Winning the world for Christ; a study in dynamics

DEC 11 1919

Winning the World for Christ

THE COLE LECTURES

Winning the World for Christ

By Bishop Walter R. Lambuth. Cloth net 1.25

Personal Christianity

By Bishop Francis J. McConnell. Cloth net 1.25

I913

The God We Trust

By G. A.Johnston Ross. Cloth net 1.25

igi2
What Does Christianity Mean ?

By W. H. p. Faunce. Cloth net 1.25

igii
Some Great Leaders in the
World Movement

By Robert E. Speer. Cloth net 1.25

igio
In the School of Christ

By Bishop William Fraser McDowell. Cloth, net 1.25

igog
Jesus the Worker

By Charles McTyeire Bishop, D. D. Cloth, net 1.25

igo8
The Fact of Conversion

By George Jackson, B. A. Cloth net 1.25

igoy
God's Message to the Human Soul

By John Watson (Ian Maclaren). The Cole Lectures
prepared but not deliver td. Cloth net 1.25

igo6
Christ and Science

By Francis Henry Smith, University of Virginia.
Cloth net 1.25

^905

The Universal Elements of the
Christian Religion

By Charles Cuthbert Hall. Cloth net 1.25

igoj
The Religion of the Incarnation

By Bishop Eugene Russell Hendrix. Cloth... net 1.00

D^

The Cole Lectures for IQI^

ddi'vered before Vanderhilt Uni'versity

Winning the World
for Christ

A Study in Dynamics

By
WALTER RUSSELL LAMBUTH

One of the Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South

Ira

New York Chicago Toronto

Fleming H. Revell Company

London and Edinburgh

Copyright, 191 5, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 125 North Wabash Ave.
Toronto: 25 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street

To my Wife

whose intellige7it cooperation^
heroic self-denial and
steadfast faith in God^

have been a constant source
of inspiration in missionary
life abroad and missionary
labours at home

THE COLE LECTURES

THE late Colonel E. W. Cole of Nashville, Ten-
nessee, donated to Vanderbilt University the sum
of five thousand dollars, afterwards increased by
Mrs. E. W. Cole to ten thousand, the design and con-
ditions of which gift are stated as follows :

«« The object of this fund is to establish a foundation
for a perpetual Lectureship in connection with the Bib-
lical Department of the University, to be restricted in its
scope to a defense and advocacy of the Christian re-
ligion. The lectures shall be delivered at such inter-
vals, from time to time, as shall be deemed best by the
Board of Trust ; and the particular theme and lecturer
shall be determined by nomination of the Theological
Faculty and confirmation of the College of Bishops of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Said lecture
shall always be reduced to writing in full, and the man-
uscript of the same shall be the property of the Univer-
sity, to be published or disposed of by the Board of
Trust at its discretion, the net proceeds arising there-
from to be added to the foundation fund, or otherwise
used for the benefit of the Biblical Department."

Preface

THESE lectures are not intended as a
review of the world-field of missions,
home or foreign, with an attempt
to bring out progress made, areas unoccu-
pied, or critical needs, as imperative as those
needs are. Nor is this a discussion of mis-
sions from the standpoint of principles and
policy. It is an attempt, rather, to make
some contribution to missionary dynamics by
a study of the sources of inspiration and
power.

Great emphasis has rightly been placed, by
missionary leaders, upon the needs of the un-
evangelized millions, the urgency of the task,
the unprecedented opportunity of the hour,
the commission to the Church, and the com-
mand to go which constitutes the divine im-
perative.

As great as is the demand for widening
the area of effort abroad, the greater need
of the hour is that of deepened conviction at
home. We must have a new sense of God,
realize the immanence of the Kingdom, the
place and importance of intercessory prayer,
9

lO PREFACE

the personality and power of the Holy
Spirit, the necessity for heroic service and
sacrifice, the mission of the Church, and the
preeminence of Christ who is Head over all.

If we can be brought to a true and vivid
realization of these things, and the Church
can be adequately awakened to a sense of
God-given mission, an immense stride will
have been made towards the goal set before
us in the prayer of Jesus Christ — ** Thy King-
dom come."

Walter R. Lambuth.

Oakdale^ CaL

Contents

I.

The Kingdom of God

13

II.

The Holy Spirit: God Seeking
Man

61

III.

Prayer : Man Seeking God .

III

IV.

Missions and the Heroic

153

V.

A Missionary Church

201

VI.

The Preeminence of Christ .

247

II

LECTURE I
THE KINGDOM OF GOD

LECTURE I
THE KINGDOM OF GOD

THE purpose of God in relation to
His Kingdom runs like a golden
thread throughout His revelation to
man. The promise to Adam was that the
seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's
head, and to Abraham that in him all the
families of the earth should be blessed. The
mission of God's chosen people and of His
Son to the nations of the earth, lay embedded
in this promise, but for centuries the con-
sciousness and meaning of it seemed ob-
scured. It was Isaiah who took up the
thread and pointed to the fact that in Israel
should be the hope of the world's evangeliza-
tion : " And the nations shall come to thy
light, and kings to the brightness of thy
rising."

How beautiful the outburst of song from
this prophet of evangelism, who exclaims —
" O Zion, that bringeth good tidings, get thee
up into the high mountains." It is Zion
which has been made the depository of God's
15

l6 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

truth ; the illustration of His providence ;
and the chosen vessel for bearing the good
tidings of God's purpose to the Gentiles —
His mercy, and the possibility and certainty
of the redemption of all who believe. It is
up into the high mountains of spiritual privi-
lege that Zion must go, for breadth of vision,
for a sense of God's nearness, for mighty
faith, and for that aspiration which must
come to every man who would do the will of
God.

Prior to His death and resurrection, the
words of Jesus, "I am not sent but unto the
lost sheep of the house of Israel," would
seem to imply a nationalistic program. His
later, and more striking statement, however,
points to the widest reach of evangelism,
*' And this gospel of the Kingdom shall be
preached in all the world for a witness unto
all nations ; and then shall the end come."
How compassionate the yearning of the
Great Shepherd, who knows no distinction
of nation or race, when He adds, " And other
sheep I have, which are not of this fold :
them also I must bring, and they shall hear
My voice ; there shall be one fold, and one
shepherd."

After the resurrection, the expression of
His purpose becomes more definite, and the

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 1 7

Great Commission is given to the Church,
" Go and make disciples of all nations." The
Bishop of Ely says, " The apostles were so
engrossed in their work in Jerusalem that
the memory of our Lord's words about * All
the nations' lay dormant in their minds.
. . . The first onward step was taken,
not due to any conscious purpose on their
part, but was the result of a divinely ordered
evolution of events — a great sign of the truth-
fulness of the record."

Stephen's sermon and martyrdom were
followed by persecution and the dispersion
of the believers, thus ushering in the second
period of their history, in which the Church
was extended through Judeaand into Samaria.
The disciples seemed to have no clearly de-
fined evangelistic policy. They were led, here
and there, by the Spirit, or rather thrust out.
The Holy Spirit became the Administrator of
the Church. He took personal charge of the
missionary movement which might otherwise
have suffered a relapse in its third stage. He
it was who searched for men, endued them
with power, separated them for the work,
sent them out, and carried forward the divine
order of expansion as announced by Jesus —
Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost
parts of the earth.

1 8 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

We have too often obscured the truth by
our attempts to define it. Men instead of
seeing more clearly have become befogged.
Jesus made clear what He meant by the
Kingdom of God in terms of His Gospel.
He does not demand the acceptance of
dogma, but asks that men shall accept Him.
His Gospel seeks a redeemed personality.
If we could once get men to reaUze the value
and possibilities of a redeemed personality,
and that the redemption of nature even is
wrapped up in it, they would rejoice in a
treasure beyond all the world's accumulated
wealth, as vast as that may be. Jesus said,
" Seek ye first His Kingdom and His right-
eousness and all these things shall be added
unto you." The Kingdom of God is one of
life, and the Gospel of His Kingdom is that
of a life-giving Redeemer, who not only died
to save, but rose again to bestow more abun-
dant life, and to interpret that life in terms of
Christly service.

The task which Jesus set for Himself was
to get men to apprehend and to accept the
truth of God's Fatherhood, to throw them-
selves into God's plan, to reverently pray for
the coming of His Kingdom, and to fashion
their own lives in accordance with the will of
God. Why such a task ? It was that they

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 19

should realize through His teaching and life
that the doing of the Father's will was the
only possible fulfillment of their sonship in
Him. Without such filial obedience upon
His part and theirs there could be no reve-
lation of Fatherhood, no complete man-
hood, and no effective service towards men.
" Though He was a Son, yet learned He obe-
dience by the things which He suffered ; and
having been made perfect. He became unto
all them that obey Him the author of eternal
salvation." ^

It is only to the man who surrenders him-
self to God in the spirit of absolute obedience
that God can more fully reveal His character,
His purpose and Himself. Obedience must
precede fuller revelation. It would be an im-
possibility to reveal holiness and love to an
ungodly mind, and an unlovely heart. If it
were possible, it would be a waste, and God
is not wasteful of His resources. His grace
abounds and He can supply all our need,
but the object of God's gifts to men is not
so much " that we may possess the gift, but
that through the possession of the gift we
may possess Him."

In the Kingdom of God, therefore, obedi-
ence is always central and fundamental. It

1 Heb. V. 8, 9.

20 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

is the key to power, because it is the key to
knowledge, and knowledge is power. In the
Scripture it is made the condition of spiritual
insight. David was sound both in his phi-
losophy and in his principles of pedagogy
when he said, ** I have more understanding
than all my teachers because I keep Thy
commandments." There is neither philoso-
pher nor scientist who makes any progress
without that obedience to law, written deep
in mind or in matter, so necessary to all true
attainment in knowledge.

After all, it is not so much what we have
attained in science, literature or religion, as
what we would attain. Not so much the
goal reached, as the process of development
while striving to reach the goal. The same
law holds with society as with the individual.
Our growth is a very real part of the growth
of the Kingdom because its mighty forces are
turned in upon our lives. We cannot sepa-
rate ourselves from it, save as we lend our-
selves to willful disobedience. The Kingdom
of God is not so much advanced by our
efforts to build it up as by our yielding our-
selves to being built up into it. Here lies the
secret power in Christianity. A living sacri-
fice is a more real contribution to the ad-
vancement of the Kingdom than our efforts

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 21

or our gifts. Even our prayers are unavail-
ing if unaccompanied by a vi^illingness to
have God's purpose wrought into our lives.

'* What force was it," asks Fitchett in re-
ferring to John Wesley, ** which knitted a life
divided amongst so many interests into
unity ; which gave to a single human will a
resisting power as of hardened steel ; and
which made a fallible man a force so tre-
mendous, and kept him at a level so high ?
The explanation lies in the spiritual realm.
Wesley had mastered the central secret of
Christianity. He lived, he wrought, he
preached, he wrote, he toiled, under the un-
divided empire of the august motive, the di-
vine forces of religion." ^

Principal Cairnes asks the question, ** What
is the Gospel but simply the greatest answer
to prayer on human record? Is it a mere
accident that the central aim of the New
Testament is eternal life, and its central fact
is the resurrection of our Lord?"

As we study nature, man and the super-
natural in relation to Jesus Christ, the central
figure of the New Testament, we find new
light breaking upon both the Gospel and the
world. It is nature being subdued for man,
man being redeemed for God, and the forces

1 Fitchett, " Wesley and His Century," p. 203.

22 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

of both nature and the supernatural placed at
man's disposal to work with God in the re-
demption of the world. The Gospel is in-
deed an answer to man's age-long prayer for
freedom, life, dominion and for fellowship
with God.

Sonship with God, heirship, fellowship,
are terms which abound in the New Testa-
ment. But we have failed to catch their
ring, and measure their significance — en-
larged life, divine heritage, noble companion-
ship, a share as coworkers in God's own re-
demptive scheme. Man's nature undergoes
redemption, his soul a transformation, and
spiritual illumination is coupled with divine
energy. It is a rediscovery of man's sphere,
a renewed emphasis upon man's work. He
entered the workshop of the world a child,
he goes out of it a master workman, when
he learns to obey divinely ordered laws,
grasps his tools, fashions thought and bends
his will, until he too becomes a world builder.

Are not nations being trained by their ma-
terial enterprises for a larger share in the
control of spiritual forces ? We are not blind
to the peril of what has been well termed
**the atheism of force." But it is only a
question of who is master and who slave. If
man masters the forces of nature as a means

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 23

of equipment for higher service, he harnesses
them to his purpose and sweeps into a realm
where the higher rules the lower, and the
spiritual dominates the material.

Knowledge is power. Money is power.
These are tremendously potential and fraught
with blessing to mankind if in their applica-
tion they are free from low ideals and base
motives. Made subservient to the will of
God in a true sense of trusteeship, for all
power is from Him, they are well-nigh om-
nipotent in the service of mankind.

But to wield these forces as masters and
not slaves, our conception of God must grow
with our conception of commercial expansion
and civic rights, scientific achievement and
political relationships. The God-idea must
travel ahead of these. We may make the
Kingdom of God provincial by a narrow and
contracted idea of God. We need a great
God — Christianity demands a great God,
our age requires a great God, we have a
great God. His Kingdom is related to every
phase of life and department of effort; its
claims upon man are supreme, universal, all
embracing. In it there is neither secular nor
religious. It is all God's.

We are more desirous of identifying God
with our little plans than we are of identify-

24 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

ing ourselves with His great purpose. We
are too often more concerned about human
philosophy than we are about the divine will.
To find out what God thinks, and to think
His thoughts after Him ; to find out how God
moves, and then to move with Him should
be our chief concern. It is said of Abraham
Lincoln that a group of Chicago ministers
waited upon him, at an anxious period of the
Civil War, and gave the assurance that the
Almighty was on his side. "Gentlemen,"
the great President replied, ** I am not so
concerned about His being on my side, as
about being sure that I am on the side of the
Almighty."

To win the world for Christ, we must give
Christ to the world. It is not to be won in
any other way. We are powerless to draw
men to Him, save as we give Christ and our-
selves to them. Civilization is powerless,
culture is powerless, education is powerless,
the Church is powerless. These may inter-
pret Him and His life, but upon the other
hand, they may utterly misinterpret both His
mind and His spirit. It is by His suffering,
through His death and resurrection, and by
His grace, that He will draw the world to
Himself. " And I, if I be lifted up from the
earth, will draw all men unto Me."

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 25

The world needs a Christ that can meet its
deepest need, win it from sin, satisfy its heart-
hunger, inspire it with a new hope and create
a purpose to do the will of God. It is by
discovering a larger Christ for ourselves, and
by giving Him and ourselves to the world,
that we are to bring in the Kingdom of God.
The mission of Christ was to establish the
Kingdom of God among men. Our mission
is to receive and reproduce that Kingdom in
our own lives, by faith, by prayer, by heroic
service, by the power of the Holy Spirit and
by the making of Christ preeminent.

What is the Kingdom of God as it relates
to man ? Jesus does not attempt to define it.
He describes and illustrates it. It is the king-
dom of divine sovereignty and human obedi-
ence, of Fatherhood and sonship, of law and
grace, of life and service, of prayer and fel-
lowship. It is the kingdom of heavenly
grace poured into earthen vessels ; of brother-
hood, loving service, tender forgiveness,
manly aspiration and character — not as an
end, but as a fruitage of the Spirit.

In its simplest definition, the evangeliza-
tion of the world means the establishing of
the Kingdom of God by bearing the glad
tidings of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of men.
to every creature. This is to be done by

26 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

preaching, by teaching, by personal testi-
mony, by a life of loving service and by tell-
ing the story of Jesus' life and ministry, and
the purpose of His death and resurrection.

The message must be in simple terms,
but sufficient in substance for any man, and
for all men to know Jesus Christ, and to be-
lieve in Him as their personal Saviour and
Lord. It must be delivered intelligently,
faithfully, lovingly, and in the power of the
Holy Spirit, upon whom reliance must be
placed for conviction of sin, quickening of
spirit and transformation of life.

There is no warrant in the Scriptures for
believing that all who hear will accept the
Gospel. Many failed to believe in Christ
under His own gracious ministry, and some
even in His own village. He did not relax
His efforts, howeven It brought Him deeper
anguish of soul, but He persisted in His
work. As for us. His command is to go
into all the world and preach the Gospel to
every creature. The failure to accept does
not relieve us of responsibility, but increases
it. Results must be left with God. Our
responsibility is that of presenting the mes-
sage in tenderer, clearer, stronger terms, and
with the expectation that the Holy Spirit will
continue to strive with those whom we would

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 27

reach. The love of God is like the deepest
depths of the sea — unfathomable. The win-
ning of men means large and increasing
drafts upon the unsearchable, unfathomable
riches of that love. Great soul-winners have
always been those who have learned this.
They have had the faith to believe that the
Gospel of Christ can save to the uttermost,
has the power to strengthen the weakest, en-
rich the poorest, and ennoble the most de-
graded.

Jesus came to establish the Kingdom of
God. This was the purpose and meaning
of the incarnation. It was the deep meaning
of His passion, His death and the power of
His resurrection. We may go further and
say it is the explanation of the statement that
He liveth to make intercession for humanity,
and of the fact of His presence in the world
through the person of the Holy Spirit. In
coming to establish the Kingdom, He was
carrying out the purpose of God which had
been determined upon before the foundation
of the world. It was the Word, the Eternal
Creative Word that was made flesh and
dwelt among us and it was His glory that
men beheld, the glory of the only begotten
Son of God.

In the Kingdom Jesus came to establish

28 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

there was one central truth which He made
fundamental in the presentation of His Gos-
pel. It was central when He laid down the
principles of the Kingdom of God in the
Sermon upon the Mount ; and it must be so
in every presentation of saving truth to man.
It is the fact of the Fatherhood of God.
Lying deep within that truth is another — a
corollary of the first — the brotherhood of man.

** A hundred other statements regarding it,
regarding Jesus who was incarnate, are true ;
but all statements concerning Him hold their
truth within this truth — that Jesus came to
restore the fact of God's Fatherhood to man's
knowledge, and to its central place of power
over man's life. Jesus is mysteriously the
Word of God made flesh. He is the worker
of amazing miracles upon the bodies and the
souls of men. He is the convincer of sin.
He is the Saviour by suffering. But behind
all these He is the redeemer of man into the
Fatherhood of God." ^

It is in the presentation of these two great
truths of divine Fatherhood and human
brotherhood, included in the Sonship and
Saviourhood of Jesus Christ, that the world is
to be won. This is the world's evangel. This
is what we mean by the evangelization of the

* Phillips Brooks, " The Influence of Jesus," p. 12.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 29

world. There is no avenue of approach
more open to men than that of fatherhood.
It has personality in it. There is a sense of
nearness and warmth. It is full of the idea of
strength and care. The deeper relations of life
are here. It includes the right of authority
upon the part of a father, and of the obligation
of obedience upon the part of the child. But
no appeal can rest here. It is inadequate. It
must go back to the divine Fatherhood. It
must seek the sense of God, or if there be
none, it must be created.

Years ago, during a missionary journey
upon a little coasting vessel on the Inland
Sea of Japan, I fell into conversation with a
passenger. It was stormy, and we sat upon
our red blankets spread upon the deck.
Every approach to Christianity was skillfully
warded ofi until the relationship of father-
hood was mentioned. He assented, and to
the responsibility growing out of it, but being
a Confucianist held strictly and firmly to the
narrow circle of the five human relationships.
I changed the appeal and made it upon the
broader basis of the Fatherhood of the race —
higher, larger, fuller of divine care and love,
and to the omnipresent God and Father to
every man. It was then conviction went home.

The law of reciprocity lies deep in the con-

30 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

stitution of the Kingdom. It is an economical
as well as an ethical necessity. God's will is
God's law, and is therefore compelling. It
can neither be violated nor ignored with
impunity. In the intellectual as in the spiri-
tual realm, reciprocity is the law of growth.
" He who would understand a painting,'*
says Ruskin, *' must give himself to it." As-
similation must be followed by expression or
there is an arrest of the process. To hold is
to lose. In order to keep and have more,
one must give away what he has. Culture
for culture's sake is foreign from Jesus'
thought, and pure intellectualism has no
place in His philosophy. Indeed He does
not philosophize about either. He did
not come to establish a cult. He came to
give life. With the giving there comes to
man the enrichment of every department of
his nature that he might, like his great teacher,
give again. *' Productive expression," writes
Peabody, ** alone clarifies and sifts the schol-
ar's mind. The movement of trade is on its
surface a mere scramble of self-seek-ing ; but
in its total action economic life is a vast tidal
process of production and distribution, of
multiplying by investing, of increase through
use. To hoard one's possessions is to lose
their increment."

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 3 1

God has a plan for the redemption of the
world. It is man's place to discover it, to
adjust himself to it, to find his place in it, get
into the spirit of its purpose, let the purpose
get hold of him, and lend all his powers to
the doing of God's will. It is in this way and
this alone that man can rise to his true level
as a coworker with God. When the Apostle
once caught the conception it fired his
imagination, swept his soul into a new realm,
brought him to a new realization of the
power of God and the dignity of man, the
grace of God and the responsibility of the
apostleship. It created a spirit of obedience,
a desire to serve, a yearning to impart, and a
willingness to enter into the fellowship of suf-
fering, to lay down life itself in order to carry
forward the purpose of God in Christ Jesus.
It was a conception like this that carried
Coke and Carey, Morrison and Milne, Mof-
fat and Livingstone into the regions beyond.

One great task in extending the Kingdom
of God is to get men to see the reality of
things. Perhaps it would be best to say —
to see the things that are real. To realize
God and to be reliable witnesses. It was
Ruskin who said, " The greatest thing a hu-
man soul ever does in this world is to see
something and tell what it saw in a plain

32 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

way. Hundreds of people can talk for one
that can think ; but thousands can think for
one who can see. To see clearly is poetry,
prophecy, religion — all in one."

Was it not for this that Jesus called to
Him the group of humble men from Galilee ?
They were open-eyed — men who were ca-
pable of being made to see. Those chil-
dren of nature and sons of toil were being
prepared upon the lake and under the blue
sky for the coming of the teacher who was to
break with tradition — pierce the painted
show of life and through the rent point them
to the lesson that men may " mistake the
things that are seen for reality, whereas reality
is back of them all."

The disciples were apostles in the making,
just as the early Christians were saints in the
making. The greatest miracle is not with
nature, but with men. Through the trans-
forming power of the Holy Spirit, men are
lifted out of the mire of sin and carried into
the realm of grace where they take their
places in the Kingdom as the salt of the earth
and the light of the world. Jerusalem and
Capernaum looked aghast when fishermen
and tax gatherers became apostles. *' What
He did with them proves what can be made
of ordinary men when they surrender them-

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 33

selves to the guidance of His Spirit." Is
there not a substantial hope here for the qual-
ifying of men in every age for the apostolic
work of preaching the Gospel to every crea-
ture?

The Kingdom of God is not built by spiri-
tual mechanics, but by spiritual power. It
does not deal in machinery, but with life. It
does not exalt institutions, but personality.
Its chief elements are Fatherhood and sonship,
truth and holiness, life and love, redemption
from sin, and salvation for service. It was to
be extended by men who were called, *' Fol-
low Me ; " men who were taught, ** Learn of
Me ; " and by men who were sent, " As Thou
didst send Me into the world, even so I sent
them into the world."

