo-Platonic speculation, which threatened
to strangle it in the lands of its birth, there
is no good ground for the fear that Bud
dhism and Confucianism can check or reverse
the advance of the Gospel. Under any cir
cumstances, the final debate between them
must be conducted by champions to whom
these oriental systems are a vernacular in
heritance. European and American lec
turers can no more settle the intellectual dis
putes of India, China, and Japan, than
their most gifted men can assume leader-

The Agencies to be Employed. 167
ship among us. We can give them the
Gospel of Christ, and place our Bible in
their hands; and then we must leave the
leaven to do its transforming work in its
own way. There is no instance on record
where polytheism has ever succeeded in
su pplanting or crippling monotheism . The
struggle may have been fierce and long, but
the idols have had to go. There is no in
stance on record where paganism, in its most
cultured forms, has been able to regain
ascendancy, when once a native Christian
church has challenged it. And in these
days, when oceans have dwindled to mill
ponds, when the electric spark has anni
hilated distance, when thought secures a
universal audience, there is a Christian sol
idarity whose steady pressure will prevent
any evangelized community from relapsing
into the heathenism, out of which it has
been lifted by the preaching of the cross.
It only remains for me to thank you, one
and all, for the courtesies which I have re
ceived at your hands, and for the patient at
tention with which you have listened to me.

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