The disciples were sent on a wonderful
mission, because Jesus came on a wonderful
mission. He was sent of God, and so were
they. What a thrill it must have been to feel
that their being sent by Christ was so like
the sending of Jesus by the Father. The
same high purpose, the one impelling motive,
the same constraining love, were to be true
of Master and disciples — it was to seek and
to save that which was lost. Every jnes-
senger from God, at home or abroad, has a
right to such a sending. If he has not the

34 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

divine impulsion and the divine constraint of
love he has no right to go.

The provincialism and race antipathy of
the apostles constituted an almost insuperable
barrier to their carrying the Gospel through
the Roman Empire. To them the Gentile
world was so dark, hopelessly corrupt and
abominable, as to be "unrelieved by any
spiritual gleam." It is true, the vision of
Peter at Joppa, followed by the experience in
the house of Cornelius at Caesarea, made a
profound impression upon the leader of the
Apostolic College. So profound was it, in
fact, that he was constrained to exclaim, *' Of
a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter
of persons, but in every nation he that feareth
Him, and worketh righteousness, is accept-
able to Him." But the centripetal force of
nationalism, fed by the undercurrent of Gali-
lean life which had coursed through their
veins so long, was too much for him and the
other members of the group. A man was
needed for the inauguration of a world-move-
ment who had, in addition to mighty faith,
vision, breadth of sympathy, and the nation-
wide, world-wide mind and spirit of Christ.
That man was Paul.

He was the one man of his, or any other
age, who fully realized a God-given sense of

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 35

Mission, yielded himself absolutely to Christ,
caught an imperial vision, had faith com-
mensurate with it, and held himself steadily
in touch with his world task on the one hand,
and with the Gospel as the world's dynamic
on the other. With him the Gospel of Jesus
Christ was the hope of man ; and Christ, the
image of the invisible God, the first born of
all creation was in man, the hope of glory.

The sense of mission in life springs directly
from a sense of God. It is not remote, but
immediate. Given a sense of God, real, near,
vivid, and man must surrender for service or
be untrue to his convictions and to himself.
Evasion, dishonesty and failure at this point
mean spiritual declension and loss of power
in all after life. A leading preacher remarked
sadly, late in life, *' Had I been true to the
call which came in my early ministry to go
to the foreign field, I should have been a bet-
ter man."

The character of God is back of the call and
becomes a pledge of moral strength ; the pres-
ence of God is in the consciousness of the
messenger and makes vivid the vision for re-
sponsibility ; the will of God gives the im-
perative to it and becomes not only a com-
pelling force, but in the doing of that will
brings the joy of a human will surrendered to

36 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

the divine, and the power of a Spirit-filled
life.

Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up and
came into a sense of mission. Paul met
Jesus in the way and surrendered to Him who
henceforth was to be his Master. He con-
stantly refers to himself as '' Paul called to be
an apostle." As apostle and slave he travels
upon the circumference of a great circle
whose centre is Christ. The apostleship was
his divine credential, he was a bond-servant
by his own free will.

The great Apostle to the Gentiles realized
God in Jesus Christ. He recognized the
divine sovereignty and claims upon his life
and felt secure in yielding himself absolutely
to those claims. Henceforth the impregnable
rock is beneath his feet. The order of the
universe is clear. Human history and divine
providence become related. He announces
that ''the Kingdom of God is not meat and
drink, but righteousness, and peace and joy
in the Holy Spirit." In the terms of that
Kingdom, as exemplified by Jesus Christ and
His great apostle. Fatherhood is for the first
time fully understood and brotherhood re-
ceives its interpretation. Man relates him-
self to God on the one hand, receiving
measure upon measure of grace and truth ;

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 37

and to his fellow man upon the other, impart-
ing freely the divine gifts which he has so
freely received.

Religion is not simply a bond between
man and God, it is the force which impels
man to seek God because of what God is
and what man needs. It is the soul crying
out of the depths of a social and spiritual
nature for companionship, for sympathy and
for love. In its more primitive form it is not
apprehension of what God is, or of what He
has done for man. How can it be known
without revelation what that is ? It is only a
sense of need ; deep, pervading, and help-
less ; for man knows not where to turn. Is
it not also God seeking man? **We love
Him because He first loved us." Con-
sciously, or unconsciously, that is the most
powerful motive in religion. That is the
world's dynamic. As the true light has
lighted every man that cometh into the
world, so has His true love been constraining
men to yield themselves to God.

The central force of religion is the impelling
desire to do the will of God. It is man's will
moving towards God's will, yielding itself to
it and caught up by it ; the human yielding
up to the divine and merging itself into it,
until God's will is done in us and through us

38 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

to the fulfillment of His purpose, in and for
the redemption of mankind, through Jesus
Christ our Lord. The motive of such a re-
ligion as this is love. If the impelling force
is desire Godward, the constraining force,
which is infinitely greater, is love Christ-
ward. Not ours for Him, that is too feeble,
but His love for us. In this love lies the in-
carnation with all its mystery ; the atonement
with all its potentiality ; His death with all
His travail for sinful men ; and the resurrec-
tion with all His life-giving power and hope.
There is more demanded of Christian
leadership in this generation than in any
previous one. The last century of missions
was devoted largely to sapping and mining
under the bulwarks of an intrenched heathen-^
ism. Every man worked with pick and
spade, in his own place, and with very little
reference to those engaged in the same field.
The process was long, laborious and pain-
ful, requiring patience and fortitude. It re-
quired heroism of a high order, and developed
individuality, but failed often to inspire
breadth of view and cooperation. Condi-
tions are changed. Walls have been under-
mined, and barriers broken down. Tens of
thousands in India, China and other non-
Christian lands are not only open to ap-

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 39

proach, but are detached from their old
faiths, or adrift upon the world's conflicting
currents. Skillful piloting and a sympathetic
leadership may determine for all time the
attitude of Oriental nations towards Chris-
tianity.

The transformation which has taken place
in the educational system and methods of
China, during the past twenty-five years, is
the best illustration of the marvellous change
in sentiment. In the city of Peking, near
our residence, there stood in 1886 a Confucian
temple with some nine thousand cells for the
accommodation of scholars who came from
every province of the empire. It was here
the triennial examinations for the third, or
Master's degree, were to be held.

The temple gates upon the first morning,
at break of day, were crowded with candi-
dates full of hope. Some of these had
travelled more than a thousand miles on
foot. Several were over seventy years of
age, and had been competing for fifty years.
Though unsuccessful, they had been re-
warded by the Emperor for their persistence
with the privilege of wearing a robe of im-
perial yellow. Each candidate had a small
bundle of bedding, and was supplied with
writing materials. Once within the cell, the

40 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

door was bolted and barred, and an at-
tendant was permitted to pass in only food
and tea. Three terms of three days and
nights each, given to composition, were thus
spent in their cells, after which the candidates
were to be released.

Our college Y. M. C. A. had undertaken to
place a roll of Christian literature, neatly
wrapped in red paper, in the hands of each
scholar. The roll included a Life of Christ,
the Gospel of Luke and several tracts, with
an offer of prizes for the three best essays on
Christianity within six months. At mid-
night of the ninth day, at the boom of the
great drum, the gates were thrown wide
open and the pent-up stream of student life
poured forth, weird and startling under the
flickering light of a hundred torches. Pale,
hollow-eyed and weakened by their vigils,
fasting and hard work, they pressed forward
feeble and unsteady in gait. Some fell to the
ground from exhaustion. Several had died
during the nine days of incarceration.
Lictors with long whips stood on each side of
the exit and along the avenue, under orders
to drive ofi the human harpies who were
ready to take advantage of these men and
snatch their bedding from their shoulders.
One scholar fell to the ground at my feet.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 41

Two men swooped down upon him. I
sprang forward to hurl them back and re-
ceived twice around the neck the tightening
coil of the leathern thong intended for the
others. These splendid fellows went through
the ordeal to secure the degree, and yet out
of the seven thousand candidates it was cer-
tain that not more than two hundred could
attain the much coveted possession.

All of this is a thing of the past. One
stroke of the Vermilion Pencil settled the
transformation. Henceforth the test of
scholarship was^ not to consist of an essay
or poem, a feat of memory and a juggling of
words, based upon the Confucian classics,
but familiarity with such subjects as history,
economics, mathematics, international law,
and the sciences of the West. Provincial and
national schools have been built up into a
great system, universities established and a
student life developed characterized by a
keenness and zest for the new and larger
studies, a college spirit, and a new patriotism
as wide as the empire.

A constructive Christian statesmanship is
needed which can coordinate and unify the
working forces of the missionary world. At
a time when every worker counts for more
than ever before, and when every dollar in-

42 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

vested is ten times more potential than it
was ten years ago, it is of immense impor-
tance that we should look closely to that
economy and efficiency which will enable one
missionary to do the work of two, and hasten
the time when fields so providentially opened
can be completely occupied.

Leadership at the home base is not less
important than that upon the foreign field.
It may require, to-day, even more of toil and
a greater investment of faith. It is indis-
pensable if the evangelization of the world is
to be carried to a finish. Such leadership
should urge the devotional study of the Word
of God, promote the spirit of intercession,
seek to create a missionary conscience, and
kindle a passion for souls. Added to these
must be the creation of a missionary pastor-
ate, the securing of systematic and propor-
tionate giving, the search for young men and
women in our institutions who will respond to
the call for service, and the marshalling of all
the forces of the Church under the leadership
of the Spirit of God, in one supreme effort to
secure, at the earliest possible day, the preach-
ing of the Gospel to every creature. Such a
program is no child's play. It becomes, at
once, a mighty test of faith and a demand for
statesmanship of the highest order.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 43

A review of the world field compels the
conviction that the time is ripe for a great
advance. The Holy Spirit has been at work
in many lands, blessed the seed which has
been sown, and ripened the fields to the
harvest. In China, in India, and in large
sections of Africa, where dense populations
are massed, the missionary body is over-
whelmed with the almost countless villages
asking for Christian teachers and evangelists.
The urgency of the situation cannot be over-
estimated. Some of the greatest conquests
of the Cross have been made during the past
ten years, but greater ones are within our
grasp. It is not now a question of the atti-
tude of the non-Christian nations, but of
Christendom. They are turning to Christ as
their only hope. We are in danger of sub-
stituting modern civilization for vital Chris-
tianity, and of shifting the basis of faith from
the sure foundations to the quicksands of ex-
pediency and doubt.

The Apostolic Church wrought marvels
towards the evangelization of the world dur-
ing the first century of missionary effort
without machinery and without material re-
sources. The secret of it all lay in its faith,
in its leadership and in its passion. Its faith
was born of God in the School of Prayer, its

44 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

leadership was that of the Holy Spirit, and
its missionary passion was inspired by the
conscious presence of the living Christ. It
had found the missionary dynamic.

To win the world of to-day, plans must be
laid which are commensurate with the task.
The dimensions of that task, its demands and
responsibilities, have been immensely in-
creased during the past decade. The emer-
gence of nationalistic aspirations ; the action
and reaction of international forces ; the
recrudescence of religious faiths ; the unrest
and detachment of large populations ; the
rapid growth of economic and social ques-
tions ; and the openness to approach of stu-
dents and faculties in the world's centres of
learning, are only a few of the factors which
demand a recasting of missionary policies.
Any one of these is sufficient for a lifetime
study. But to grasp them as a whole, unify
the currents and forces at work, and bring
them under the influence of the Gospel is a
feat which demands the most consummate
skill and commanding generalship.

The racial problems of the age are more
acute than at any time in the history of the
world. The growth of population, of com-
merce, of economic relations, and of nation-
alism, has led to a jostling of peoples, a ne-

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 45

cessity for readjustment, and a failure to
recognize the rights of the weaker. It is
here that we need to have the cosmopoHtan
mind and spirit of Christ, and to practice
such sympathy and sense of brotherhood as
shall help men to realize that the Kingdom
of God knows neither racial nor national lines,
but makes the gift of God free to every man.

A leadership is needed which will, under a
higher leadership, be on the alert to study
the outstanding difficulties of every situation
and to throw the entire force of its influence
into the place of greatest need. To do this
there must be open-mindedness, heroic cour-
age, a spirit of self-abandon, and a masterful
grasp of the largest questions, moral, social
and religious — a leadership full of faith and
of the Holy Ghost.

Jesus loved the world. He taught that it
should be used, but not abused. He loved
it because He made it. He lived and worked
in it. He found His disciples there. He did
not take them out of the world, but held them
in it, and appointed them to their task. He
withdrew temporarily from the outer and
visible manifestation of the world, that He
might return to it as it were from the inner
and invisible, and be everywhere and with
every man, if every man would only permit

46 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

It tremendously emphasized the worth of
a soul when Jesus said, *' What does it profit
a man if he gain the whole world and lose
his own soul. Or what will a man give in
exchange for his soul ? " Here is valuation
measured by the infinite. Christ died for it.
And yet men will put everything upon the
block and under the hammer — manhood,
faith, morals, in the present, and mortgage
the future — for the sake of the world. When
men do that they barter the higher for the
lower ; their birthright for a mess of pottage.
The higher is lost, and the lower shrivels
like an autumn leaf, or is consumed until not
a vestige remains upon which to build a spir-
itual Kingdom or an immortal character.

The ten commandments are not annulled
by the moral law of the Kingdom which
Jesus came to establish, as some would have
men think. His moral law only supersedes
" by including them in a greater, deeper and
more positive whole." The commandments
became, with traditionalism, a dead letter.
Through Jesus' life more than in His teach-
ing, they have become instinct with a per-
sonal significance. "The moral law of the
new Kingdom is a law," says Bishop Gore,
** which recognized and accepted by the indi-
vidual conscience is to be applied in order to

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 47

establish a new social order." It could only
do this through a personality sufficiently
powerful to vivify it. This personality be-
longed to Jesus. ** The law was given by
Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus
Christ." ** The law was given that men
might seek grace," says Augustine, and adds
" grace was given that the law might be ful-
filled." Men would not seek grace. So
Christ had to come seeking them with grace
streaming from heaven through His sacri-
ficial love. Thus was the law fulfilled, for
love is the fulfilling of the law. Get men
to see and feel this, and you get them to ac-
cept the commandments with joy because
they accept Christ.

The world does not need less of God, but
more of a sense of the divine Fatherhood. It
is that Fatherhood, in and through Himself,
Jesus came to manifest unto the world. It
was not a declaration, but a manifestation ;
not so much a message even, as a life. Be-
lief in the existence of one God was, for Israel,
an immense advance upon a belief in many
gods. But the Jewish idea of one God as
Father was nationalistic, rather than personal.
*' I am a Father to Israel, and Ephraim is my
first born."

A nationalistic conception of God is not

48 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

sufficient to satisfy the craving of the indi-
vidual soul for companionship ; and a mere
theistic faith, however high and noble, can-
not sustain moral character and quicken pur-
pose into loving obedience and a life of joy-
ful fellowship. There must be a revelation
of God as Father whose infinite nearness,
tenderness and love can be realized in human
experience. That revelation has come in
Jesus Christ, in order that through Him we
may know the Father, and knowing the
Father thus revealed we come to know Jesus
Christ whom He has sent.

The cry of the human heart for God is as
old as humanity, and will not be stifled. It
was the patriarch Job in the earliest cen-
turies who exclaimed, " Oh, that I knew
where I might find Him ! that I might
come even to His seat. ... I would
know the words which He would answer me,
and understand what He would say unto
me." His was a cry out of the night, a cry
out of the soul depths for light and for God.

" If God had not said, * Blessed are those
that hunger,' I know not what could keep
weak Christians from sinking in despair.
Many times all I can do is to complain that
I want Him, and wish to recover Him," said
Bishop Hall.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 49

The testimony of an African chief in the
heart of the Dark Continent echoes the same
sentiment. It was late in the afternoon. Our
day's march brought us to his village. It
stood upon a high hill which overlooked
broad ribbons of tropical forest, enclosing a
stream of silver that wound itself in and out
of the green, and beyond these the golden
veldt with its spreading plains which seemed
to reach into the beyond as it pushed against
the sky-line of purple clouds. It was a scene
of entrancing beauty. " Do you believe there
is a God? " I asked. ** Oh, yes," he replied,
** there is not a man among us who does not
believe in Nzambe. He created our fore-
fathers and gave us these lands." ''Then
why do you not worship Him?" With a
look of sadness the chief of a great people
slowly answered, ** He is not here. He has
taken Himself away. We do not know where
He has gone. To whom then are we to ofTer
our prayers ? We want Him, but if we pray
how do we know that He hears us ? "

A great life has never been lived without
a vision, nor has an enterprise of world di-
mensions ever been launched in the absence
of one. It is not the soul taking the measure
of itself ; that might prove to be an inhibition
of one's powers — a consciousness of limita-

50 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

tions that would prove fatal. It is seeking
rather to measure its God-appointed task,
and what task is too great for a soul that
finds a peculiar joy in attempting the im-
possible I

Does not our power to see stir our power
to do ? In weak lives it is mere imagination,
and stimulates to the point of desire only. In
strong lives this power to see is vision. De-
sire grows swiftly into purpose, and where
there is large potentiality in seeing, there
will be corresponding power in the doing.
The actual is not far off, when the gift to see
is near.

The use of the word vision may be over-
done in our day, but the fact itself cannot be
ignored. There has been too much of it in
God's dealing with men to ignore it. Moses
and the burning bush ; Paul and the man of
Macedonia ; Wesley and his world-parish ;
are not these men whose eyes were made to
see the possibilities of God's Kingdom ?

It is well for a man if vision comes early,
for it is given to old men to dream dreams ;
but if not early, let it come late. The age of
the soul is not measured by time, but rather
by its ideals. Whether early or late, these
must ever be lifted up and beyond us, never
to be reached, but never to be lost sight of.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 5 1

Better loss of life itself than loss of one's
ideals.

Is it not Maeterlink who says, " Let us re-
joice in regions higher than the little truths
that our eyes can seize " ? There are such
regions. They lie back there with God,
awaiting the gift to see. Our train dragged
itself along the heavy grade in its journey
across the continent. Sand-dunes and sage-
brush formed the background of the sombre
picture. Suddenly the distant Sierras lifted
themselves, sunlit and snow-capped, into the
blue. The sense of height, of purity, of
power, and shall I say of God, came over us.
It was like the thrill that comes to the soul
from the discovery of larger truths, of higher
ideals, and of the revelation of God Himself.
It is this which has come, at home and
abroad, into many a missionary life with its
long stretches of waiting, and years of dull
plodding. Suddenly the sky-line breaks.
The valleys are flooded with light, the peaks
are aglow with hope, and God is every-
where.

** Perhaps the earliest requisite of an efTect-
ive life is a vision." ^ If that be true, vision
must be followed by obedience. Prompt and
unquestioning obedience in the extension of

* The Rt. Rev. Chas. H. Brent, " Adventure for God," p. 2.

52 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

God's Kingdom must follow the revelation
of God's will. The record is that the Apostle
to the Gentiles was not disobedient to the
heavenly vision. Cost what it might, he was
ready to pay the price when once the will of
God was made known. He was no man to
drift. The fires of his soul burned too in-
tensely for that, but it was necessary there
should be a mighty awakening to real con-
ditions and divine demands, a confronting of
the human by the divine spirit, before he
could consecrate all his masterful energies to
Christ.

Many a man does drift with the sleepy
current, unmindful of life's perils or duties,
until a bend in the stream comes. He is
suddenly swept into troubled waters, high
banks frown upon him and he is stirred to
action. Dangerous reefs are about him, but
beyond are opening vistas of beauty and of
glory. He awakes to a sense of struggle, of
conscious manhood and of deepened respon-
sibility. He bends to his oars until his litde
craft becomes instinct with life ; he leaps to
the shore ; he has become a man with a
man's work ; the consciousness of power and
of mission is upon him.

Isaiah drifted upon the easy optimism of
his day until the Lord as One high and

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 53

lifted up, and yet terribly near, confronted
him in the temple. From that day he was
the prophet with an evangel. Austin Flint, Jr.,
the brilliant physiologist, son of a great physi-
cian, wasted his life, unconscious of his
magnificent powers, until rudely awakened
by a faithful friend to both duty and respon-
sibility. It took Stanley's appeal for Uganda
and a group of devoted boys, some of whom
became martyrs, to bring Mackay, the engi-
neer missionary, to a full realization of the
tremendous possibilities of missionary work.
But the vision of a redeemed Baganda, the
masterful efTorts of a God-sent man, the thrill
of the bigness of a task equal to his powers,
and faith that he would be given power
equal to the task, won for Christ one of the
brightest jewels in the redemption of Africa's
millions.

The revelation of the Fatherhood of God
by Jesus Christ not only gives men a true
conception of divine Fatherhood, but a right
understanding of their own, in terms of the
highest spiritual potentiality. Is there not
suggested in the Scriptures such a thing as
a yearning for the birth of a soul which gives
the sense of spiritual Fatherhood ? Paul seems
to have such a sense when he says to the
Corinthians, ** For though ye have ten thou-

54 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

sand instructors in Christ, yet have ye not
many fathers : for in Christ Jesus I have be-
gotten you through the Gospel."

The Apostle refers to it again in his letter
to Philemon vi^hen he makes his plea in be-
half of a runaway slave, converted under his
ministry — " I beseech thee for my son Ones-
imus, whom I have begotten in my bonds."
He yearns over his spiritual offspring. It is
a gUmpse of that travail for lost men upon
the part of great souls who have come to a
true interpretation of the deep and inner
meaning of spiritual Fatherhood.

Does this not find a measure of expression
in the aching heart of Henry Martyn in
Calcutta when he says : "I was much bur-
dened with the consciousness of blood guilti-
ness ; and though I cannot doubt of my
pardon by the blood of Christ, how dreadful
the reflection that any should perish that
might have been saved by my exertions ! "
Is it not in the strong crying and tears of
David Brainerd as he bows his knees upon
the snow beneath the New England pines
and makes intercession for his beloved
Indians ?

Our indebtednes to the Hebrew race is not
based alone upon the preservation of the his-
toric idea, and fact, of the existence of the

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 55

one true and living God, supreme in nature
and sovereign among men. There is an-
other truth, greater and more insistent, the
rejection and loss of which has been the
tragedy of their race : — the presence of God
in Jesus Christ as Saviour, dealing person-
ally with man, and entering by faith into his
personal consciousness. While other faiths
may, with Christianity, hold the Deity as
existent in the past, Christianity alone af-
firms that its Lord and Saviour lives in the
present, as the Light of the World, and re-
veals Himself not by reflected light, but in
person to the personal consciousness of every
man who believes. In every successive gen-
eration, therefore, the miracle of revelation
is being repeated, not through the written
word by inspired men, but on the tablets of
human hearts by the Holy Spirit.

** Do not talk to me," said Coleridge, ** of
the evidences of Christianity. Try it. It
has been eighteen hundred years in exist-
ence, and nobody who has tried it on its
own terms has ever challenged it as a fail-
ure." *' Try it," exclaims the chemist to his
laboratory assistant who suggests the possi-
bilities of a new combination. ** Try it,"
urges the professor of mathematics w^hen
his student proposes a new demonstration

56 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

of a theorem. Will any man challenge the
scientific basis of such tests ? Who then
will have the temerity to object to the
Psalmist when he says, ** O taste and see
that the Lord is good." Who shall cast a
doubt upon the soundness of the Apostle's
assurance, and ten thousand like him, who
has put Jesus Christ to the test and exclaims
— ** I know whom I have believed."

Ours is an age in which the growth and
power of the sentiment of the common peo-
ple is being recognized as never before.
Such a sentiment will more and more be
based upon the consciousness of a world
brotherhood. The consciousness is already
here, and in the presence of the greatest war
of history, an international conscience is be-
ing awakened. No man liveth unto him-
self. We share in the sin, the shame and in
the consequences of the tragedy. In other
words, the recognition of a true nationalism
is coming, in which fundamental unities are
emerging and international obligations will
be adequately emphasized. Back of all this
is a recognition of the fact that ** humanity
is broader than nationality," and brother-
hood deeper than citizenship.

Ours is a century which while it empha-
sizes doctrine rather than dogma, and catho-

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 57

licity rather than creed, will not lose sight of
essential truth. We are entering an age in
which the true symphony will be a mind in
sympathy with the truth, a heart attuned to
the welfare of humanity, and a soul in har-
mony with the will of God. We live in an age
of unparallelled opportunity. Its interpreta-
tion is in terms of unprecedented reponsibil-
ity. The forces that make for good, on the
one hand, are building individual life and
national destiny into new forms and a new
order. The forces that make for evil, on the
other, are threatening the very foundations
of society and of our civilization. We are
stirred by the one ; we are solemnized by the
other. The sense of mission and of oppor-
tunity brings us to our feet and impels to
action. The sense of peril and of responsi-
bility forces us to our knees and to prayer.

There is in it all a reminder of an Alpine
experience of George Adam Smith. With
great difficulty he had climbed the Weiss-
horn overhanging the Zermatt valley. Only
a few feet remained. With a sense of ex-
hilaration which the successful ascent of such
heights alone can give, he made a final and
almost superhuman effort and sprang upon
the pinnacle. There was nothing but the
blue dome of heaven above, and the clear

58 THE KINGDOM OF GOD

attenuated ether about him. It was a mo-
ment of supreme exultation, for the shoulders
of the gigantic mountain range lay at his
feet ; but his faithful guide shouted, " Upon
your knees, sir, upon your knees ! It is
perilous to stand there ; you are safe only
upon your knees."

An almost superhuman task lies before us.
We must get its true perspective. The world
must be won for Christ — the world of mate-
rial forces and of men. With Him there is
no secular. It is all religious. It is all
the Kingdom of our God. Let us all have
a share in it. We have reverently prayed,
"Thy Kingdom Come," and it does come
silently, but with power. Fields of activity
lie about us on every side. Possibilities of
conquest and achievement in nature and in
grace are at our feet and stretch beyond the
horizon. A sense of exhilaration rather than
of mission comes over us. Can we stand
here? It is perilous. We need to pray a
prayer that has infinite reach to it — the
prayer that to our personality be added the
mighty plus of another Personality. It is
Christ we supremely need, for *' He is God :
God breaking out of the spiritual realm and
descending from the height of His greatness."
He is God descending into the valley of suf-

THE KINGDOM OF GOD 59

fering and of death to lead us to the rescue
of lost and sinful men. Without Him our
civilization, our mission and our Christianity
will utterly fail. With Him victory is as-
sured for with His coming, into your life
and mine, there comes the Kingdom of God.

LECTURE II

THE HOLY SPIRIT :
GOD SEEKING MAN

LECTURE II

THE HOLY SPIRIT : GOD SEEKING

MAN

GOD through His Spirit is searching
for men. He needs men to whom
He can impart His truth, and who
can be trusted to deUver His message in
terms of sympathy and power. This does
not mean that God depends upon the wisdom
of man, or the power of man. He distinctly
says that not many wise are chosen, and that
it is not by might nor by power. He seeks
those who are willing and have capacity for
faith. The difference in faith between men
is the difference between a telescope with a
six inch objective and one of sixty in power
to search the heavens and to bring forth orbs
of light from the dark and fathomless recesses
of the sky. If the Spirit of God sought such
men as Elijah and Paul, Luther and Wesley,
why should not we, in our endeavour to win
the world, deliberately ally ourselves with the
Spirit in the search for those who are seeking
God, who are waiting for Him and are ready
to do His will. It is those who are open to
63

64 THE HOLY SPIRIT

the Spirit — those who can become spirit-filled
— who will best pioneer the way of the King-
dom for generations to come.

" The history of speculative philosophy
shows one long search of man after God ; the
revelation of the Bible shows one long search
of God for man. God's first question to man
with which begins the wonderful story of His
concern for the race is, * Where art thou ? ' " ^

The Holy Spirit is a Person ; the creative
energy of the universe, the executive of the
Godhead. The Holy Spirit is the great
pioneer of missions. He it is who has out-
lined the missionary program, given direc-
tion to it, and put meaning into it. He
searches for men who may become the de-
pository for God's thought and instruments
of God's power. He expresses Himself
through men, and delivers Himself upon the
individual and upon the race.

The Holy Spirit administers the Kingdom,
carries forward the divine purpose, times
events, brings men together through wonder-
ful providences, and prepares men, peoples
and nations for the Gospel. The Holy Spirit
not only accompanies the missionary, but
precedes him. The Karens were a people

^ Bishop E. R. Hendrix, " The Personality of the Holy
Spirit," p. 5.

GOD SEEKING MAN 65

providentially prepared for the missionary ;
the Hawaiians were in the act of abolishing
the tabu and of destroying their fetishes when
the first missionaries landed ; the Koreans
are an outstanding illustration of a nation
wrought upon by the Holy Spirit from the
opening of the Hermit Kingdom to missions
to the day of the great revival. Joseph
Neesima, when only a lad, was found of God
in his home in Japan, while Samuel Crowther
was led, by a series of wonderful providences,
out of slavery and witchcraft into a ministry
of service which demonstrated the intelligent,
purposeful leadings of the Spirit of God.

It was the Holy Spirit who prepared the
way and timed the hour for Pentecost — '' the
real starting point of Christianity." He
brought Peter and Cornelius together — when
Jew and Gentile were as far apart as the
poles ; set the feet of Philip the evangelist in
the way of the Ethiopian enquirer ; and
opened the heart of Lydia at Philippi to
attend unto the things which were spoken of
Paul.

The coming of the Holy Spirit was to the
apostles and to the Church a guarantee of
the ultimate triumph of the Gospel which
had been committed to them. In the final
struggle with nature and evil spirits a divine

66 THE HOLY SPIRIT

energy was needed concentrated in a divine
person and yet transcending all the limitations
of incarnate life. It was the Paraclete of
whom Jesus spoke when He said : " But
when the Comforter is come, whom I will
send unto you from the Father, even the
Spirit of truth, who proceedeth from the
Father, He shall testify of Me."

The Holy Spirit is immanent among men.
He is the source of life, of power and the
transmitter of God's gifts. The incarnation
of Jesus, of which He was the immediate
agent, has demonstrated how the Holy Spirit
works with and in behalf of the Son, and has
found expression in a marvellous way through
Him, and through those who believe in Him.
It was through the Holy Spirit that Jesus
received His divine credentials at baptism ;
was led in the Spirit into the wilderness to be
tempted ; returned victorious by the power
of the Spirit ; began His ministry with the
anointing of the Spirit, gave commandments
to His disciples through Him, designated
Him as the Promise of the Father and pledged
the enduement of power to the apostles when
the descent of the Holy Spirit should be made.
This pledge was fulfilled upon the day of
Pentecost, ten days subsequently.

The Holy Spirit is therefore no mere efflu-

GOD SEEKING MAN 67

ence. His personality is a reality. He is
God realized and interpreted, not in terms
of the flesh, but in terms of the Spirit. He
is Christ, in and through whom the love of
God, the truth of God, and the life-giving
power of the eternal God have been mani-
fested. He is the third person of the God-
head, very and eternal God.

" The Holy Spirit is distinctly and exclu-
sively the messenger and representative of
the Son, and undertakes nothing apart from
Him, or outside of the limits of His media-
torial life and work. He is at one with the
Son as the Son is with the Father, and as
entirely given to do the will of Him that sent
Him as is the Son. ' He shall not speak of
Himself,' said Christ ; ' but whatsoever He
shall hear, that shall He speak. . . . He
shall glorify Me : for He shall receive of
Mine, and shall show it unto you.' The
vague conception of a benignant spiritual
influence operating upon the hearts of men,
as the fitful breezes of summer move upon
their oppressed and languid frames, without
distinct purpose or method, is thoroughly
disposed of by this sharply defined commis-
sion to personal service in exclusive relation
to the purpose and work of the Son of God." *

^ Bishop Alpheus W. Wilson, « The Witnesses to Christ," p. 178.

68 THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Holy Spirit has it in His power not
only to inspire men, to give and to record a
revelation of God, but to strengthen and
energize men for the constructive work of
organization and leadership in the extension
of the Kingdom of God. If the Spirit of God
could bestow upon Abraham the gift of faith,
upon Moses the gift of leadership, upon Paul
the gift of interpreting the mind of Christ and
of pioneering the way for the Gospel, He
has equally called such men as Swartz and
Duff in India, Griffith John and Hudson
Taylor in China, and Bishop Honda of
Japan.

The missionary program is not yet com-
plete. Why not search for and expect, pray
and diligently work for the finding and the
development of faithful and courageous men
and women who shall do great exploits for
their God ?

Every great movement, human or divine,
if carried to completion, must have adequate
leadership. The best of human plans may
fail from the lack of a great leader. There
can be no failure in God's plan. The Holy
Spirit is the divinely appointed leader in the
world's evangelization. His leadership is
adequate. He is untrammelled in this His
dispensation, save by the unbelief of man.

GOD SEEKING MAN 69

The limitations that were upon Jesus by-
virtue of His humanity are removed in the
case of the Holy Spirit. He is not confined
to any geographical area, but can pioneer
the way in every land. He can be personally
present, draw the bolts of every door, strike
the shackles from every limb, make personal
intercession for every saint and sinner, inter-
pret God's thought to every seeker after
truth, and bear witness with every child of
God that Jesus is able to save, has saved, and
does now save from sin unto the power of an
endless life.

The heroine of South Africa, Mrs. Robert
MofTat, had remarkable insight into the
method of work of the Holy Spirit. A dili-
gent student of the Scriptures and a close ob-
server of men, she reached the conclusion
that spiritual processes were at work beneath
the surface of human life, unseen and un-
realized even in the remote places of the
earth.

** We have solid reason to believe," she
writes in a letter, " that there are many per-
sons who are the subjects of an abiding con-
viction of their position as sinners before God,
and are in the constant and diligent use of
the means of grace, which we doubt not will
be effectual through the Spirit in leading

70 THE HOLY SPIRIT

them to the Saviour of sinners. The Spirit
of God has commenced His operations and
surely He will go on."

Dr. Howard Agnew Johnson gives a beau-
tiful illustration of the silent ongoing of the
work of the Spirit in the human heart. It is
a man's search for God, and God's revealing
Himself to a man in the person of a governor
of a remote province in Siam. A missionary
who had heard something of the facts sought
an audience that he might have the expe-
rience of this distinguished yet humble be-
liever. As he entered the grounds of the
palace he saw a venerable man through the
trees standing on the veranda, with his wife
by his side. At the approach of the visitors
they exclaimed, " Hosanna, Hosanna."

The story was as follows : Many years
before while mending a broken idol he called
his wife's attention to the human hand and
how much greater it was than those lifeless
images. They agreed it was absurd to con-
tinue such worship so they destroyed the
idols, returned to the empty room and began
without book or guide to worship the greatest
being in the universe. This they continued
for thirty years, ** if haply they might feel
after Him and find Him."

The passing of a colporteur through the

GOD SEEKING MAN 7 1

province, with Bibles for sale, secured for him
the very Word of God. Together the de-
vout couple read the sacred writings. Upon
reaching the passage in the Acts of the Apos-
tles where Paul's sermon on Mars Hill is
recorded and where he addressed those who
worshipped before the altar of the unknown
God, he exclaimed, " We have been living in
Athens for thirty years." Urged by his
people to give them a statement of his faith,
he wrote it down and taking it from a litde
box he read it to the missionary as follows,
" I believe in God the Father, who made all
things. I believe in Jesus Christ the Son of
God as my Saviour. I believe in the Hoty
Ghost as my Comforter and teacher."

God, through His Spirit, has ever been
seeking to make Himself known to man.
He employs various methods to reach and
influence men, but seems to adjust His
method of approach to primitive people in
ways that may best reach untutored minds.

Warneck, after years of study of animistic
religions in the Indian archipelago, remarks,
*' God often influences the inner life of the
heathen by dreams and visions in such a
manner that all psychological explanations
leave something inexplicable. The function
of these is to point to the Gospel, as yet litde

72 THE HOLY SPIRIT

heeded." These phenomena have been so
constant, so wide-spread, so powerful in turn-
ing men and entire communities to God,
and have fallen under the observation of so
many reliable witnesses that they can neither
be discredited nor ignored. In the Battak
Mission, the attention of not a few heathen
was drawn to Christianity through dreams.
The Kols are said to have dreamed of the
coming of missionaries long before they ar-
rived. It is recorded that the savage head
hunters on the island of Nias were led to ac-
cept Christianity through a dream.

A Norwegian missionary reports the ex-
perience of an old man among the Santals as
follows : — In a dream, a man appeared to
him and said : '' Go from thy village to a
place which I shall show thee ; thou wilt find
something which thou wilt take to the mis-
sionary, and he will explain it to thee.
Thereby thou wilt receive life ; and then thou
wilt bring it to others." He went to the
place by night, and after long waiting found
a piece of written paper, which he carried to
the missionary. It was a Christian Santal
poem, and this the missionary used to ex-
pound to him the message of salvation. He
came to Christ and laboured to bring his vil-
lage to the truth.

GOD SEEKING MAN 73

The Karens in northern Burmah give an-
other illustration of God's dealings with a
primitive people. A tradition among them,
originating in a dream, had assume^ the na-
ture of a prediction, that their enlightenment
would some day come through white men
who would restore the "word of Ywah"
(God), which they had lost. An humble
Karen, converted while in the service of
Doctor Judson, became an apostle to his
people — the famous Ko-thay-byu. With the
thrilling news that the long expected teacher
had come, they flocked from every section of
their hill country to hear him, and thousands
embraced the Christian faith.

Fifty years ago, on the China coast, a junk
entering the mouth of the Yangtse River was
boarded by robbers. The sailors were killed
or thrown into the sea. A young man by
the name of Hu, son of a Tientsin merchant,
leaped overboard, swam to the shore and
made his way to Shanghai. While passing
the door of a chapel in the walled city his at-
tention was attracted by a sermon from Rev.
J. W. Lambuth which led to his conversion.
For five years he preached with the mission-
ary along the canals and on the rice junks
near the city of Suchow. Returning to
Tientsin an effective evangelist, he was

74 THE HOLY SPIRIT

preaching in a street chapel when a vener-
able Chinaman entered, listened eagerly and
at the close of the service told his story. A
Buddhist in early life, his idols gave him no
comfort. Later he became a Confucianist,
but failed to realize God. He yearned for
Hght, but there seemed to be none for him.
He wanted God, but knew not where to find
Him. But God wanted him, and in a dream,
which seemed more like a vision, he was im-
pressed that he must set out on foot for
Tientsin, a journey of many miles. There he
would find a man who could tell him about
God. Arrived in the city he had wandered
from place to place, until he entered the
chapel. At once he realized the fulfillment
of his dream. Here he was to find God. He
did find Him, for his acceptance of Christ was
immediate and joyful. Mr. Hu returned
with his friend, *' assuredly gathering that the
Lord had called him to preach the Gospel in
Laoling. From that single household as a
centre, the great Laoling work spread in
ever-widening circles until scores of villages
accepted the Gospel.

Warneck in reviewing this subject makes
the following comment : '* God, Uke a wise
teacher, condescends to the childlike thought
of uncivilized man, that He may tell him, in

GOD SEEKING MAN 75

a way he can understand, things which he
would otherwise hardly accept. We cannot
fully explain these soul-processes without the
thought of the divine influence working there.
We must not banish such experiences to the
realm of fable ; they are too well attested and
they are met with everywhere among animis-
tic peoples with considerable regularity.
Neither must we overestimate them. They
have nothing more than a preparatory sig-
nificance ; they lead no further than to the
door of the Gospel. Like other divine re-
minders, they may be disregarded ; they may
also be misinterpreted and abused. In such
divinely influenced processes of soul, which
have abundant parallels in the Old and New
Testaments, we see the sway of God, whose
sovereign hand interposes in the destiny of
men and turns their hearts like the water-
brooks." '

" To the African," says Mr. Dan Crawford,
** a dream is an av ant- courier from to-mor-
row, a whisper out of eternity for the guidance
of men. Farther east I came across a proof
of this. Coming out of the grass, I met a
band of solemn looking men with a curious
old-world look in their faces. Wonder of

1 Warneck, " The Living Christ and Dying Heathenism,"
p. 182.

76 THE HOLY SPIRIT

wonders, they were a * dream embassy,' said
they ; had travelled a long way and were on
foot on a kind of missionary journey from
one chief to another, his friend and faithful
ally of years. A ' dream embassy,' mark you,
God having spoken to their chief in a great
dream ; and the solemnity of it all had so
sunk into the monarch's soul that he sent off
these missionaries of his dream to warn his
dear friend, a brother-king, of the ways of
God with man.

** So serious is this dream-telling that they
have coined a special verb (Lotolwela), *to
expound a dream.' Not in the temper of
mere expediency did I listen to their sacred
story, the African tete-a-tete with the Infinite,
men on the march for many miles, their theme,
God ! God I God I Picture me there a dazed
missionary listening to these dream-tellers —
listening and wondering — listening and won-
dering— as with uplifted hands they point
skywards and paint it all so vividly. Telling
me of the stately goings of God in their far-
away marsh ; how that He challenged their
king as to his dignity ; how that the king re-
sponded with his long array of titles ; and
how that the more he vaunted before God the
less did his strength become. Yet again and
again did God so ask him who he was, and

GOD SEEKING MAN 77

just SO often did their king make this foolish
boast of dignity — only to find his strength
oozing out of his body. But just as, in
painting, light is brought out by shade, so
this king learned the secret of power from
this very secret of weakness. For finally God
said He ' would make an end,' and this word
* end ' was the beginning of bliss. Said the
monarch: 'King? No king am I, but a
worthless slave. All Kingship is Thine and
all power I ' Then it was the wondrous tide
of power flowed back into his body : the
weakling now a giant ; the abject a strong
man, made strong out of weakness.

" Mere dream though it was, it has sol-
emnly crystallized into dogma, and here am
I, a missionary, stumbling across these other
' dream-missionaries ' in the grass. In our
zeal for God's written record we are too apt
to treat all this as a weird and doubtful busi-
ness— mere misty dream. Forgetful of the
fact that God's own book it is that declares,
' In a dream ... He openeth the ears
of men.' Forgetful, likewise, that if Eng-
land does not get these divine dreams it is
because England, a land full of Bibles, does not
need them. Forgetful, finally, that God may
speak to those to whom He does not write." *

^ Dan Crawford, «' Thinking Black," p. 57.

78 THE HOLY SPIRIT

The world is to be won by making man
think God's thoughts. Intellectualism with-
out religion is perilous to the individual, to
society and to the State. Religion without
intelligence quickly degenerates into super-
stition and immorality. History is replete
with illustrations of the evils of intellectualism
without moral character and religion. As to
the latter there are many tribes and primitive
races whose traditions and folk-lore indicate
the existence in the past of a higher form of
religious faith, but the lack of reverent thought
and of intelligent obedience has led to de-
generate religious conceptions.

The ungodly man will not think because
he dare not. His sin confronts him. The
heathen does not think because he cannot, he
has lost the power. But man must think
or he is lost. The Holy Spirit, who has
been styled the Thinker of the Godhead,
seeks men and sets them to thinking by
a divine compulsion. He it is who reveals,
inspires, and compels to thought by the very
force of His character. ** Man never thinks
as when the Spirit of God holds him with
some great truth." It is the seed of truth
dropped in the soil of the unregenerate heart
warmed and energized by the Spirit which
leads to an awakening from death to life. It

GOD SEEKING MAN 79

is the function of the Holy Spirit to convict
of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.
The whole process is a compulsion of man's
thought, a thinking of God's thought, a
quickening of conscience and the true re-
pentance which leads to the re-creation of the
life of the soul.

The Holy Spirit sets man to praying be-
cause He is the great Intercessor. He teaches
to pray. He prompts the offering of prayer
and supplication. He selects the object for
intercession, and when we do not know what
to pray for as we ought, maketh intercession
for us with groanings which cannot be ut-
tered.

The Holy Spirit sets man to planning be-
cause He is the Administrator of the King-
dom of God. Human plans are short-sighted.
They lack reach and power. They often fail
of their objective. Time and strength are
wasted in the multiplication of machinery or
in premature efforts put forth in haste. We
need to give the Holy Spirit time and liberty.
It is He who is able to see the end from the
beginning. He is the consummate organizer
of the universe and has been entrusted with
every detail in the advancement of the King-
dom. To rush in advance of His movement
is foolhardy, to fall to the rear and lose sight

8o THE HOLY SPIRIT

of His footsteps is perilous. Man's place is
that of intelligent study of God's plans, sym-
pathetic cooperation with His purpose, and a
reverent, prayerful alliance with Him who is
both Administrator and Intercessor. Into
His hands have been committed as a trust
the spiritual forces upon which depend the
welfare and development of a redeemed
humanity — here and hereafter.

Forbidden by the East India Company to
make a home in India, the Judsons were
compelled to sail for Rangoon, Burma, a
Providence which they could not then under-
stand. Here, " remote, unfriended and bereft
of every stay but heaven," they passed nearly
two years before assurance came that the
American Baptists had agreed to establish a
Mission and had committed themselves to
their support. Out of these circumstances,
over which neither they nor any one else
seemed to have control, came the formation
of a Baptist Board of Missions. The shaping
hand belonged to God. "The honour of
commencing the Burman Mission," wrote
Professor Gammel, '' is to be ascribed rather
to the Divine Head of the Church, than to
any leading movement or agency of the
Baptist denomination." Thus the later
chapters of the history of the work of the

GOD SEEKING MAN 8 1

Holy Spirit in the Church are being written
in the Hves of faithful believers, and the record
is just as much a miracle of the transforming
presence and power of the Holy Spirit as in
the days of the Apostolic Church.

The case of Barnabas Shaw is another
striking illustration of the agency of the Holy
Spirit as the Pioneer of missions. He landed
in Cape Town in 1815. The Dutch were
intolerant, and denied him permission to
preach the Gospel. Buying a yoke of oxen
and a wagon, he and his wife trekked into
the interior with their little earthly store,
not knowing where they should establish a
mission, but looking to the Lord for guidance.
They journeyed three hundred miles, and on
the twenty-seventh day stopped for the night.
The camp-fires of a company of natives, near
by, attracted attention. To Shaw's astonish-
ment it was a band of pagan Hottentots, led
by their chief, who were on their way to the
Cape in quest of a missionary to teach them
*♦ the Great Word."

" Had either party started a half-day earlier
or later they would not have met ; but as it
was, they met just in the nick of time, and
that nick of time proved such a juncture of
Providence as has rarely occurred in the
history of God's Church. What is this

82 THE HOLY SPIRIT

but a modern chapter of the Acts of the
Apostles?"'

After God had declared Himself through
Jesus Christ to be the Father of spirits, could
He be contented with the revelation of Him-
self as an impersonal force ? That would
have been to fall back again upon law, and
the deadening influence of soulless power.
It was necessary that the incarnation and
epiphany of the Son of God should be suc-
ceeded by the knowledge of the personality
and epiphany of the Holy Spirit. Without
Him the apostles could not do the " greater
things than these " which the Master had
promised. To deny the personality and to
withhold the epiphany of the Holy Spirit
would have been to risk the collapse of the
whole enterprise of preaching the Gospel to
every creature. That enterprise is a per-
sonally conducted one, or nothing. He who
leads is no other than the Person who was
manifested at Pentecost, at Caesarea, and at
Ephesus. It is He who has been manifesting
Himself on every occasion and in every place
where men and women, devoted to the one
work of winning the world, have sought His
presence. His seal should be set to their
prayers and to the work of their hands.

1 A. J. Gordon, " The Holy Spirit in Missions," p. 96.

GOD SEEKING MAN 83

The apostles wrote, and wrought, and
lived, " in a very atmosphere of power, so
supreme was the consciousness that God
dwelt graciously within, and was moving
omnipotently without." For them to real-
ize God's presence through the ministry of
the Holy Spirit, was to create and extend an
atmosphere of grace and power to all men —
the grace of Jesus Christ in the offer of re-
demption to every man, and the power of
Jesus Christ to give life to all the world. If
these possibilities were made available to
the aposdes through the mercy and the love
of God, they can and should be availed of
by the appropriating faith and loving obedi-
ence of every man. To fail to appropriate
such gifts and to extend them to others is to
fail in our conception of what true brother-
hood and aposdeship mean.

In a study of the apostolic age we are not
justified in the conclusion that the gift of
the Holy Spirit was to be confined to that
age. Pentecost, it is true, stands back there
like some headland marking the fringe of a
great continent of grace and of spiritual
power. It inaugurated the dispensation of
the Holy Spirit, but we are in the midst of
that dispensation. Those were days in which
signs and wonders were needed. That need

84 THE HOLY SPIRIT

may have passed away, but the great pur-
pose of God remains. His grace is undi-
minished, His power is not exhausted, and
the miracle of transformed lives is as signif-
icant and as great as in the earlier centuries.
The need of the Holy Spirit is greater if we
would measure that need by the openness to
the Gospel upon the part of the nations ; and
of enduement upon the part of the Church
for the consummation of the task.

** Nothing," writes William Arthur, "can be
more contrary to the whole spirit and genius
of a revealed religion than that the progress
of years and events should be coupled with a
diminishing amount of divine life and grace
among men. All things promise us prog-
ress, not retrogression. No principle of
Christianity, and no passage of the Chris-
tian Scriptures, warrants the expectation that
the system is to decline with age, and to
grow dim before its day ends." ^

Not only has the Holy Spirit been silently
but surely at work in the world among the
nations in all ages, but there is an increasing
manifestation of His presence and of the
divine life and power in these last days.
We have not only the promise of progress,
but the signs and signals of God's provi-

» William Arthur, " The Tongue of Fire," p. II2.

GOD SEEKING MAN 85

dence. Man's prayer has been preceded
by God's preparation. Expectation is in the
air and wide-spread. God's power is being
released in many fields and His Spirit is
flowing through many channels. Now, let
there be a fulfillment of the Scripture, " Thy
people shall be willing in the day of Thy
power."

The story of the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit upon the Church in Uganda is but an
illustration of the unloosing of spiritual forces
in other fields. So deeply had Pilkington
come to feel the dearth of results, and the
need of a divine reenforcement, that he re-
tired to Kome, an island in Victoria Nyanza
Lake. There, for a few days, he spent the
time in searching the Scriptures and in sup-
plication. The immediate occasion of his
distress and self-examination was the experi-
ence of Musa, a native convert, who had re-
quested that he be reported to the church as
having returned to heathenism. Upon being
asked if he understood what he was doing,
he replied, " Do you think I have been read-
ing seven years and do not understand ?
Your religion does not profit me at all. I
have done with it."

It was a terrific home thrust. Pilkington,
the successor of Mackay, a Cambridge Uni-

86 THE HOLY SPIRIT

versity graduate who had won a place " in
the highest division of the Classical Tripos
of his year," and was an able translator of
the Bible into both the Luganda and Swahili,
had not learned the secret of power — the
most important secret in the life of any
Christian worker, and especially a mission-
ary. Speaking of it several years later at
a great meeting of students in Liverpool, he
gives this simple, straightforward account of
it:

** If it had not been that God enabled me,
after three years in the mission field, to ac-
cept by faith the gift of the Holy Spirit, I
should have given up the work. I could not
have gone on as I was then. A book by
David, the Tamil evangelist, showed me my
life was not right ; that I had not the power
of the Holy Ghost. I had consecrated my-
self hundreds of times, but I had not accepted
God's gift. I saw now that God commanded
me to be filled with the Spirit. Then I read,
' All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for,
believe that ye have received them, and ye
shall have them,' and claiming this promise,
I received the Holy Spirit."

What followed the renewal of the spiri-
tual life of this missionary, of whom Bishop
Keener once said, '' He is, perhaps, the best

GOD SEEKING MAN 87

illustration in modern missions of the work
and power of the Holy Spirit " ? He returned
from Kome and gave his experience. The
missionaries who heard pledged themselves
to pray for the same gift. The following
morning the native church was assembled.
Pilkington again told the story of his own
sense of need, of heart hunger, and of God's
wonderful supply through His Spirit. Nor
did he hide from the congregation the pur-
pose of the disappointed Musa to turn his
back upon Christianity. He confessed the
shame of it all, accepted his share of respon-
sibility and called the church to prayer. The
effect was electrical. Hundreds were on
their knees confessing their sins and praying
for forgiveness. Confession was followed by
surrender, by acceptance of Christ and of the
gift of the Holy Spirit. For more than four
hours this continued. Other services were
set for that day and the next. Five hundred
were at the sunrise prayer-meeting next
morning, and two hundred remained to the
after meeting for special inquiry. Sunday
was a great day. They were in the midst of
a sweeping revival which was characterized
by public confession of sin and acceptance of
divine grace. Among the number were sev-
eral chiefs, and the Katakiro, or Prime Min-

88 THE HOLY SPIRIT

ister. Musa, himself, was restored to his
faith.

It was the repentance unto the remission
of sins of which Peter spoke at Pentecost and
the fulfillment of his words — '* And ye shall
receive the Holy Spirit. For to you is the
promise and to your children, and to all that
are afar off, even as many as the Lord our
God shall call unto Him."

In Ezekiel the vision of the valley of dry
bones is followed by the vision of the holy
waters. Out from the invisible sanctuary
and from under the threshold of the habita-
tion of God's Spirit, the waters flowed in
ever enriching streams. ** And everything
shall live whither the river cometh."

How beautiful an illustration of this river
of spiritual life does the traveller find in the
Nile. The great river of Egypt threads its
way out of the unseen, and for centuries the
unknown, and winds ribbon-like through the
long narrow valley for hundreds of miles.
Back in the heart of the mysterious African
continent is the immense lake and the inex-
haustible springs, from which it draws its
supply. From the perennial swelling of
those fountains rolls the rich tide through
desert wastes, by burning sands, temple
ruins and buried cities, until in green fields

GOD SEEKING MAN 89

and growing gardens the heart of man is
made glad. Where once was parched and
arid ground one may now ride through acres
of wheat and clover and along '* avenues of
tamarisk, fig trees and acacia," and following
on watch the great stream empty itself by
many mouths into the blue sea.

It is a figure of the River of Life — the
River of God. ** And everything shall live
whither the river cometh." Inflow from
above, ankle deep, knee deep, loin deep,
risen waters, " waters to swim in, a river that
could not be passed over," — sweeping along
majestically in its might. Overflow on every
side, through sluice gates and open channels,
over land and waiting fields, until the seed
sown beside all waters yields the abundant
harvest. " We are on the flood side of Pen-
tecost." The tide is rising, and the harvest
is near. The victory of faith shall be re-
peated. The impulse of a new life has come
because of the overflow of the Spirit.

It took power for William Carey to go
down into the pit, but Jesus said, ** Ye shall
receive power," and he went down with only
one man, Andrew Fuller, to hold the ropes.
It took power for Bishop Pattison to give his
life to evangelize a lot of Melanesian sav-
ages, but his Lord said, " Ye shall receive

90 THE HOLY SPIRIT

power," and he sacrificed his life with five
bleeding wounds received at their hands. It
took power for a young physician to give up
his professional ambitions, but *' Ye shall re-
ceive power," said the Great Physician, and
he went forth to seek and to save the lost,
and Nixon stricken by yellow fever yielded
up his life in Mexico. It took power for a
great-hearted woman, the centre of a circle
of devoted friends, to surrender a position as
an educator that any one might covet, but
Laura Haygood believed in the words of the
world's greatest Teacher, received power, and
spent her life for China's women and chil-
dren, saying, ** Wherever there is a soul
without Christ there is my mission field."
It takes power for a rich young man to lay
down his wealth at Jesus' feet and follow
Him ; but " Ye shall receive power " are the
answering words of the great Master of men,
and young William Borden surrendered his
millions cheerfully, and threw himself into
the fight with Zwemer in Cairo against the
Mohammedan advance and followed in the
martyrs' train.

** The power, after all, by which we are to
work in this effort to accomplish, as far as we
may, God's purpose in the world, is the
power of the Holy Ghost. It is not in the

GOD SEEKING MAN 91

truths, stupendous as they are ; it is not in
the facts, transcendent as they are ; it is not
in the tender and terrible solemnity and
pathos of the Cross of Christ, even ; it is in
the power of the Holy Ghost given unto
us." '

The personal superintendence by the Holy
Spirit of the missionary work of the Apostolic
Church was a notable and unique feature of
that work. The leaders in the movement
recognized it, and yielded themselves to His
guiding personality. "And as they minis-
tered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Spirit
said. Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the
work whereunto I have called them. . . .
So they, being sent forth by the Holy Spirit,
went down to Seleucia ; and from thence
they sailed to Cyprus." He vigorously pro-
moted their itineration on ever expanding
circles, or effectively hindered their efforts to
enter fields that were not ready.

They adjusted themselves to a divinely
ordered policy which was not so much to
have them move along the lines of least re-
sistance, as to enter fields providentially pre-
pared ; make use of trade routes and military
roads; occupy, as a part of missionary
strategy, centres of population with Jewish

» R. S. Storrs, " Addresses on Foreign Missions."

92 THE HOLY SPIRIT

colonies and synagogues as a base for opera-
tions ; and from those centres evangelize the
provincial towns and rural sections.

The record is that Paul and his companions
went throughout the region of Phrygia and
Galatia, but being prevented by the Holy
Spirit from evangelizing in Asia and Bithynia,
they came down to Troas. Here the vision
was given in which a man of Macedonia ap-
peared to Paul, beseeching him, and saying,
*' Come over into Macedonia and help us."

There was no hesitation. These men were
sensitive to the touch of God. "Straight-
way," says the historian of that wonderful
hour pregnant with possibilities for the
Roman empire, and for nations yet in the
womb of the future, ** Straightway, we sought
to go forth into Macedonia, concluding that
God had called us to preach the Gospel unto
them."

It is the more remarkable that the progress
of these missionaries should have been west-
ward instead of towards the Orient. But
others of the apostolic group were intended
for service in the East. Paul, the Roman
citizen, had been providentially prepared for
leadership in the West. Intelligently guided
by the Spirit along the great highways of
the nations, away from the cults and mys-

GOD SEEKING MAN 93

ticism of the Asiatic continent, he pressed
forward to the capitals of the younger and
more vigorous nations, where, it is true,
heathenism was intrenched, but from which,
as organized centres of administrative and
civic Hfe, the Gospel might the more rapidly
and effectively be propagated.

Pilkington after the revival in Uganda
made a survey of that field and the methods
adopted. He reached the conclusion that a
policy of missionary occupation should be
apostolic in following the leadership of the
Holy Spirit, rather than a hard and fast
prearranged program. He argued that mis-
sionary and native evangelists should go, if
there was any choice, where communities
were open and desirous of hearing, rather
than spending years in indifferent and hostile
sections. In the latter a large measure of the
time and strength of the missionary force
might be wasted, the native church lose the
inspiration of growth and progress, and the
home church be saved from long delay and
discouragement in waiting for results. A
sad commentary on the home church, but
has it not always been the least heroic ?

His argument so profoundly impressed the
missionaries of the Church Missionary Society
in India that with magnificent generosity

94 THE HOLY SPIRIT

they urged the sending of a strong contingent
to Uganda rather than to their own field. It
was to meet a demand clearly created by the
Spirit of God working in the native church,
the fires upon the altar of which were begin-
ning to spread into a flame of evangelism.

This was the policy which led to the open-
ing by the Methodist Episocopal Church,
South, of a mission in Korea, and in certain
sections of China by the China Inland Mis-
sion. Had such been more widely adopted in
other fields, far greater progress might have
been made in creating centres of spiritual
rather than human activity, and in the estab-
lishment of self-supporting and self-propagat-
ing churches under a native leadership. And
yet this cannot be pushed too far. There
have been times when it was necessary to
capture and hold centres where heathenism
has been entrenched for ages and has seemed
immovable. Siege guns and not field artil-
lery, infantry rather than flying squadrons,
are required for such w^ork. Time is an
element. The lesson to the missionary strate-
gist is that he must, in all things, seek to
know the mind of Christ and to be led of the
Holy Spirit.

When religious faith loses touch with the
Spirit of God the perennial source of life, it

GOD SEEKING MAN 95

ceases to have a vital experience, and be-
comes powerless to transmit the divine energy
to a world of dead souls. This is true of the
Church in any age. It is no longer a con-
ductor. Ceasing to be a charged wire, it has
become a dead one. There is but one
remedy — not the rehabilitation of the Church,
but the restoration of the connection with the
spiritual dynamo which is the source of power.
Then will Christianity be given a message,
the Church furnish the messenger, and the
Spirit of the living God accompany both with
the illuminating and quickening power of
His presence.

It was a Personal Dynamic that roused the
soul of Savonarola, awakened the gigantic
energies of Martin Luther, and kindled the
fires of a new evangelism in the heart of
Wesley. Fitchett, in writing of conditions in
the United Kingdom prior to the great evan-
gelical revival, says that religion was ** ex-
hausted of its dynamic elements — the vision
of a redeeming Christ ; the message of a
present and personal forgiveness. . . .
Religion translated into terms of living hu-
man experience, and dwelling as a divine
energy in the soul, was a forgotten thing.
An electric lamp without the electric current
is a mere loop of calcined fibres, black and

96 THE HOLY SPIRIT

dead. And Christianity itself, in England, at
the beginning of the eighteenth century, was
exactly such a circle of dead fibres. What
Wesley did was to pour the mystic current of
a divine life through the calcined soul of a
nation, and so turn blackness into flame." *
That current was the Spirit of the living God
working in and through Wesley to the
quickening of a nation and the stirring of a
world.

As we follow the luminous track of the
Spirit of God in revelation, in history and in
missions, we find the purpose and plan for
His Kingdom ever expanding, ever moving
forward. It was a spring of cool water at
Bethlehem, but that spring has become a
majestic river which sweeps every shore and
waters the ends of the earth. It was a root
out of a dry ground at Nazareth, but that
root has grown into a mighty tree under the
branches of which the nations may find
shelter. It was the finest of the wheat which
died on Calvary, but out of death came a
resurrection in the power of which millions
rejoice, to-day, in the hope of eternal life. It
was a company of humble Christians at An-
tioch, but two of them were set apart by the
Holy Spirit for the first great missionary jour-

1 Fitchett, «* Wesley and His Century," p. 7.

GOD SEEKING MAN 97

ney, and one became the Apostle to the Gentile
world, preaching the Gospel in the palace of
the Caesars. It was a little group of Chris-
tian students of Williams College who met
one hundred years ago under a haystack for
prayer — their leader, Samuel J. Mills, himself
the product of a revival. To-day, out of one
movement alone, which had its inspiration
back there, over six thousand young men and
women are in the foreign field, and tens of
thousands are leagued together in the Morn-
ing Watch, and in intercessory prayer, that
the claims of the Son of God shall be pressed
upon all men until He comes in His glory as
the all-conquering Christ.

Charles Cuthbert Hall seemed to feel the
mighty efflatus of the Spirit when he uttered
the words: **The divine Spirit is moving
mightily. Searchings of heart are every-
where. A glorious vision of God has swept
like sunlight across the field of thought. The
influence of religion upon university life is
unprecedented. Universities of the West are
entering the field of world-Christianization
and projecting themselves into regions of the
Nearer and Farther East. The Christian
students of the world have placed themselves
upon a basis that discards racial and sec-
tarian distinctions and have undertaken to

98 THE HOLY SPIRIT

propagate the undifferentiated essence of the
Christian religion." ^

The Holy Spirit seeks men and qualifies
them for service in ways of which they are
unconscious. The Lone Star Mission in
India is a striking illustration of faith, answer
to prayer, and the personal leadership of the
Holy Spirit. Doctor Jewett, in charge of the
station at Ongole, was repeatedly urged by
the American Baptist Missionary Society to
give up the work. He was immovable. He
firmly believed that " God had much people
among the Telugus."

At the most critical period of the mission's
history, Doctor Jewett, his wife and three
converted natives climbed a hill, at dawn,
overlooking the valley where the smoke of
over fifty heathen villages could be seen.
The pressure to close the mission was
great, and the prayers were earnest and pro-
longed. Surely the Spirit Himself was mak-
ing intercession, for Jewett left the hill con-
vinced that the man for Ongole would be
given. Twelve years after that eventful
morning that man, who had been providen-
tially prepared among the American Indians
in the west, arrived upon the field and set to
work. Thirteen years later there were thir-

iRal], " Universal Elements of the Christian Religion," p. 1 6.

GOD SEEKING MAN 99

teen thousand converts. The steps of John
E. Clough, Uke those of Alexander Mackay
of Uganda, were strangely ordered of the
Lord. " I had wanted," says Clough, " to
become a lawyer and a politician. . . .
Did that hilltop meeting offer any solution
to these peculiar reversals in my life ? "
Surely it did. He knew nothing of the de-
mands that were to be made upon him in
India when he received a license as United
States Deputy Surveyor. By a remarkable
series of events God had found him, qualified
him and sent him to India. Twenty years
later when famine stalked abroad, the thought
was suggested to his mind of completing the
Buckingham Canal in the Ongole District, to
furnish work and support for thousands of
starving people. The British engineers rec-
ognized his papers, gave him permission to
undertake the work of excavation and thus,
unconsciously to themselves and to him,
opened the way for a wonderful ministry of
applied Christianity which not only saved the
lives of thousands, but made him the spiritual
leader of a multitude of outcast people.

In the Introduction to her husband's life,
Mrs. Clough well says, " A peculiar condition
of preparedness was waiting for the contact
with him. The man seldom creates the situ-

lOO THE HOLY SPIRIT

ation ; the two must find each other." The
two did find each other, but it was the Holy
Spirit who brought the man and the situa-
tion together. The impulse which led these
pariahs to Clough, who, like his Master, was
filled with compassion, was as much hunger
of the heart as of the body. Ignorant, de-
spised, downtrodden, social outcasts for cen-
turies, they met, for the first time, a man whose
big-hearted sympathy spoke to their own
hearts. He knew the Name that charmed
men's fears, the panacea for human woes.

"The name of Jesus," says Clough, "was
spoken all day long from one end of our line
to the other. The preachers carried a New
Testament in their pockets. It comforted
the people to see the Holy Book of the Chris-
tians mid all their distress. They said when
they sat down for a short rest, * Read us
again out of your Holy Book about the
weary and heavy laden.' That verse, * Come
unto Me all ye that labour,' was often all I
had to give the people by way of comfort.
The preachers were saying it all day long.
It carried us through the famine. It was the
verse of the ingathering. We all needed it ;
for even the strongest among us sometimes
felt their courage sinking." ^

1 John E. Clough, " Social Christianity in the Orient," p. 248.

GOD SEEKING MAN lOI

No revelation of God to man can be satisfy-
ing and final until it is personal. Jesus came
revealing in Himself the way of grace and of
glory. Here is truth interpreted in terms of
life. ** And the Word became flesh and dwelt
among us," writes the evangelist, '* and we be-
held His glory, the glory as of the only begot-
ten from the Father full of grace and truth."

It became necessary, in the order of reve-
lation, that there should be another epiphany
— that of the Holy Spirit. He also comes in
person, but not in the flesh. He interprets
and communicates the thought and purpose
of God to every man according to his faith
and capacity to receive. For if it is the
Spirit of God that searcheth all things, even
the deep things of God, then it must be by
the Spirit of God that His own deep purpose
for man is to be revealed.

It is a communication based upon fellow-
ship ; a revelation growing out of communion
with the divine Spirit. The higher minister-
ing in holy things to the intelligence of the
lower, that the lower may in turn apprehend
and grow into the likeness of the higher.
How long it has taken to realize God's
yearning to manifest Himself to man. How
long has man, whose nature is to seek God,
been standing upon the shores of a vast sea

I02 THE HOLY SPIRIT

of divine love, all encompassing, the depth
and breadth of which remained hidden
through the ages and held things unknown
to the rulers of this world. '* Things which
eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which
entered not into the heart of man, whatsoever
things God prepared for them that love Him.
But unto us God revealed them through the
Spirit."

** For my part, holding, as I do, that nature
itself is divinely constituted and cannot but
be closely akin to and pervaded by the
supernatural element, and that every for-
ward movement in human history and ex-
perience has its origin and impulse in the
purpose and power of God, I cannot but be
convinced that our life of to-day is more
thoroughly pervaded by supernatural forces
than was ever any age of miracle. The eye
may not see and the ear may not hear it ;
but the truest and most real things do not
make their voices to be heard in the streets,
and are not blazoned in lines of fire across
the sky. I do not believe in * natural law in
the spiritual world,' but I have an invincible
faith in spiritual law in the natural world.
In taking account, therefore, of the Spirit's
work, while recognizing the added resources
furnished in the incarnation and the enlarged

GOD SEEKING MAN 103

power of human life, we need not go beyond
the ordered methods of divine action known
in all previous history." ^

It is His dispensation. He has come, and
silently but surely is seeking and reaching
the hearts of men. With what calm, but
masterful insistence has the Holy Spirit
sought to reveal God's will. More insistent
than the light which searches the dark places
of the earth to illuminate ragged ravine and
winding canyon at the dawn of day. More
powerful than the tide whose swelling bosom
floats every craft and touches every shore ;
the onward push of which no imperious
command can stay.

" For while the tired waves, vainly breaking,
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making.
Comes silent, flooding in, the main."

What shall we say concerning such match-
less grace and infinite love ? What can we
say ? We bow our heads reverently, adore,
and remember the words of Jehovah — '' Be
still, and know that I am God."

He is in truth a Person ever seeking to
communicate Himself to man. An imper-

» Bishop Alpheus W. Wilson, «• The Witnesses to Christ,'=
pp. 192-193.

104 THE HOLY SPIRIT

sonal God must necessarily be materialistic
in nature, and fatalistic in conception. An
impersonal God is no God at all. It is only-
force, and man lands himself thereby in athe-
ism and despair. The very fact that atheists
are so rare is evidence in itself of the over-
whelming belief of mankind in a personal
God. When man worships God in spirit
and in truth, it is the human spirit reaching
after the divine, communicating with the
divine Spirit, and seeking to be filled with
the divine Spirit who alone is able to help
man fulfill his own true life.

If the Holy Spirit, who was the promise
of the Father, and who assumed, after the
ascension of Jesus, intimate relations with
the apostles and believers, had been a mere
impersonal force there would have been a
return not to Judaism, nor to deistic belief
at best, but a lapse into atheism or a panthe-
istic cult. The consequence would have
been a falling back upon the part of man-
kind instead of an advance. When His per-
sonality and office are ignored we may ex-
pect a retrogression in morals and religion.
*' It were mockery for the Son of God, after
the tender and close personal relation with
His disciples, to have promised another
Comforter, unless another person of the

GOD SEEKING MAN 105

Holy Trinity were to hold even more inti-
mate and sacred relations with man." *

Our religion is missionary not because of
any abstract truth it may contain, or ethical
teaching it employs, however vitally such
truth or ethics seem to be related to men
and society. A missionary religion must
have a dynamic. There must be a vital ex-
perience which is central and controlling in
those who propagate it ; a conviction that
other men need, and must have, both truth
and an experience ; and a motive powerful
and impelling which centres in the one and
only Person who is sufficient in Himself to
save the world.

In the propagation of such a religion the
Holy Spirit shares in the redemptive scheme
with the Father and the Son, and qualifies
man by illuminating and energizing him for
his part in the work. The Holy Spirit does
not seek to demonstrate the truth by argu-
ment, or enforce it by authority. He does
His work by testimony. He stands, as it
were, a witness to the truth, and the spiri-
tual embodiment of it — " the Spirit of Truth,
which proceedeth from the Father," of whom
Jesus said, ** He shall testify of Me." He does

1 Bishop E. R. Hendrix, " The Personality of the Holy
Spirit," p. xi.

Io6 THE HOLY SPIRIT

not come to spiritualize truth. He comes
to spiritualize man that he may apprehend
the truth, have the eyes of his understanding
enlightened, and know what is the exceeding
greatness of God's power to usward who be-
lieve.

Truth thus apprehended takes possession
of a man. It is set on fire of the Spirit, and
man's soul begins to blaze. Man's spirit be-
comes the candle of the Lord. He is con-
tent, like John the Baptist, to burn to the
socket, and be consumed if he can give his
" Master's nobility the chance to utter itself."
Here was the secret of Henry Martyn's de-
votion when he cried, " Now, let me burn out
for Christ." Whether in the wilderness of
Judea or on the burning sands of Persia it
must be a messenger who possesses the
dynamic because sent of the Holy Spirit.
Then will be fulfilled with power the words
of Jesus, ** Ye also shall bear witness."

It is said that upon the table-lands of Asia
Minor, the women may be seen at dawn of
day going out-of-doors and looking up at
their neighbours' chimneys. They would
see the one out of which the smoke is com-
ing. Thither they go to borrow live coals
with which to kindle a fire in their own
homes. Do men watch thus our lives ? If

GOD SEEKING MAN 107

in our hearts the Holy Ghost has kindled the
sacred fire, shall they not come to us for
warmth and inspiration ? How tragic if turn-
ing" to us they find smokeless chimneys and
nothing but dead ashes.

The Holy Spirit is the gift of God. He is
** the promise of the Father." We do not so
much need to seek, as to put ourselves in an
attitude to receive Him. Jesus said, *' Re-
ceive ye the Holy Spirit." The bestowment
of such a gift, however, is upon the require-
ment that the necessary conditions must be
met. Faith must accept without question
what God offers, and go in the strength of
what is given. We then may expect yet
larger gifts. The Father is generous in His
promise and lavish in His bestowments, but
never wasteful. Neither does He cast pearls
before swine. To seek the gift of the Holy
Spirit from a low or selfish motive may
grieve Him and deprive ourselves of the
sympathetic cooperation of the greatest per-
sonal force in the universe.

In this study of spiritual dynamics we
reach the following conclusions in relation to
the Paraclete. The Holy Spirit was a dis-
tinct prophecy in the Old Testament and a
definite promise in the New. As God sent the
Son into the world to reveal the Father, so

I08 THE HOLY SPIRIT

has He sent the Holy Spirit to testify to the
Son. The Holy Spirit is a person, and that
personality is a cardinal fact, which in deal-
ing with Him should never be lost sight of.
The transformation of the life and character
of men is a standing illustration of His per-
sonality and power. The Holy Spirit is a
sensitive person and can be grieved, resisted,
repelled and even thwarted in His work by
unbelieving and disloyal hearts.

He is in the world to convince of sin. If
He brooded over chaotic nature, He can and
does brood over a dull, unenlightened mind
to which God has not yet been revealed. He
reaches men in His own way — "The wind
bloweth where it will, and thou hearest the
voice thereof, but knowest not whence it
Cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every
one that is born of the Spirit." His work
cannot be confined to geographical areas or
conventional methods. The Holy Spirit pre-
pares the hearts of men, brings them to-
gether, times events, develops leadership,
shapes the course of nations, makes ready
the soil for the Word of God.

There is a marked continuity and progress
in the program of the Holy Spirit, not only
in His administration and work in the Apos-
tolic Church, but in the more modern mis-

GOD SEEKING MAN 109

sionary movements which clearly demon-
strate His personal presence and agency. If
the Holy Spirit expresses the thought of God
in the inspiration of the Word, so will He
express the will of God in the application of
that Word. God seeks men full of faith and
of the Holy Spirit to do His work. If they
have not received the Spirit, He is ready to
bestow the enduement if they will but place
themselves in an attitude to receive.

The progress of missions and of the King-
dom may be retarded by the failure to recog-
nize the office and power of the Spirit. The
Holy Spirit has special charge of the Church
and its missionary work. Does the Church
realize and live up to it? It is a serious
matter when the question is raised, *' Has
there not been more earnest expectation
among the nations who sit in darkness, than
of consuming zeal among those who have
seen the great light ? "

The unity of the Spirit among believers
was that for which Jesus prayed in His
intercessory prayer : *' Neither for these only
do I pray, but for them also that believe on
Me through their word ; that they may all be
one ; even as Thou, Father, art in Me, and I
in Thee, that they also may be in us ; that the
world may believe that Thou didst send Me."

no THE HOLY SPIRIT

Such unity should be the fruitage and crown-
ing expression of a dispensation of grace.
The Church should be in a state of prayerful
expectancy for a mighty outpouring of the
Holy Spirit. This is His dispensation. There
was never more complete preparation for His
manifestation and power, never more wide-
spread need, never a more opportune moment
for His unifying work.

May not the Holy Spirit be compared to
some mighty master hand wielding the loom
of the world ? Golden threads, under His
skilled and sympathetic touch, are being
woven into the fabric of the nations. Men
may forget their common Fatherhood, and
do violence to their heaven-born sense of
brotherhood, but sooner or later the solidarity
of the race, the cohesion of society, the main-
tenance of a Christian civilization, and the
establishment of the Kingdom of God, will
be consummated. The divine shuttle in the
hand of the Master Spirit will link this thread
with that, until the world of men has been
woven into the mysterious union of the world
of spirits made perfect.

LECTURE III
PRAYER : MAN SEEKING GOD

LECTURE III

PRAYER : MAN SEEKING GOD

PRAYER is man seeking God. Man
has alv/ays been seeking God. It
may have been a mute and uncon-
scious groping in darkness, but it was a feel-
ing after light. The wise men saw His star
in the East and sought to worship Him. The
shepherds watched and prayed upon the
plains of Bethlehem and found the Lord of
Glory. The Roman empire was at peace
and in a hush of expectancy ; the Jewish
nation had about it an atmosphere of Mes-
sianic hope — one laden with promise, and the
Christ came.

Prayer is ascending desire and brings de-
scending grace. ** All things whatsoever ye
shall ask in prayer believing, ye shall receive."
The desire moves Godward, the response
returns manward. The pondering of God's
thoughts brings the one, and reliance upon
the strength of His friendship insures the
other. ** Delight thyself in the Lord, and He
shall give thee the desires of thine heart."
"3

114 PRAYER

Jacob's dream became to him a vision of
an earthly and heavenly exchange of mes-
sengers.

Prayer makes God real. Ours is an age
in which men seek the reality of things. It
is not an age of shams. Men despise shams
more and more. They want to know the
truth. There is an intensity about the search
which is inspiring. They seek the soul of
things. It may not always be a reverent
search, but sincere desire will make them
more reverent. There is more prayer of this
sort than the world knows of. Add one
factor only — God — and there will be no more
groping ; it will be a swift journey from dark-
ness into light.

Man in all ages would realize God. To
fail is to lose himself utterly and all of faith
and hope. God on the other hand would be
made real to man that he might reach Him at
the point of deepest need. It is through man
the God-given message must go. " Whom
shall I send, and who will go for us ? " has
been the word of Jehovah before and since
Isaiah's day. " Here am I, send me," should
be the response of every true soul who has a
spark of desire to reach the unreached man
— the man who prays, and yet save for heart
hunger scarce knows why.

MAN SEEKING GOD II5

Krapf, the great African missionary and
explorer, gives the prayer of a pygmy to the
supreme " Yer " in these pathetic words :

** Yea, if thou dost really exist, why dost
thou let us be slain ? We ask thee not for
food, for we live only on snakes, ants, and
mice. Thou hast made us ; why dost thou
let us be trodden down ? " ^

How can a man have faith to whom God
is unintelligible ? How can a man be strong
who is convinced that God is weak ? To be-
lieve that He has forgotten us is to fatally
weaken our hold upon life. Sabatier is right
when he says, " Religion is a prayer for life."
This is true of primitive religion even, and of
primitive life. The Christian religion is a
soulful desire for immortaUty. It is a prayer
that is ever reaching up after God as the
source of eternal life — life that is freer because
God is truth, richer because God is love,
higher because God is holiness, and the per-
fecter of every lofty aspiration and of every
noble ideal. "For this cause We also, since
the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for
you, and to desire that ye might be filled with
the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and
spiritual understanding ; that ye might walk

1 J. Ludwig Krapf, " Travels and Missionary Journeys in
East Central Africa."

Il6 PRAYER

worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being
fruitful in every good work, and increasing in
the knowledge of God." Prayer that breathes
aspiration and intercession like this, and a
religion that can create such an atmosphere of
prayer must bring God down to man, and
lift man up to God. Dean Goulburn writes,
" He who embraces in his prayer the
widest circle of his fellow creatures is most in
sympathy with the mind of God."

Jesus set us an example in the exercise of
prayer which becomes both an obligation and
an inspiration. It is not so much the ex-
ample, however, as it is the tremendous fact
that He prayed. He spent much of His work-
ing life in prayer, which carries with it the
force of an irresistible argument in favour of
prayer. It was not a mere matter of personal
choice, but one of primal necessity ; not a
question of temperament, but obedience to
the vital and fundamental law of His spiri-
tual life. He could not live and work without
it. To undertake to build the Kingdom of
God without prayer was to undertake a
superhuman enterprise without consultation
with the Architect of the ages who had
formed His purpose and laid His plans be-
fore the foundation of the world.

Prayer makes life radiant. It feeds with

MAN SEEKING GOD 1 17

beaten oil the lamp of the soul. It kindles
the inner light which chases away all shadows
and dissipates all fear. Doubt does not con-
demn a man — hypocrisy does. It is but a
step from honest doubt to vital faith. A
vital faith leads to fellowship with God, and
such fellowship brings down the divine
Spirit into human life, making it glow with
the sense of reality and the radiance of
a holy joy. ''They looked unto Him and
were radiant." How else can we explain
the glow upon the face of Moses as he came
down from the mount of God. It was the in-
terpenetrating light of that supernatural pres-
ence which after the lapse of twenty centuries
glorified our Lord upon the mount of trans-
figuration and w^hich set on fire the pencil of
Rafael in his immortal cartoon.

Prayer is the secret of an expanding life.
True prayer is never self-centred. It moves
out seeking the objective, with desire to bless.
It has an enlarging motive and a growing
purpose. Selfish prayer is always untrue to
the highest interests of one's own life.
** Neglect of prayer is slow but certain sui-
cide." A prayerless soul has a contracting
life which ends in paralysis of faith and en-
deavour. " The spiritual giants of every age
have been men of prayer."

Il8 PRAYER

It was said of Queen Mary that she feared
the prayers of John Knox more than she did
the armies of her enemies. And yet Knox
had breadth of soul and an ever expanding
vision. The day before his death he called
his wife and said, " Go, read me that Scrip-
ture where I first cast my anchor ! " She
read him the seventeenth chapter of John.
He gave his last hours to intercession " for
the world lying in sin, for the great reforma-
tion, for the Church, and for the future
triumph of the Gospel."

Prayer is the key to power. It is the se-
cret of efficiency in the Kingdom of God.
The highest efBciency in spiritual life depends
upon and grows out of the constancy of our
** communion with the eternal world." There
can be no sustained ministry of sympathy
and help without it. No one understood this
better than Jesus, and endowed with a divine
nature as He was, none of His apostles drew
such drafts in prayer as He did upon the re-
sources of the spiritual kingdom.

The constant drain upon Jesus, physical
and spiritual, was something we are unable to
measure. It is certain He paid the price for
His incessant labours of mercy, work of heal-
ing, daily ministry to the multitudes, and con-
stant instruction of His disciples. Added to

MAN SEEKING GOD II9

this was the sting and burn of shameless
hypocrisy, or open hatred, upon the part of
scribes and Pharisees. Every cry of a blind
man, or appeal of a leper, drew upon His
sympathy, and every miracle of healing made
a fresh and insistent draft upon His nerve
force. Sympathy, when expressed without
stint, is a most exhausting thing. It was es-
pecially so with Him whose eye could pierce
below the surface of conventional life, and
sound the depths of sin and guilt which were
the cause of the suffering He sought to re-
lieve.

A man sick of the palsy is brought on a
litter. With one pitying gaze into the helpless
man's life, His words are, " Son, be of good
cheer ; thy sins be forgiven thee." When
the scribes accused Him of blasphemy, He
adds, " But that ye may know that the Son
of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins.
Arise, take up thy bed and go into thine
house."

A woman has suffered many things of
many physicians, and spent all that she had.
She touches His garment, saying to herself,
" If I may but touch His clothes I shall be
whole." The fountain of her trouble was
dried up, and she was healed. And Jesus
knowing in Himself that virtue had gone out

I20 PRAYER

of Him, turned Him about in the press, and
said, "Who touched My clothes? "

Shall we call it supersensitiveness ? It was
rather the superman lavishly expending Him-
self. Yearning with compassion He is ready
to empty Himself and to say, " The Son of
Man came not to be ministered unto, but to
minister." He it is of whom the prophet
said, " Himself took our infirmities and bare
our sicknesses."

A marvel it was that Jesus stood the strain
of all this for three years. Prayer sus-
tained Him. It was through prayer that He
strengthened His consciousness of God and
deepened His sense of human need. Prayer
was the most real thing in His life. It helped
Him to a realization of Himself and His
mission — the God-man — divine in sacrifice,
human in service. Conscious He was doing
the will of God, prayer was His source of
strength, and means of communion with the
Father whose will He constantly sought to
fulfill. At Bethany, and in the gardens of
Olivet, on the slopes of Hermon, and in the
valley of Siloam, He had His trysting places.
He went for prayer as the shades of night
were falling, or arose a great while before day,
for strength in a forward gaze. It was in
these hours He sought and found refuge or

MAN SEEKING GOD 121

refreshment of soul. ** Prayer is nothing
else," says Brother Lawrence, ** but a sense
of God's presence."

The powers of a stout young Galilean
peasant, however much inured to hardship,
were scarcely equal to the physical exhaus-
tion ; much less when the sin of a lost world
pressed constantly upon Him. Added to
this was the consciousness that He steadily
approached the hour when He must tread
the wine-press alone. But in the seasons of
intercessory prayer with an ever-deepening
sense of God's presence He could say in per-
fect confidence, **Oh, righteous Father, the
world hath not known Thee ; but I have
known Thee, and these have known that
Thou hast sent Me."

The resources of the spiritual kingdom
yield only to importunate prayer. There
must be patient waiting and vigorous wres-
ding. Both are essential to that princely
character which is life's greatest asset.
" They that wait upon the Lord shall renew
their strength," — change their strength from
the earthly to the spiritual, from potential to
actual, from the human to the divine. As in
the realm of nature so in the kingdom of
grace, mysterious and secret forces that are
locked and hidden yield themselves only to

122 PRAYER

insistent desire and importunate demand
Real prayer brings a realization of the pres-
ence of God and an unveiling of the soul in
that presence which clarifies vision, purifies
motive and energizes life. It was the pa-
triarch's strenuous wrestling at Peniel until
the break of day that brought the realization
of his own need and of the divine Presence ;
that changed the countenance of Esau, saved
his company, created an epoch in his own life,
and secured for himself that remarkable state-
ment— " Thy name shall be called no more
Jacob, but Israel ; for as a prince hast thou
power with God and with men, and hast
prevailed."

This sense of the nearness of God is beauti-
fully illustrated in a story of Horace Bushnell.
*' He was found to be suffering from an in-
curable disease. One evening the Rev.
Joseph Twichell visited him, and, as they sat
together under the starry sky, Bushnell said :
' One of us ought to pray.' Twichell asked
Bushnell to do so, and Bushnell began his
prayer ; burying his face in the earth, he
poured out his heart until, said Twichell, in
recalling the incident, * I was afraid to stretch
out my hand in the darkness lest I should
touch God.' " '

^ E. M, Bounds, " Purpose in Prayer," p. 40.

MAN SEEKING GOD 123

God's power is both available and inex-
haustible. His greatest stores of spiritual
power are yet in reserve. Conditions were
never so ripe as now for the outpouring of
the divine Spirit. It is His will that we
receive that power. Why not have it ? Why
not have Him — the spirit of power? Obedi-
ence is the king-bolt to the laws of His
Kingdom, and faith the master-key to the
storehouse. Failure attends our prayers be-
cause they lack faith and are unintelligent.
Few men understand real prayer because they
have neglected to study the conditions of
God's power. If we would receive it must
be on God's terms, not ours. ** The prayer
of faith is the only power in the universe to
which the great Jehovah yields. Prayer is
the sovereign remedy."

A copper wire is suspended in mid air.
Its origin is somewhere out of sight in yon
mountain range to the east, and it disappears
over the plains towards the setting sun. We
may catch its gleam, conjecture its source,
discuss its objective, even estimate the volt-
age and power of the current it can carry,
but all to no purpose, if there be no contact
of wire with the source of electric supply. Is
it not so with our relation to the purpose and
power of God ? How unintelligent our effort

124 PRAYER

to appropriate God's power as a working
force, and yet His power is available, without
limit, and at our disposal for the work of His
Kingdom.

The electrician has a lesson for us. He
builds a laboratory, equips it with tools,
learns how to use them, studies the nature
of electricity as a force, studies it by day,
dreams about it by night, denies himself
food, persists for months and years, impover-
ishes himself, subjects himself to the ridicule
of his friends and the world calls him a fool,
but, at last, he emerges in triumph with a
great secret wrested from the heart of nature.

How is it with the average Christian and
prayer ? He has no oratory. If he has, he
rarely enters. He fails to close the door.
He takes things for granted, or works by fits
and starts. He denies himself nothing. He
expects nothing. He has no enthusiasms.
He doubts from the beginning. He makes a
toy machine and plays with it, and wonders
that he gets no results.

There is no investment in the Kingdom
like the prayer of faith. True prayer does
not rest with the present. It draws upon
the stored riches of the past; projects itself
into the future, and may run in advance of
us through all time. '* Prayers are death-

MAN SEEKING GOD 125

less — prayers outlive the lives of those who
uttered them ; outlive a generation ; outlive
an age ; outlive a world." The prayers of
the saints of all ages continue as incense be-
fore the throne. The reserves of power and
working force we have to-day may be the
fruit of persistent, prevailing prayer upon
the part of faithful souls of yesterday — of
generations past. Failure upon our part in
intercession may result in disaster to gener-
ations yet unborn. How great the privilege,
how tremendous the responsibility !

To us is committed the work of evangelizing
the world. In such an enterprise, the home
base is much more a base line for interces-
sory prayer than it is for monetary supply.
As important as it may seem for money
power behind the missionary enterprise, the
necessity for prayer power is infinitely greater.
Prayer secures the labourers, money cannot.
They would be worthless if it could. Shek-
els and hirelings cannot establish the King-
dom of God. It requires men who cannot
be bought. Prayer that wins battles at
home will secure victory on the firing line
abroad. Defeat in prayer at headquarters
will mean disaster in the trenches. To the
lonely sentry on picket duty in home mis-
sions or in the regions beyond, neglect of

126 PRAYER

prayer in the Church may result in discour-
agement and despair. We have no right to
send missionaries to the firing line unless we
mean to back them up by intercession. It is
perilous for them if we fail to pray ; for us it
may mean condemnation and greater peril.

Faith in the possibility of the redemption
of the race is born of God. That kind of as-
surance always is. It is man who staggers
at the recoverability of his fellow man. Sin
has so wrought in our spiritual frame that
the organ of faith is weakened. How noble
a figure the patriarch, that peerless inter-
cessor, who, " when he was called to go out
into a place which he should after receive
for an inheritance, obeyed ; and he went out,
not knowing whither he went." Faith was
the basis for the splendid optimism with
which " he looked for the city which hath
the foundations, whose maker and builder is
God."

During Doctor Mott's last visit to the Far
East, in addition to representing the Contin-
uation Committee, he held evangelistic meet-
ings for students. Upon the very day of
which he speaks, student groups in forty
nations were remembering each other, and
especially the meetings in China and the
Near East. His account given at Lake

MAN SEEKING GOD 127

Mohonk is a wonderful illustration of the
power and scope of intercessory prayer :

" I was at Tsinanfu, the capital of Shan-
tung Province, on Sunday, the Universal Day
of Prayer for Students. It was in much
weakness. I was there under great pressure
and had not had time to make even ordinary
preparation. I was in the midst of difficul-
ties the like of which few can understand,
except those who have been in that part of
the world. For reasons which need not be
explained, I did not have as many helpers
present as under ordinary conditions. One
can never forget that Sunday afternoon.
Every word that was being said was being
interpreted. There came a hush upon the
heterogeneous mass of Chinese students who
packed that place. There was an evident
moving of the Spirit of God, and between
five and six hundred of those proud Chinese
students bowed for the first time before the
Jehovah of the Bible. Hundreds of them
before the meeting closed at dusk — we had
to bring in candles, for although the meeting
began in the middle of the afternoon it con-
tinued nearly four hours — publicly confessed
their purpose to become followers of Jesus
Christ as Lord. Now I know that there was
nothing evident, that there was nothing in

128 PRAYER

the city of Tsinanfu that could account for
what took place in that room ; but when I
remembered that all over this earth were
groups, and in some places large companies,
of students making earnest intercession for
this and other meetings that were in prog-
ress at that time, I found the explanation.
I have heard since that similar experiences
were being had by workers in the Near East
on that very day. We should utilize more
than we have been doing this irresistible
force of prayer that has been placed at our
disposal."

The power, the reach, and the efficacy of
intercessory prayer have never been fully
tested, because never fullv realized. Its
power lies in the power of God behind it,
and that has not been measured. Its reach'
is bounded only by the smaller circle of
man's faith and the larger circle of God's
grace — and man is always at liberty to pro-
ject his faith, farther and yet farther, into
the boundless sea of God's mercy. Its effi-
cacy is based upon words that are more
secure than the foundations of the earth.
'• Hitherto have ye asked nothing in My
name ; ask, and ye shall receive, that your
joy may be made full."

No one understood the efficacy of such

MAN SEEKING GOD 1 29

prayer better than the "ambassador in
chains " as he styles himself when, from
Rome, he urges the Ephesian Church to
pray for all the saints and for him. ** On
my behalf," he writes. Did he not need
prayer more than they all ? He was almost
alone in a great heathen city, on a distant
continent, had the care of all the churches,
and had deliberately denied himself of Tychi-
cus, the beloved brother and faithful minis-
ter, that he might comfort the saints at
Ephesus. " And on my behalf, that utter-
ance may be given unto me, in opening my
mouth, to make known with boldness the
mystery of the Gospel."

We enter with Christ in the School of
Prayer, and hearing Him make intercession,
realize there is a vast difference between His
prayers and ours. In what does it consist?
Principal Cairnes says, " It is the difference
in spiritual quality between the Master and
His disciple, and is not due to any change in
God." Three elements more than any others
gave power to the prayers of Jesus — the sense
of God's presence, faith in God's power, and
the consciousness that He was doing His Fa-
ther's will. The quality of obedience with-
out reservation — of joyful acceptance of the
higher will, was always true of His prayers.

I30 PRAYER

It is in the strength of such an attitude of
obedient faith Jesus could say of the Spirit
of Truth to His disciples, *' He shall glorify
Me : for He shall receive of Mine and shall
show it unto you. Ail things that the Father
hath are Mine." There is a quiet assurance
in such words which places power, authority
and dominion under His feet. If we who are
called by Him to this ministry of intercession
shall realize God, have faith in God, and do
the Father's will, we shall receive grace ac-
cording to the measure of the gift of Christ,
and shall with Him lead captivity captive,
give gifts unto men, and claim a world re-
deemed through the mighty working of
God's Spirit.

The calm assurance of Jesus as He stands
before the tomb of Lazarus comes to us from
the regions of the sublimest faith. There is
nothing beyond but God. Where in history
of man, or story of angels, shall we find such
power in prayer ? Mary said, ** Lord, if Thou
hadst been here, my brother had not died."
In deep sympathy as she was with His char-
acter and mission, there was a note of regret
— He had come too late. Martha said,
" Lord, by this time he decayeth : for he
hath been dead four days." Here was the
deeper note of despair — He had come face

MAN SEEKING GOD 13 1

to face with the impossible. They were con-
fronted by both death and corruption. Jesus
repHed in tone of mild reproach, " Said I not
unto thee that, if thou wouldst believe, thou
should see the glory of God?"

Then they took away the stone from the
place where the dead was laid. And now
before the crowning act, the test of prayer
and faith — the miracle itself — He pauses in
that majestic progress towards death and the
grave, lifts up His eyes and gives thanks.
Why give thanks ? To mortal eyes nothing
had yet taken place. " Father, I thank Thee
that Thou hast heard Me," are His words.
Was it not imperilling His cause to utter such
words? Nay, verily, it was but strengthen-
ing His cause. Listen to the basis of that
magnificent confidence. ''I knew that Thou
hearest Me always." Here was an assurance
more solid than the granite foundations of
Sinai — a note that rolls through the ages,
" Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place in
all generations . . . from everlasting to
everlasting Thou art God." ** I knew." A
world of significance in those words. Two
worlds are wrapped up in them. On earth,
a mere lad of twelve, He had come to know
His Father's business. From heaven, at the
beginning of His ministry, there had come a

132 PRAYER

divine credential, a voice saying, "This is
My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

Not for the sake of His friend Lazarus, nor
for the sisters of His friend, deep as His lov-
ing sympathy was, had He said, ''I knew
that Thou hearest Me always : but because of
the multitude that standeth around, I said it,
that they may believe that Thou didst send
Me. And when He had thus spoken. He cried
with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. He
that was dead came forth, bound hand and
foot with grave clothes ; and his face was
bound about with a napkin. And Jesus said
unto them, Loose him and let him go." His
faith had burst the bonds of death. His mo-
tive was to make men believe that the Father
had sent Him, and the spiritual quality of
His prayer grew out of fellowship with the
Father.

Prayer is not a lost art. Instances of pre-
vailing prayer upon the mission field are not
infrequent. It is an atmosphere in which
prayer grows and faith works. This occur-
rence, however, at Songdo, Korea, a few
years ago, was something out of the ordi-
nary. It was a matter of great importance
that Mr. Yun Tchi Ho should take charge of
our educational work at once. To do so, it
was imperative he should be released by his

MAN SEEKING GOD 133

father, General Yun, from certain family
obligations before he could be regularly
appointed. Bishop W. A. Candler was in
charge of our Korean Mission, and under the
necessity of leaving Songdo by the earliest
train. The worst weather of the season was
on. It was pouring rain. The roads were
almost impassable, and no one expected Gen-
eral Yun, who was in the mountains, to come
down.

There was one missionary in the group
who had set his heart upon the coming of
the General. It seemed to him necessary for
the establishment of the Kingdom, since it
involved the setting apart of a competent
man for a special and much needed work.
He laid the matter before God. Others knew
of the prayer oft repeated during the day
and possibly, in a mild way, had some share
in it, but little faith. Was not the weather
too inclement ? Could any one be induced
to travel over such roads? And then the
General was a Confucianist and an unbe-
liever, how could he be moved ?

Notwithstanding these misgivings upon
the part of others, the one who wrestled with
God came to the door, searched anxiously
the trail that led to the hills, and then re-
turned to his place of prayer. At last the

134 PRAYER

astonished cry was raised, ** The General is
coming ! The General is coming ! " There
was a rush to the door. Sure enough, with
attendants and retinue wading and splashing
through mire and mud, there came the old
warrior. Upon arrival, when asked why he
came, the stately old Korean, ex-Minister of
War, smiled significantly, and said he could
give no reason, save that he had been com-
pelled to come. Hardie had prayed General
Yun down from the mountains.

It was with Doctor Hardie that the Korean
revival began. Not that God was shut up to
one man, but it was rather the fact of one
man having a deep and humiliating sense of
his own unworthiness and need. Days were
spent in heart-searching and supplication.
Then there came the service at the Korean
Church at Wonsan, the sermon to the con-
gregation and the descent of the Holy Spirit
with power. Conviction and confession fol-
lowed, leading up to a revival which extended
across the peninsula and in every direction.

" During the month of August, 1906, the
missionaries at Pyengyang sought a deeper
experience of God's power in their own lives,
and for this purpose meetings for Bible study
and prayer were held for eight days. Dur-
ing these meetings a special burden for the

MAN SEEKING GOD 135

Korean Church was laid upon them and in
response to their suggestion, hundreds of the
Korean Christians covenanted to spend one
hour a day in prayer for the outpouring of
the Holy Spirit. This concert of prayer con-
tinued through the autumn and winter, when
in the first week of January, 1907, the Holy
Spirit was literally poured forth on the people
and the fire of His presence spread rapidly
throughout the whole city and the surround-
ing country." ^

Prayer and the outpouring of the Holy
Spirit, repentance and confession of sin, re-
generation and witnessing, were, as in Wales,
characteristics of this great revival. Out of
it came the missionary campaign in 1909
which led to an increase of thirty per cent, to
the church membership, or the winning of
80,000 converts to Christ in six months.
Who shall place metes and bounds upon the
movement of God's Spirit when men pray
aright ? " Every step in the progress of
missions," says Dr. A. T. Pierson, "is di-
rectly traceable to prayer. It has been the
preparation for every triumph and the secret
of all success."

Prayer should always be a means of grace ;

* " The Korean Revival," by the Rev. George Heber
Jones, D. D. and the Rev. W. Arthur Noble.

136 PRAYER

a spiritual tonic ; a strengthener of faith ; a
creator of ideals ; a quickener of spiritual
sensibilities ; an enrichment of our sympa-
thies ; an expansion of the sense of brother-
hood ; and will certainly result, if effectual, in
the discovery of a larger Christ, and in the
joy of vital fellowship with Him.

Too often our prayers are poverty stricken
and feeble, because so little time is bestowed
upon their enrichment. Prevailing prayer
requires adequate preparation. We give less
time to our prayers to God than to the prep-
aration of our public utterances to men.
Hurry and lack of preparation in an approach
to an earthly king would be unthinkable.
And yet in irreverent haste we make our
approach to the throne of grace, and hope to
secure the most potential gifts for men. God
does not yield Himself to such approaches.
Spiritual strength is reinforced only by
waiting upon Him who is the source of
power.

Prayer and faith act and react upon each
other. An ever-deepening prayer life does
not simply require a growing faith — it be-
gets it. Largeness of faith, on the other
hand, results in an expanded prayer life. The
range and sweep of the telescope which
brings within the astronomer's reach suns

MAN SEEKING GOD I37

and systems, hitherto unexplored and charted;
awakens and intensifies his desire for an
instrument of larger scope and increased
power for the discovery of yet other suns,
until his whole life becomes a passion for ex-
ploring the unseen.

It is a true saying — " To do the work of
God, we must have the power of God." The
power of the kingdom of grace is released
by the prayer of faith. It was Hudson Taylor
who exclaimed in his sermon before the
Shanghai Missionary Conference in 1889,
"All power is with God. God's power is
available. All things are possible to him
that belie veth." Prayer makes power avail-
able. Prayer unlocks the resources of the
unseen world, the evidence of which is our
faith. Prayer and faith are the two great
headlands through which the soul sweeps
into the ocean of matchless grace and infinite
possibilities.

A man's prayers are the highest peaks to
which his life rises. It is there in the upper
air that not only sunshine but vision and
deeper breaths are found. On the contrary,
if his prayers are shallow and conventional
they rise no higher than the lowest levels to
which his religious experience drops. Re-
ligiously we live as we pray, life being lifted

138 PRAYER

Up by our prayers, but we too often pray as
we live at a poor, listless, nerveless rate.

Work and prayer are interdependent and
closely joined together. Real prayer is work
— the hardest kind of work. It costs time
and pains to pray, and the answer to our
prayers may cost us more than we had
counted on before we prayed. Work of the
right kind, on the other hand, is prayer. No
true work is worthy of the name which does
not take account of the Kingdom of God,
and the prayer force required for its upbuild-
ing.

Our prayers lack power because they lack
purpose ; they fail of a high objective because
of being prompted by a low motive. We are
weak in prayer because of irreverence and
indefiniteness, irresolution and impatience,
lack of importunity, lack of breadth, lack
of faith, — from the existence of secret sin.
Indolence hinders prayer, and lack of desire.
Faith is weak if there be no importunity, and
secret sin both destroys power with God and
makes defeat certain. There can be no
victory in prayer through Christ, if Christ
has not won the victory over sin in the heart.

What better tonic and corrective of a
nerveless prayer life than to catch the spirit
of such an one as David Brainerd — " Here

MAN SEEKING GOD 139

I am, Lord, send me ; send me to the ends of
the earth ; send me to the rough and savage
pagans of the wilderness ; send me from all
that is called comfort in the earth ; send me
even to death itself; if it be but in Thy
service, and to promote Thy Kingdom."

A. J. Gordon points to the remarkable fact
that the year 1738 was one in which Wesley,
Brainerd and Jonathan Edwards were pass-
ing through a spiritual crisis. It was in the
closet upon their knees they found, in the hid-
ing place of power, the Dynamic which made
their lives a living, burning, quenchless fire.
Brainerd and Edwards kindled a light in New
England which never went out ; Wesley set
the world on fire with his evangelism, and
William Carey, according to A. J. Gordon,
was indebted to both for his missionary in-
spiration.

God honours the simple childlike faith of
the native Christian who has not yet learned
to doubt his heavenly Father's readiness to
care for His children in their extremity. Nor
has he acquired the habit of relying upon
auxiliary forces, which we are so prone to do
in a rationalistic age.

Rev. A. F. Hensy, of Bolenge upon the
Upper Congo, gives the following experience
of Longwango, one of their evangelists.

I40 PRAYER

Making a long journey up the Ngiri River,
he had only a boy to help him paddle the
canoe. They came into a district where the
natives were very hostile. It was the rainy
season, the water was high and food scarce
because of swampy land and wild beasts.
They paused opposite village after village
to buy something to eat, only to be driven
away with threats and curses. Finally one
evening, weak with fasting, the evangelist
prayed to his Father, as he sat in the canoe,
** Oh, God, send me just a little palm oil lest
we die." The boy being a heathen mocked
him. But as they paddled on, an earthen
pot was seen floating in the river. Awed by
so evident an answer to prayer, the boy
begged the evangelist not to touch the pot.
But Longwango replied, ** My Father has
sent it." Lifting it out of the water he found
it partly full of oil. In his prayer he had
asked for the common " Ntobu " oil, but his
Father — God — was better than his prayer —
the pot contained rich red " Nkolo " oil.

The missionary life of the Apostle to the
Gentiles is unconsciously recorded in his
prayers. A more genuine and searching test
of a man's liie could not be found. There
emerge, from the hidden depths of his being,
affections, holy ambitions and aspirations

MAN SEEKING GOD I4I

which are deepened and heightened by com-
munion with his Lord. His intercessory-
prayers, fragmentary as they are, constitute
the master strokes with which a great Hfe
outHnes itself. No biographer could have
more clearly touched the salient points of the
Pauline character.

Through his prayers we are let down into
the deeper deep of his being, and with them
we scale the higher heights of God's revela-
tion to man. Prayer was truly ** the first
breath of his new life." It was the Lord
Himself who a few hours after the conversion
of Saul made the significant comment, " Be-
hold he prayeth." The first breath of his new
life, and probably the last, was drawn in
prayer, for the Apostle seemed to give him-
self to one unceasing act of intercession.
The churches in the regions beyond owed
their very existence to those prayers. He
fanned the flame and kept the soul alive.

Paul was a learner, no less than the twelve
disciples, in the School of Prayer. The two
years in Arabia were not devoted solely to
the reorganization of his thinking. The time
was largely spent in supplication. How
otherwise could he know the mind and spirit
of Christ, and enter into fellowship with Him
in suffering? Had not the Lord said to

142 PRAYER

Ananias, '* I will show him how many things
he must suffer for My name's sake " ? Prayer
alone could lead him to realize a fellowship
that would enable him to say, '' That I may
know Him and the power of His resurrection,
and the fellowship of His sufferings, becom-
ing conformed unto His death." The break
with Judaism and the emancipation of Chris-
tianity could not have been made and sus-
tained, in so intense a nature, save through
long supplication ; for the rupture cost him
friends, teachers, tribulation, persecution,
travail of soul and life itself.

The opening of the mission of the Method-
ist Episcopal Church, South, in Central Af-
rica, over fifteen hundred miles from the sea,
is a remarkable illustration of answer to defi-
nite intercessory prayer, and of the personal
leadership of the Holy Spirit. He it is who
from the days of the Apostolic Church has
given shape to plans, timed events, and
brought men together. What is it but God
steadily working out His purpose for the re-
demption of mankind?

Upon reaching Luebo after thousands of
miles of travel by sea and by river Prof. J. W.
Gilbert and I received a generous welcome
from the Southern Presbyterians, and were
informed that for ten years they had been

MAN SEEKING GOD 143

praying for the coming of the Methodists.
Mighty faith that was ! Ten years of inter-
cession, and still confident the Lord would
answer their prayers. He did answer ; for
He is faithful that promised.

It was thought wise for us to attempt the
evangelization of the Batetela, a great tribe
of warriors far away to the east. A caravan
was necessary and sixty carriers needed. We
could only get forty. It was the planting
season, and then it was not every man who
was willing for a few yards of cloth and a
few pints of salt to face sleeping sickness
and African fever, wild beasts and savage
men. Three days of painful suspense. Then
the bell was rung and drums beaten. The
Presbyterians were being called together.
They came trooping in from the town, they
swarmed along the forest trails, they filled
the great church — men, women and children.

Doctor Morrison's appeal followed. We
can never forget it. '* Christ gave Himself
for you. What have you given to Him ?
Christ died for you. Who among you has
died for Africa ? We prayed long, and the
great God, Nzambe, answered our prayers.
Two brethren have come to open work among
the Batetela. Sixty men are needed to carry
their tent, their salt, and cloth. We have

144 PRAYER

forty, we must have twenty more. Will you
sit here, enjoy the fruits of Christianity and
have these brethren go back and say the
Church was not willing in the day of God's
power ? " Twenty stalwart fellows — Presby-
terians— sprang to their feet. '' We will go if
the Church will take care of our wives and
children and plant our fields," said the spokes-
man. "Will the Church do it?" asked
Morrison, turning to the great body of Chris-
tians before him. ** We will do it," they
cried, and we had our men.

Then one man — Mudimbe, the ruling elder
and leading evangelist, stood up. This was his
story : ** I cannot sit still when twenty of my
men offer to go on this long missionary
journey. I came from that country near the
Lualaba River. My father was a chief. He
was shot down, one morning, in a wild raid
upon our village. My mother was dragged
into the bush, and I carried captive to the
court of Ngonga, the cannibal chief. For
two years I waited upon him. In his drunken
bouts he sliced off the ears and lips of his
attendants. With several boys I ran away
into the forest, where we were captured by
the Zapozaps. From them in turn I was
taken by the Belgians. The captain turned
me over to this mission. God was good to

MAN SEEKING GOD I45

me. I found myself to be a sinner and Jesus
to be my Saviour. Oh, the wonderful grace
of it all. He forgave my sins. I cannot
stay. I must go with these my brethren to
my native land to tell the story of God." I
turned to Doctor Morrison. ** Can you spare
him?" *' I could not keep him under these
circumstances," was the reply.

We marched through forests and over
plains, forded streams and crossed rivers,
passed through scores of villages, and were
ten days' journey in the Batetela country.
Where were we to locate a mission ?

At the farewell meeting at Luebo more
than one thousand had pledged their daily
intercession in our behalf. Among the many
petitions offered there was one in the following
remarkable words : ** O Lord, lead these men
to the right place and help them to know it
when they get there." Every night, after the
day's march and prayer with the caravan,
five met in our tent for more prayer and
council — Mudimbe, the evangelist, two other
native Christians, Gilbert and myself. Time
and again I asked the question, ** Have we
reached the right place ? Shall we locate the
mission here ? " The invariable reply was,
"Not yet, not yet. This is not the right
place. We cannot locate here." Then I

146 PRAYER

would turn to Gilbert and ask, " How far are
we going, Gilbert ? Where shall we stop ?
Is there no indication ? Shall we go on until
we reach Lake Tanganyika ? Are we going
clear across the continent?"

On the morning of the forty-second day
we walked into a large village. The main
street was over a mile long and one hundred
and fifty feet wide. The caravan had fallen
behind. Our men were footsore and weary.
The chief, Wembo Niama, the biggest man
we had met in Africa, approached and de-
manded, **Whoareyou?" " Bantu Nzambe"
(God's men), was the reply. He seemed
pleased, though puzzled, and assigned us an
unfinished house in which to spend the night.
I examined it and returned. The caravan
had come up. To my astonishment the chief
approached again, this time holding Mudimbe
by the hand. He had discovered the friend
of his boyhood in the court of Ngonga, where
he himself had served, not as a captive, but
as a page. He thought Mudimbe was dead,
and now after twenty years he had come to
life again. He threw his own establishment
wide open to us, fed the entire caravan for
four days, when he learned our purpose
desired us to remain, and urged us to return
with missionaries. '* Why," said he, ** has

MAN SEEKING GOD 147

Nzambe raised me up to be a great chief,
unless it was to protect your people, who are
my people ? " After the lapse of twenty
years, Wembo Niama, the savage chief of
a cannibal tribe, had been brought face to
face with Mudimbe, the faithful Christian
and leader of three hundred teachers and
evangelists. The prayer was answered.
The Spirit of God had led us to the right
place and given us, in the fulfillment of many
conditions, assurance that we had been
divinely guided in the location of the mission.

No true prayer is ever lost. The answer
may come long after the supplicant's voice is
stilled. Was not this splendid proof of God's
power and willingness to bless any sincere
effort to save Africa due in a large measure
to the intercession of David Livingstone who
died upon his knees, but is still speaking ?

Blaikie says of him, '* Amid the universal
darkness around him, the universal ignorance
of God and of the grace and love of Jesus
Christ, it was hard to believe that Africa
should ever be won. He had to strengthen
his faith amid this universal desolation."

In Livingstone's journal we find this
record : " He will keep His word — the gra-
cious One, full of grace and truth ; no doubt
of it. He said : * Him that cometh unto Me,

148 PRAYER

I will in no wise cast out ; ' and * Whatsoevef
ye shall ask in My name, I will give it' He
will keep His word ; then I can come and
humbly present my petition, and it will
be all right. Doubt is here inadmissible,
surely."

Jesus said, " Have faith in God. Verily I
say unto you, Whosoever shall say unto this
mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the
sea ; and shall not doubt in his heart, but
shall believe that what he saith cometh to
pass ; he shall have it." Livingstone's faith
prevailed. Just one year before his death, he
wrote a letter to the New York Herald
and as he finished it, as James Gilmour of
Mongolia was wont to do, invoked the bless-
ing of God upon it. The letter contained the
memorable words afterwards inscribed on the
stone in Westminster Abbey : *' All I can say
in my solitude is, may Heaven's rich blessing
come down on every one, — American, Eng-
lish, Turk — who will help to heal this open
sore of the world." The prayer was an-
swered— the mountain removed — the open
sore healed — the slave-trade in Africa abol-
ished— and the last Continent enshrouded in
heathen darkness was riven as by a wedge
of light and thrown wide to the Gospel of
love, of liberty and of life.

MAN SEEKING GOD I49

** The connection between prayer and mis-
sions has been traced over the whole field of
missionary conditions, simply to show that
every element in the missionary problem of
to-day depends for its solution chiefly upon
prayer. The assertion has been frequently
made in past years that with 20,000 men,
properly qualified and distributed, the world
could be evangelized in thirty years. And
actually there is need of an immediate,
undaunted effort to secure 20,000 men.
Neither, perhaps, can the world be evangel-
ized without them, nor can they be secured
without effort. But it is hopeless to en-
deavour to obtain them, and they will be
worthless if obtained, unless the whole effort
be inspired and permeated with prayer.
* Thrust forth Thy labourers into the harvest.'
. . . The evangelization of the world in
this generation depends, first of all, upon a
revival of prayer. Deeper than the need for
men ; aye, deep down at the bottom of our
spiritless life is the need for the forgotten
secret of prevailing, world-wide prayer." ^

Prayer to be a constructive force is not
simply being passively willing that the will
of God be done, but the definite and deter-
mined purpose to do the will of God. It is

» Robert E. Speer, Missionary Address.

I50 PRAYER

seeking to know the will of God, in order
that His will shall interpenetrate the will of
man and energize his spirit. Prayer should
be bold in purposeful desire, in importunity
of desire, and may become an expression
even of the very agony of desire. It surely
is an illustration of the last when the Apostle
speaks of the groanings of the Holy Spirit
who maketh intercession for us.

The Lord's prayer has expectancy, large-
ness of vision and courageous grasp of the
movement of God's Spirit. It prays " Thy
Kingdom come. Thy will be done." It in-
cludes the majesty of moral law, the privilege
of citizenship in the Kingdom, the brother-
hood of kingly children, for He is our Father,
and the potentiality of spiritual forces which
in mighty currents and tides are to enrich
the life of the individual and sweep the shores
of every tribe and of every nation. In His
intercessory prayer Jesus moves along the
expanding line of a glorified Fatherhood and
of a fellowship of men who believe in the
Truth, are energized and bound together by
a Christly love, and are attuned to one divine
symphony in which the human will is brought
into harmony with the divine.

The promise of God is inseparable from
the providence of God. Simple-minded be-

MAN SEEKING GOD 151

lievers who pray with childlike faith may not
have reasoned it out, but they find it so, and
are not astonished. Providence follows prom-
ise with swift feet, if it does not actually
accompany it, and faith is the key to both.
Man's extremity and man's prayers bring
God's best gift — the ministering presence of
His Son. Is there any certainty about it?
It certainly is based upon God's promise
and man's faith. United prayer and con-
joined faith bring the very heavens down to
man. ** If two of you shall agree on earth as
touching anything that they shall ask, it shall
be done for them of My Father who is in
heaven."

Three inveterate opium smokers, old men,
entered a Refuge in North China, carried on
by two native helpers. One of the three
patients grows desperate on the third night
and in the agony of the struggle with a life-
time habit, cries out for relief. The two
Christians help him out of bed, kneel beside
him and win the fight. Here is the story :

" Only a poor cave-room in that litde vil-
lage, far away in the heart of China, and
three old men kneeling alone at midnight.
Was He there, that wonderful Saviour ?
Would He respond with ready succour as of
old?

152 PRAYER

•* Tremblingly the cry went up in the dark-
ness : * O Jesus, help me. Save me. Save
me now.'

" A few minutes later the sufferer was lying
quietly wrapped in his wadded coverlet again.
His groans ceased. His distress passed
away. And in a little while he was fast asleep.

** * Jesus is truly here,' whispered the others.
And they too slept till morning." ^

Had they heard the Master's words ?
Surely they had heard them and believed, for
had He Himself not said it — ** Where two or
three are gathered together in My name,
there am I in the midst of them." As long
as such a promise is given to men, and such
childlike confidence is offered to God, the
world's evangelization is assured.

1 Mrs. Howard Taylor, « Pastor Hsi," p. 73.

LECTURE IV
MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

LECTURE IV
MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

THE world cannot be won without a
religion that is heroic. " The glory
and the heroism of Christianity lie
in its missionary life." They are found there
because all true missionary life must be heroic
in purpose, in faith, in courage, in magna-
nimity, in patience, in sacrifice and in the joy
of it all. ** Master, the Jews of late sought to
stone Thee, and goest Thou thither again ? "
Yes, going thither was a part of His mission.
How otherwise would they know He was the
Way to the Father ? Going back there to
seek and to save that which was lost. How
otherwise could the world be won ?

We may not have learned the deeper
lesson of Christian endeavour involved in the
philosophy of redemption, but the Apostle to
the Gentiles had. ** Having stoned Paul, they
drew him out of the city supposing that he
was dead." And Paul " returned again to
Lystra 1 " Back to the stones ? " Are we famil-
iar," asks Jowett, " with the road that leads
155

156 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

back to the stones ? " It was a perilous road
back to the city of Lystra, but it led to Rome.
It was the way of the cross, but it brought the
crown of life. " As the sufferings of Christ
abound in us, so our consolation also abound-
eth through Christ . . . if we suffer with
Him, we shall also reign with Him." Heroic
living like this is not for human ideas, but
for divine ideas. Adherence to human ideas
wins popular sympathy ; adherence to divine
ideas begets opposition, hate, persecution,
and the sword. The motive is not a human
affection, but a divine love, constraining, im-
pelling, inspiring.

Ours is a Gospel which makes heroic de-
mands upon us to carry it to others. Failing
to be sent, it withers in our grasp and in
withering blasts our character, our lives and
our hopes. It is at once the most precious
and the most dangerous possession men can
have. To give is to get more, and to with-
hold is to lose what we have, and in losing
endangers the loss of ourselves with it.

The Gospel is the greater because it is not
our own, but belongs to others. It is the
larger and the more precious for the wider
ownership. Ours is not simply a joint owner-
ship with other men, but a copartnership
with God, in the sense in which we are co-

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 157

workers with God. An inheritance is always
the greater by belonging to the race rather
than to the individual. Heathenism insists
upon individual ownership; Christianity en-
courages corporate ownership, which in mod-
ern life is receiving more and more empha-
sis. The peril of the abuse of such ownership,
however, is the more imminent because the
greatest perils always go with the highest
privileges. The most subtle temptations are
those which insinuate themselves into the
higher order of life and its ideals.

In the giving of the Gospel, we always get
a larger Gospel and a larger Christ. It is
here the glory and the power of Christianity
are found. Not in withholding, but in be-
stowing. In the act and spirit of such giv-
ing, we touch the divine nature, and realize
for the first time the glory of heroic self-
denial, and the deeper lessons of suffering
which bring us into fellowship with our Lord.

Only the depths of human and divine love
can measure the power and influence of he-
roic sympathy. " But when He saw the
multitudes, He was moved with compassion
for them, because they were distressed and
scattered, as sheep not having a shepherd."
It is the faculty of seeing and feeling from
another's point of view. It is the power to

158 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

put one's self in the place of the other man.
More than that, it is the identification with
another's needs, desires, hopes, fears, suffer-
ing, and with life itself. Such identification
is impossible until self and its own interests
are lost sight of.

It was Edmund Burke who said, ** Next to
love, sympathy is the divinest passion of the
human heart." It is divine in its nobility and
in its readiness to communicate one's own
soul to another. The world has always
yearned for sympathy like this, and has al-
ways opened its heart to it.

One of the high points of his great life was
when Moses, while condemning Israel for
their flagrant sin of idolatry, in a spirit of
marvellous self-abnegation, proposed to sub-
stitute himself and make atonement for their
sin. He returned unto the Lord, and said,
" Oh, this people have sinned a great sin,
and have made them gods of gold. Yet
now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin . . .
if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy
book which Thou hast written."

Sympathy is the most direct road to the
human heart. It touches hidden springs,
and awakens the sense of brotherhood ob-
scured and buried by sin. The inmate of a
prison once sent for H. C. Trumbull and

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 159

asked, " Did you mean what you said about
sympathizing with us when you asserted that
the only difference between yourself and us
was the grace of God ? " Being answered in
the affirmative, the prisoner said, " I am here
for life ; but I can stay here more contentedly,
now that I know I have a brother in the
world." The touch of sympathy saved him.
He lived to be pardoned, and died thanking
God for brotherhood.

Heroic purpose is invincible in almost any
field. The world may give battle, but in the
end it surrenders, because courage born of
purpose knows no defeat. It is persistent —
deathless. *' To this military attitude of the
soul," says Emerson, *' we give the name of
heroism."

Plutarch says, "Marcius inquired of Co-
minius in what manner the enemy's army
was drawn up and where their best troops
were posted. Being answered that the An-
tinates, who were placed in the centre, were
supposed to be the bravest and most warlike,
'I beg it of you then,' said Marcius, *as a
favour, that you will place me directly oppo-
site to them.' "

The annals of Christian missions, at home
and abroad, have not been lacking in illus-
tration of the desire to serve where the odds

l6o MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

were greatest and the fight thickest. " What-
ever vocation may determine your sphere of
Leadership, be brave enough to choose, and
be chosen by, something that will require you
to strain your best powers. Let the unsolved
problems of your day enter into your hearts
and minds until they are as personal to you
as the affairs of your own family. Do not
seek for ease, which is the portion of babes,
not of men. Seek for tasks, hard tasks, for
the doing of which strength is needed, and
in the doing of which strength will come." ^

Self-sacrifice is one of the infallible tests of
heroic manhood and womanhood. It is not
confined to missions, but is found in every
walk of life, and often where least expected.
The world may not always be capable of self-
sacrifice, but it looks for it, expects it, and is
disappointed in its man when it fails to find it.
It is in the denial of self pushed to the point of
the laying down of life, that men find the
faith that displaces doubt, the strength that
replaces weakness, and the courage which
drives away fear, looks death in the face un-
afraid, and does its duty.

President Woodrow Wilson says of the test
of manhood :

" Life lasts only a little while, but if it goes

^ Bishop Brent, " Leadership," pp. 245-246.

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC l6l

out lighted with the torch of glory, it is better
than if it had lasted upon a dull level a thou-
sand years. . . . That is the test of man-
hood, it is the test of humanity, and it is the
glory and sign of Christianity, that a man
will lay down his life for another, no matter
what the consequence may be to himself."

These words were illustrated in a most
striking way not long after they were ut-
tered. It was in the heroic self-sacrifice of
William Carr, engineer on the Philadelphia-
New York express. The boiler flues blew
out, covering him with scalding steam.
Blinded, and in mortal agony, ** Carr closed
the throttle and put the air-brake control full
over, so that the wheels slid grinding on the
rails. Then he fell dying on the floor of the
cab." Albert, King of the Belgians, who
with Queen Elizabeth has shared the sorrows
and privations of his people, was compli-
mented by a correspondent as being the hero
of the European War. His reply was worthy
of a great soul — " I am no hero ; the heroes
are in the trenches."

Heroism is anything but great acting. It
is greatness in action. There is nothing of
the spectacular about it. Let consciousness
come and heroism dies. It is high deeds
born of high feeling, and high ideals and of

l62 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

unquestioning faith in God. There is no
weighing of probabilities and nice balancing
of expediency with obligation, but a fine con-
tempt for safety and ease which leads to the
abandonment of everything for the one great
purpose of life. It is a quality of which the
true hero is unconscious ; a quality that makes
him " negligent of expense, of health, of life,
of danger, of hatred, of reproach."

Where is there a more illustrious example
of heroism than in the life of him of whom it
is recorded that he deliberately refused to be
called the son of a princess, *' choosing rather
to share ill treatment with the people of God
than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a sea-
son ; accounting the reproach of Christ
greater riches than the treasures of Egypt."
Nor did he fear the wrath of the king : "for
he endured as seeing Him who is invisible."

The great lawgiver of Israel stood before
the burning bush. In that moment the shep-
herd became the seer. A vision of deliver-
ance from bondage for the people of God
came to him and their restoration to the land
of promise. It was to be by the way of the
wilderness, through toil and suffering, and he
was to bear the brunt of it all. But his was
a heroic soul. Wealth, and honour and high
office had not dimmed its lustre, nor impover-

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 163

ished the strength of his purpose. Slavery,
however, was eating out the heart of his
people, and undermining their character.
They had lost faith in God, had become
grossly materialistic, and were already a
nation with craven spirit, bending their
backs and driven like dumb beasts before
the lash of their Egyptian taskmasters. Self-
denial, courage and the inspiration of a great
idea could alone save them. Moses knew it
and gave himself to his God-given task. It
was to build character and brave men out of
cowards and weld a nation out of a mass of
slaves. When did one man ever have a
greater mission? ''If thou art an anvil,"
says an African proverb, '* be patient. If
thou art a hammer strike hard ! "

" Ideality, magnanimity, and bravery then ;
these are what make the heroes. These are
what glorify certain lives that stand through
history as the lights and beacons of mankind.
The materialist, the sceptic, the coward, he
cannot be a hero. We talk sometimes about
the unheroic character of modern life. We
say that there can be no heroes nowadays.
We point to our luxurious living for the
reason. But oh, my friends, it is not in your
silks and satins, not in your costly houses and
your sumptuous tables, that your unheroic

l64 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

lives consist. It is in the absence of great
inspiring ideas, of generous enthusiasms, and
of the courage of self-forgetfulness. It may
be that you must throw away your comfort-
able living to get these things ; but your lack
of heroism is not in your comfortable living,
but in the absence of these things. Do not
blame a mere accident for that which lies so
much deeper." ^

It is out of the invisible that inspiration
must come to kindle the heroic soul. There
are no limitations in that realm. The motives
that are material and the impulses that are
human are not sufficient to more than gal-
vanize into action. Relapse inevitably fol-
lows. Inspiration that is permanent and
faith that is heroic grow not so much out
of the ability to subjugate and to rule as out
of the capacity for surrender — the deliberate
surrender of self to the voice out of the blue
— to the power that worketh in us. Men
who are full of achievement are not so much
in possession of a great purpose as that they
are mastered by it.

The world is not poverty stricken for lack
of heroic men and women. It is indeed the
poorer for the death of men like Captain

1 Phillips Brooks, Sermons, " The Heroism of Foreign
Missions," pp. 173, 174.

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 165

Robert Falconer Scott who, with his im-
mortal four, faced incredible odds, reached
the pole and perished on the return within
eleven miles of the camp. But it is richer
for the magnificent heroism of Captain Oates,
that brave soul who, frost-bitten beyond re-
covery and knowing the chances of the rest
would be better without him, said quietly,
*' I am just going outside and may be some
time," stepped into the blizzard and never
returned. It was to give the other men a
chance.

" Fuel for one hot meal and food for two
days," is Scott's last entry in the journal.
** We are weak. Writing is difficult, but for
my own sake I do not regret this journey,
which has shown that Englishmen can endure
hardships, help one another, and meet death
with as great fortitude as ever in the past.
. . . Things have come out against us
and therefore we have no cause of complaint,
but bow to the will of Providence, determined
still to do our best to the last."

Should the torch of heroism in the state of
Tennessee go out, there is a flame on yon
capitol hill which will ever rekindle it. It is
the spirit of young Davis who accepted death
rather than life with dishonour and stepped
without a tremor upon the threshold of the

l66 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

beyond with the words : " I had rather die a
thousand times than betray my trust."

The ring of that sentiment has in it the
spirit of men who live to dare and who dare
to die — men to whom a trust is more sacred
than Ufe, than a thousand Hves. If such men
are in the loins of the future, both Church and
State are safe. Without them our posterity
shall miserably perish from the earth and our
Christian civilization with them.

" I like the man who faces what he must,
With a step triumphant, and a heart of cheer,
Who fights the daily battle without fear,
Sees his hopes fail, yet keeps unfaltering trust —
That God is God ; that somehow true, and just,
His plans work out for mortals ; not a tear
Is shed when fortune, which the world holds dear.
Falls from his grasp ; better, with love a crust
Than living in dishonour ; envies not
Nor loses faith in man ; but does his best.
Nor ever murmurs at his humble lot,
But with a smile and words of hope, gives zest
To every toiler ; he alone is great
Who by a life heroic conquers fate."

More than a century ago a lone figure of a
young man could be seen kneeling in the for-
est of New England. He wrestles for his
Indians until the sweat from his brow falls
upon the spotless snow. We go back to his
journal for a glimpse of his life : " My diet

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 167

consists mostly of hasty-pudding, boiled corn,
and bread baked in the ashes, and sometimes
a little meat and butter. My lodging is a
little heap of straw, laid upon some boards a
little way from the ground, for it is a log
room without any floor that I lodge in. I
have now rode more than 3,000 miles (on
horseback) since the beginning of March
(eight months). . . . Frequently got lost
in the woods. ... At night lodged in
the open woods. . . . Crept into a little
crib made for corn and slept there on the
poles."

Does David Brainerd waver in his pur-
pose? Does he regret his choice? He is
incessantly at work, preaching to the Indians,
catechizing them, " moving among them like
an angel of light, pleading with them in the
name of Christ, and pleading their cause
against greedy and unprincipled whites, who
sought to corrupt and rob them, and ceasing
not his arduous and self-sacrificing labours
for their temporal and spiritual welfare until
his strength was finally exhausted and his
life worn out. Then, by slow and painful
journeys, he made his way back to his native
New England to die."

Upon his death-bed he continued to plead
for his beloved Indians, and stayed not his

l68 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

intercession until his brother John consented
to take up his task. As we see the brother
by the bedside catching the mantle of power,
and Edwards, the great preacher, with evan-
gelistic fires beginning to glow and burn
within his breast, we realize that One other
Person is with them and we recall the words
of Browning :

*' 'Tis the weakness in strength, that I cry for ! my

flesh, that I seek
In the Godhead ! I seek and I find it. O Saul, it

shall be
A Face like my face that receives thee ; a man like

to me,
Thou shalt love and be loved by forever ; a Hand

like this hand
Shall throw open the gates of a new life to thee !

See the Christ stand."

There can be no true leadership among
primitive people without the heroic. One
element of it is courage, without which the
white man will be held in contempt. But
deeper than personal prowess is the element
of disinterestedness, of inflexible purpose, and
of absolute truthfulness embedded in the char-
acter. It is character that tells, whether in
pioneering an unexplored region, in estab-
lishing a mission, or a colony, or in carrying

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 169

forward a great administrative policy in
Church or State.

The native is not deficient in physical cour-
age. An African hunter returned at nightfall
to find a leopard had visited his hut and
dragged his wife into the forest. Following
the trail of blood, he came upon the remains
of the partially devoured body. He vowed
vengeance, swift and sure, upon the savage
beast. Returning, he cooked and ate his
meal that he might be strong, sharpened his
knife and spear, tightened his belt and re-
entered the forest. The branch of a palm
tree and a bunch of elephant grass served
for a covering as he pulled the body of his
wife to his breast. Here, seated with his
back against a tree, he calmly waited through
the long hours for the return of the leopard.
Sniffing the earth, he stealthily approached
and sprang upon his victim. Together they
rolled upon the ground in a life and death
struggle. At last, the hunter's knife went
home, and he was avenged, but not before his
own side and shoulder were terribly lacerated
by the claws of the wild beast.

Who can conceal admiration for prowess
like that ? The Belgian officer who told me
the story did not attempt to conceal it. He
thought the African would make a great sol-

lyo MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

dier. I thought he would make a great
Christian. Such courage is often accom-
panied in a native by loyalty to his tribe, or
less frequently by affection for his family, as
in this case. These are virtues, however,
which easily turn to vices. Exaggerated
they may run riot in deadly feuds and deeds
of personal revenge. Given an adequate
motive, high purpose and faith in God on
the other hand, and enduring character can
be built out of such material. It is being
done on every mission station, and in every
field in the name and by the power of the
Christ.

The heroic aim and controlling purpose of
Jesus Christ was to save men. It was this
aim in union with the will and plan of God
that brought Him from heaven and led to the
emptying of Himself. It was this controlling
purpose that dominated His incarnate life, in-
spired His ministry, strengthened Him in His
sufferings, and supported Him in His agony
in the garden and upon the cross. Mag-
nanimity and serenity, majesty and strength
are all His. Dore brings this out with a master
hand in his *' Christ before the Prsetorium."
The trial is over and judgment passed. An
excited throng of Jewish fanatics are ready to
do their worst. In their midst, as He descends

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC lyi

the great staircase, is the majestic figure of
the Christ, conscious of a Presence other than
theirs, of a power greater than that of the
Roman Empire, and of a peace born of an
abiding faith in God. Very man, very God.
Christ is all in all. He it is who interprets
for us the ministry of life and the mystery of
death ; sweetens obedience, gives new cour-
age and hope, inspires our ideals, sustains in
the bitterest trials and gives a new and deeper
meaning to fellowship in suffering and to the
joy of service.

The task of winning the world measured
by any human standard is an impossible one.
The difficulties viewed from any standpoint
are insurmountable. They are enough to
make the most resolute and intrepid soul
draw back. If the warfare were to be waged
among brutal and beastly men, it would be
enough to test the faith of the stoutest heart.
But it is carried into the realm of spirits and
means a conflict with the organized powers
of darkness led by the prince of this world.
The disciples fell back appalled when Jesus
entered the shades of death and passed
through the portal of the grave. All seemed
lost. But with His resurrection was born a
new hope. Despair in the presence of lost
men, degraded women and disorganized so*

172 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

ciety no longer stared them in the face.
Christ lived and with Him they too lived and
wrought in a redeemed world, and realized
that by the power of the Spirit of God through
Him they were to become more than con-
querors.

What is the secret of His conquering
power? Napoleon was right. Not might
but right, not heroic force, but heroic love.
Not men driven, but men led. If Christ com-
manded us to go and evangelize the world,
and that was the end of it all, ours would be
a forlorn hope indeed. But when He com-
mands. He shares with us the journey, the
weariness, the watchings, the loneliness and
the doing of the task. " All power is given
unto Me — go ye therefore and lo, I am with
you alway even unto the end of the world."
Light-hearted and joyous should be the mes-
senger on such an errand for '* In this prom-
ise our Saviour provides for an extension of
His personality coequal with the extension of
His Church. He virtually says : As fully as
I have been with you at the point of your de-
parture, * beginning at Jerusalem,* so fully
will I be with you at every point of your ar-
rival, * unto the uttermost parts of the earth/
This I believe to be the true explanation of
our Savioui's words, * It is expedient for you

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 1 73

that I go away ; for if I go not away, the
Comforter will not come ; but if I go away, I
will send Him unto you.' " ^

Heroic men have lived, and wrought, and
died, that there may be more heroic men.
The world is not simply richer because they
have lived, but rather because they have suf-
fered and tasted death. It is the divine way.
Sabatier has said, " Is not devotion always
blind ? That a furrow be fecund it must have
blood and tears such as Augustine called the
blood of the soul." Seldom has heroic de-
votion exceeded that of Raymond Lull. He
was blind enough to his own interests, but he
cared only that he should not be blind to the
interest of the Christ to whom he gave a pas-
sionate love without reserve. In this giving
he did indeed plow a furrow along the north-
ern coast of Africa which was enriched by
self-denying effort, tears, and blood.

His preparation for missionary service was
heroic. Nine years of lonely, assiduous
study, a large part of which was given with
the help of a slave, to the mastery of the
Arabic language, is a proof of that. His ap-
peal to the Church was heroic. Time after
time he visited monasteries, universities,
councils and Rome itself in order to stir an

1 A. J. Gordon, •' The Holy Spirit in Missions," p. 79.

174 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

interest in behalf of the evangelization of
the Mohammedan world. But he met with
apathy or rebuff. His zeal was heroic in that,
while detained from going abroad, he laboured
assiduously for the conversion of the Jews at
home. And who could do that without run-
ning counter to inveterate prejudice and
hatred of the Jew, a hatred which was break-
ing out into the diabolical inquisition.

His evangelistic journeys were heroic.
Alone, he visited Cyprus, landed in Syria and
penetrated to the interior of Armenia, still in
quest of the Jew, for his zeal abated not. But
it was his repeated missionary journeys to
Africa to win the Mohammedans to the Chris-
tian faith, and which ended in cruel martyr-
dom, that brought out his heroic moral cour-
age and remind us of the experiences of St.
Paul.

Never in the annals of missions has there
been a more remarkable example of sublime
faith and courage than that of Mrs. Adoniram
Judson. In 1824, when war broke out be-
tween Burmah and British India, the Judsons
were living at Ava. The missionary home
was entered by the spotted faced executioner,
a tiger in human form. Doctor Judson was
thrown to the ground, in the presence of his
wife, tied and dragged to the death prison.

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 1 75

Loaded with from three to five pairs of fet-
ters, he, with one hundred others, remained
a prisoner for one year and seven months.
It was during this period of awful suspense
that the faith and courage of this remarkable
woman shone with undimmed lustre.

Day after day, with presents and entreaties
she sought the amelioration of her husband's
condition at the hands of an officer ** whose
face exhibited every evil passion," and who
constandy reminded her that she, as well as
the prisoners, was absolutely in his power.
Reaching her husband at last, who with his
chain was barely able to crawl to the door,
and lingering with him for a moment, she
was thrust away with the words, *' Depart,
or we will pull you out." Repulsed by the
queen, she renewed her plea for seven
months, on foot and in the tropical sun,
making almost daily visits to some member
of the court. Undismayed, she persisted in
her efforts ; won the confidence of the keep-
ers ; secured mats for the prisoners to sleep
on ; brought them food, and kept them
cheered with hope of ultimate relief, when
hope with them had died out.

Removed to a remote spot in the interior,
she followed the unfortunate captives with
her babe in her arms, by boat, in an open

176 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

cart, and on foot — through dust and almost
unsupportable heat. Finding them in a di-
lapidated building, chained two and two, and
suffering from fever and ulcerated feet, she
determined to remain near by that she might
give personal succour to her husband and
his fellow sufferers. She prevailed upon the
jailer to give her " a wretched little room
half-filled with grain ; and in that filthy place,
without bed, chair, table or any other com-
fort, she spent the next six months of wretch-
edness."

Attacked with tropical dysentery, a cart
journey was made to Ava to seek food and
medicine for the prisoners and for herself.
She returned in such an emaciated condition
that the Bengalee cook burst into tears.
This faithful servant even forgot his caste in
his admiration and sympathy ; walked miles
to carry food to the prisoners to save Mrs.
Judson's strength, and returned to her side
to render any service that might be required.
Smallpox attacked her child. She, herself,
came down with spotted fever, and for days
her life was despaired of. As if her cup of
misery was not yet full, no nourishment
could be found for the child, and Judson
himself was carried off to an obscure prison.
It was of these dark days she writes :

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 1 77

" If ever I felt the value and efficacy of
prayer, I did at this time. I could not rise
from my couch ; I could make no efforts to
secure my husband ; I could only plead with
that great and powerful Being who has said,
* Call upon Me in the day of trouble and I
will hear, and thou shalt glorify Me ; ' and
who made me at this time feel so powerfully
this promise that I became quite composed,
feeling assured that my prayers would be an-
swered."

God could not fail to answer such prayers.
Her husband was found, her child recovered,
peace was restored, they returned to their
mission home to resume their work ; and
when the vail was lifted which for two years
had prevented news from reaching America,
the Baptist churches were so thrilled and
aroused from their lethargy and indifference
by the sacrifices and sufferings of these de-
voted missionaries that there followed a mis-
sionary awakening throughout their borders.

What the world owes to heroic Christian
endeavour is little realized and cannot be
computed in terms of miles travelled, years
of vigilant study and observation, or sermons
preached. The Japanese have a saying, *• Use
not a foot measure ; it kills the work." It is
the spirit of his art which creates an artist

1 78 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

out of an artisan, and it is the unquenchable
fire of a great purpose which makes the im-
possible real. And yet one must have some-
thing in the concrete with which to realize
what other men have accomplished.

Robert Morrison spent fourteen years,
much of the time in concealment, painfully
toiling over the most difficult written lan-
guage in the world, before he completed his
Chinese dictionary and the translation of the
Bible. In doing so, however, he laid the
foundation for all the tremendous literary
work done by missionaries and sinologues
since his day, and a most valuable contribu-
tion to the evangelization of nearly one-third
of the population of the globe.

Grenfell ranks second only to Livingstone
and Stanley as an explorer of the water-
courses of Central Africa. The Belgian
geographer, A. J. Wauters, speaks of him as
having for twenty-five years '* succeeded, as
the messenger of peace, in winning the con-
fidence of the savage natives by his patience,
tact and cleverness and in irradiating the im-
mense basin of the Congo by his itineraries
and in endowing its geography with fixed
points, carefully determined by astronomical
observations."

Excluding the Kasai and Sankuru Rivers,

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 1 79

Grenfell revealed nearly all the tributaries of
this immense river system and opened the
way to hundreds of tribes unknown and in-
accessible. This was done by heroic and un-
remitting effort, and in constant peril. His
whale boat was nearly crushed in the jaws of
a hippopotamus ; one of his boatmen was
seized by a crocodile and held for five min-
utes before the monster would yield his prey ;
guards were necessary as a protection from
the flights of poisoned arrows along the
Lomami ; food was scarce and bad and had
often to be eaten in his hands while navigat-
ing on the bow of his boat under a blistering
tropical sun. Here, day after day, behind his
prismatic compass he took his bearings and
night after night, into the late hours, cor-
rected the work by observations of the stars
from the satellites of Jupiter.

When, one after another, the three en-
gineers sent from England died of fever on
the long march to the pool, he undertook to
transport over the mountains and put to-
gether the Peace, a steel boat seventy feet
long. This feat was performed in four
months, when such portage took Henry M.
Stanley two years.

He spoke of himself as an old man at fifty,
with digestion ruined, strength impaired by

l8o MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

many fevers, and the burden of millions of
unsaved human beings, whom his discoveries
had brought to light. I stood at his grave at
Basoko, nearly one thousand miles above
Stanley Pool, and remembered that he fell
with his face towards Uganda. It had been
his cherished hope to establish a chain of
stations along the Aruwimi until the workers
of the Baptist Missionary Society might join
hands with those of the Anglican Church.
The great enterprise has been left to others.
When realized it will form one of the great
barriers to the Mohammedan advance.

The leadership of a great soul — who can
adequately unveil its loneliness, its hopes and
fears, its struggles and its faith ?

" That rare track made by great ones, lone and
beaten

Through solitary hours.
Climbing past fear and fate and sin, iron-eaten.
To godlier powers :

" A road of lonely morn and midnight, sloping
O'er earth's dim bars ;
Where out at last the soul, life's pinnacles topping.
Stands with the stars."

The heroic quality is a part of all clear,
strong thinking and conviction. There is no
conviction without honest thought and thought
that is shallow and evasive is not honest.

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC l8l

There is no body of Christian workers who,
more than missionary leaders, need clearness
of thought and courage of conviction. The
cults of the East and subtle philosophies of
the non-Christian religions are not to be met
by counter subdeties, but by masterful state-
ments of the truth. No such statements can
be made unless there is a powerful grasp of
fundamental doctrines, fearless denunciation of
sin, and at the same time so deep a sympathy
for the man who does the sinning as to pene-
trate and capture the citadel of his life. A
viceroy of India has been quoted as saying,
" Depend upon it, you will never rule the
East save through the heart."

But there is honest doubt in the world as
well as honest conviction and it must be
given a respectful hearing. Keen intellects
put searching questions which must be wel-
comed without flinching. To dodge an issue,
or to parry a thrust by witticism may prove
fatal to the faith of the enquirer. It is here
that Christianity, above all religions, exalts
personality. Frank and manly dealing with
serious men always wins respect. Con-
troversy rarely convinces men, while sym-
pathy with a soul struggling for light dis-
arms, creates confidence and leads to sure
foundation for belief.

l82 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

Duff in India, Martyn in Persia, and Ver-
beck in Japan were past masters in wielding
argument as keen as any Damascus blade,
and yet in sympathy had the breadth which
won a new and larger brotherhood in Christ.

The heroism of the pioneer always inspires
admiration ; when to that quality is joined a
sense of God and of mission as in the case of
David Livingstone, a man is well-nigh in-
vincible. A quenchless fire burned within
his bones. He had the missionary restless-
ness of Paul, and could say with the Apostle,
*' But none of these things move me, neither
count I my life dear unto myself, so that I
might finish my course with joy." It is true
that, at one time, difficulties had become al-
most insurmountable ; he had been repeat-
edly prostrated by fever ; his life was in con-
stant jeopardy ; and there was inadequate
backing from England. At this juncture his
brother Charles proposed his abandonment
of Africa and his settlement in America. His
reply settled the question for all time : ** I
am a missionary, heart and soul. God had
an only Son, and He was a missionary and
a physician."

Neither did his interest in scientific investi-
gation and exploration divert him for a single
moment from the one great purpose of his

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 183

life. The geographer was submerged in the
missionary. Had he not said, *' The end of
the geographical feat is only the beginning
of the enterprise." His was a great concep-
tion, and a noble program. The geograph-
ical feat was thirty thousand miles on foot,
under the severest privations, the discovery
of five great lakes, many rivers, a cataract
mightier than our Niagara, scores of un-
known languages, and hundreds of tribes
unrecorded.

The suffering and endurance of the last
few weeks of Livingstone's life seemed al-
most in the realm of the superhuman. His
march lay through a district drenched with
rain, full of swamps and swollen streams.
His clothing was threadbare. Weakened by
months of privation, hunger and disease, the
fogs chilled him to the bone. His teeth were
broken, his legs ulcerated, and pneumonia
had attacked one lung. These things sapped
his strength, but did not shake his purpose.
Nothing could do that. Nearly thirty years
before he had said to the directors of the So-
ciety he was ready *'to go anywhere — pro-
vided it be forward."

Here is the record on his last birthday —
March 19, 1873 — six weeks before his death.
** Thanks to the Almighty Preserver of men

l84 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

for sparing me thus far on the journey of
life. Can I hope for ultimate success ? So
many obstacles have arisen. Let not Satan
prevail over me, O my good Lord Jesus."
A few days after (24th March), •* Nothing
earthly will make me give up my work in
despair. I encourage myself in the Lord
my God, and go forward."

If faith and love are heroic, so must mis-
sionary motive have that element in large
degree. No life of high endeavour can long
be sustained without an adequate motive.
The strain will be too great. The approba-
tion of others, the exhilaration of work, and
the inspiration of success — none of these are
permanent. Approbation will grow stale,
ardour will cool as the fires burn low, and
the glow of success fade away into gray
ashes. Motive must be powerful enough to
sustain, and big enough to float God's plan
for a man's life and for the redemption of the
world. The spirit of benevolence is not
enough. Mere pity will die when sensibili-
ties are benumbed. Duty — grim-visaged
and stern — will hold a man to his task for
years, but that even may loosen its hold
upon the life. It is love, the constraining
love of Jesus Christ, that keeps its spring,
energizes the will, and lightens the task un-

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 185

til a Christly joy is fulfilled in doing the
things that are well pleasing in His sight.

No man is worthy of a world-wide work
who will lend his strength and his gifts to
that which is unworthy of his vocation. The
gifts and time of a truly great worker in
God's workshop are unpurchasable. God
needs men who cannot be bought. Their
time and strength as well as loyalty are His.
Salary, emoluments, favours, none of these
things move such a man. He lives in the
realm of high art. He will not prostitute his
gifts for base or commercial purposes. This
is one of the chief things which distinguish
him from the mere trader, the official who is
a time server, and the professional man who
has lost his ideals and is commercialized.
The true man counts not his wage. He is
content to be poor, like William Carey and
his colleagues who wrought so marvellously
in India, commanding the respect and ad-
miration of governors and viceroys. When
the sneers of Sydney Smith are forgotten,
" the nest of consecrated cobblers " will be
remembered. It is cheap to sneer ; it is
costly to die ; but there are not wanting
heroic men and women, who are ready to
say with Paul, " None of these things move
me, neither count I my life dear unto myself,

l86 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

SO that I might finish my course with joy,
and the ministry which I have received of
the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the
grace of God."

Heroic souls live in deeds, not years ; find
their truest joy in sacrifice, and at the end
lay down their lives willingly to do God's
will. Such lives, then, are not measured by
length, but by purpose ; not so much by
what has been done, as by what they would
do and by the capacity to love and to suffer.

Four years ago. Prof. J. W. Gilbert and I
stood on the bank of the mighty Congo, be-
low Matadi, and parted the long grass, shoul-
der high. Our eyes fell upon a grave. We
instinctively uncovered, for we stood over
the sacred dust of the heroic Alabamian,
Samuel J. Lapsley, who twenty years before
had laid down his young life for the redemp-
tion of Africa's millions.

At Luebo they called him the " Pathfinder."
For two years he had tracked the forest,
blazed the way to every sick mother and suf-
fering child, and won all hearts by a Christly
ministry tendered with his own hands. It
became necessary for one of the two pioneer
missionaries to make, in those days, the long
and perilous journey down the Lulua, Kasai
and Congo Rivers to secure a concession

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 187

from the Belgian authorities. Lapsley went,
leaving Shepherd, his loyal friend, at the mis-
sion station to care for the work. Days ran
into weeks and weeks into months. " The
boat is coming, the boat is coming," was
shouted along the hilltop. A wild rush was
made for the river and then the sad news that
the Pathfinder they loved was no more. He
had been stricken with African fever upon
the long three hundred mile walk, after reach-
ing Stanley Pool.

To the mission and to the home Church
the loss seemed irreparable and to some the
sacrifice too great. But out of that heroic
laying down of a man's life for his friends
there came the first gleam of new light to many
darkened, despairing hearts, and then the
dawn of a day in which heathenish men and
women began to realize the power of the
death and life of Him who is the light of the
world. A transforming force began to work
which brought them into a new relationship
with God their Father and with one another.
Under the impulse of a mighty sense of
brotherhood and obligation growing out of
the evangel which Lapsley preached and lived,
new centres of influence appeared in forest
and plain until hundreds of villages have
come to accept the Gospel, nearly four hun-

I88 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

dred teachers and evangelists to proclaim it,
and more than ten thousand staunch believ-
ers rejoice in redeeming grace and in the
King's Highway out of darkness into light.

Loyalty to a purpose always commands the
admiration of men. It does so because loy-
alty costs, and men in all ages appreciate the
spirit of heroic devotion to a cause. At nine
years of age Hannibal swore before the altar
of his gods, near the Pillars of Hercules, that
he would nurse ** eternal enmity to Rome."
Dominated by his life purpose, he measured
himself against every difficulty, disciplined
himself to suffering, inspired his soldiers to
almost superhuman effort, pierced the Alps,
and hurled his armies against the ancient foe
of Carthage. Death alone could quench the
fires of such a spirit — failure could not.

Horace Tracy Pitkin was one of Yale's
manliest men. *' He never drifted nor fol-
lowed the crowd." God gave him a vision
of China and of duty, and he gave himself to
Christ and to missionary service. He had
means of his own, but surrendered his pref-
erence for self-support to become the repre-
sentative of the Pilgrim Church in Cleveland,
Ohio, regularly paying the equivalent of his
salary to the work.

" He was the only student volunteer in

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 189

college," says Mr. Eddy, " but when he left
Yale, he left a volunteer band of twenty of
the strongest men in the university. He
kindled a missionary fire which in these
twenty years never has died out, and, please
God, it never will. When he left Union
Seminary he left a band of more than twenty
of the strongest men as volunteers. Before
leaving this country he had raised more than
one hundred men who actually reached the
field."

The Boxer Movement came, and Pitkin fell
in 1900, at Pao Ting Fu, defending the two
ladies of the mission from a howling mob.
His message to his wife was characteristic of
the Christian martyrs of all time : *' God was
with me at the last, His peace my consola-
tion. Send our little boy Horace to Yale and
tell him twenty-five years from now to come
out to take up my work in China." When they
recovered his body for burial, '* the hands were
not bound, but uplifted as if in prayer."

The harvest from blood drops sown in the
twentieth century is as sure as in the first.
Pitkin had not lived to win a convert, he had
not lived to learn the language. Fourteen
short years go by, and out from under the
arching city gate, where the head of the
young hero had been placed as a trophy,

I90 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

there poured a throng of students from the
ten colleges which have been founded in that
city since his death. Three thousand crowded
the great Confucian temple to hear Mr. Eddy
and others present the claims of Christ, and
ninety of the number stood in the presence
of that body of men and deliberately decided
to accept Jesus as their Saviour and Lord.

To win the strongholds of the world there
must be much heroic praying. No mere
platitudes will do here. Missionary prayers
are almost military in character. They do
not underestimate the strength of the enemy,
but are confident he will be defeated ; they
take account of the strategy of the evil one ;
they strengthen the base line of faith ; they
keep the lines of communication open ; they
draw upon the reserve forces of the invisible
world ; keep on the aggressive and are ready
to follow up the victory when won.

Who can estimate the contribution of Gen-
eral Charles Gordon, who fell at Khartoum, to
the evangelization of the Soudan ? His letters
to his sister reveal his inner life. He ruled
as he prayed, and prayed more than he
ruled. With what respect did his couriers
regard the white handkerchief upon the sand
in front of his tent door. In almost reverent
silence they waited, for Gordon was praying.

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 191

The daily intercession in an humble Scotch
home gave three lads to the ministry and one
of these was John G. Paton. " We occasion-
ally heard," he writes, '* the pathetic echoes of
a trembling voice, pleading as for life ; and
we learned to slip out and in past that door
on tiptoe, not to disturb that holy colloquy."
It was his father closeted with God in that
little mid-room of the cottage used as a family
sanctuary — the room between the shop on
the one side and the living-room of the
family on the other. To this sanctuary the
head of the family was wont to retire after a
meal to offer those petitions which kindled a
quenchless fire of missionary heroism.

In a quiet English home a baby boy was
dedicated to the Lord, like Samuel from his
birth, and continued to be the subject of
parental prayer. The mother on a visit
sixty miles away sets apart a season every
day for special intercession, and waits upon
God until confident her prayer has been an-
swered. At that very hour her son reads a
religious tract which leads to his conversion,
and Hudson Taylor becomes a missionary.
He it is who, in after years, agonizes for
China's millions, is given an assurance of
the leading of the Spirit, throws the respon-
sibility for labourers and funds upon God,

192 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

and pioneers the China Inland Mission. He
honoured God and God honoured him with
a mighty enduement of power and with mar-
vellous achievement until a thousand mis-
sionaries, and more, are at work in the
world's greatest mission field, and are held
there by prayer and by heroic faith.

The tender-hearted Galilean conquers not
by the heroic smiting of the sword, but by
the sceptre of a heroic love. It was the
famous Corsican who said with sadness, on
St. Helena, that thousands of brave men had
followed him into batde, but not one would
now die at his command, while for Jesus
Christ, who lived nearly twenty centuries
ago, millions would lay down their lives.
The aged Polycarp of Smyrna stood at the
stake. While the faggots were piled about
him, he was given a last opportunity to re-
cant— *' Eighty and six years have I been
His servant," was his answer — '' and He
never did me an injury, how then can I
blaspheme my King, who is my Saviour ! "

We believe the world can be won, not be-
cause of its Napoleons, but because of its
Poly carps — not by the sword, but by a
deathless love. It can be won because we
have a Gospel equal to the task. If it has
saved one man it can save the race. If it

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 193

has met the need of mankind in the past, it
can meet it to-day and to-morrow. To say
the Gospel is a failure, when men refuse to
try it and decline to live by it, is absurd. It
reaches and satisfies man's need at the high-
est points of his nature and at the lowest.
Coleridge could afBrm his confidence in the
divine origin and power of the Scripture be-
cause it found him at deeper depths of his
being than any other writing, and Paul could
say : *' Yea, verily, and I count all things to
be loss for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord." We know it will
win because it is a conquering force ; meets
the deepest need of humanity ; has been fully
tested ; has won where everything else has
failed ; and, finally, because He who is the
Way, the Truth and the Life is at the heart
of the Gospel — is Himself the Gospel.

In 1886, there was a Chinese preacher in
Peking by the name of Chang, an untiring
evangelist and personal worker who helped
me much when I was in charge of the
Methodist Hospital in that city. I moved
to Japan. Several years elapsed. The Boxer
Movement came and went, and swept every-
thing clean. Not a vestige remained of hos-
pital, church and school, but these were re-
built.

194 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

Upon a visit to the mission I met the
young pastor. He was the son of the evan-
gelist. I inquired for his father and mother.
He hesitated for a moment, his Hps quivering,
and then told the story of their martyrdom.

His father was in charge of a church be-
yond the Great Wall, the door of whose par-
sonage opened towards the rolling uplands of
Mongolia. The approach of the Boxers was
reported, but the preacher held to his post.
It seemed imperative, at last, to leave. He
went out upon the highway with his wife and
children, scarcely knowing whither to direct
his steps. The fanatical mob followed, and
the little group was surrounded. ** Renounce
your faith in Jesus," said they. " I cannot,"
was the calm reply. " He laid down His life
for me." With their dull knives they hacked
him to pieces. Pointing to the shapeless
body, they turned to his wife and said,
** Give up the Jesus doctrine, or you suffer
the same fate." She replied, *' My husband
led me along this way for many years. Jesus
is more than life to me. Do what you will."
Her mutilated form was thrown upon that of
her husband, and the little children suffered
the same fate. It was a terrible story, but I
thanked God for the heroic spirit of it all.

That night, as I sat at the table of the mis-

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 195

sionary who entertained me, I referred to it.
He remarked, " It is all true, but did he tell
you the sequel ? " '* What sequel," I ex-
claimed, ** could there be to such a story ? "
This was the sequel. The son whom I had
just met was at college and called to the
ministry. He requested that, for his first
work, he be appointed to the charge where
his father and mother had lost their lives.
He received the appointment, and some of
the very men whose hands were stained with
the blood of his parents were led to Christ
through his ministry. Where in any land
has the constraining power of the love of
Jesus Christ had a more beautiful illustration
or reached a higher level? Does not the
heroism of love He in such a spirit ? " Father
forgive them ; for they know not what they
do."

True greatness of soul is measured by the
heroic quality of its faith. To win a world
one must be sure of the basis of his faith, and
then have the audacity to project it into the
realm of the unexplored and the unconquered.
It is not a man's confidence in himself — that
may be pure egoism ; nor in his power of
achievement — that would be unwarranted
assurance. His confidence will fail him in
the hour of trial. He must have faith in the

196 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

sovereignty and the love of God as well as in
the righteousness and the greatness of his
cause.

The most heroic element, perhaps, in the
character of Jesus Christ was His faith in
God. It was unshakable, immovable. It
held Him steadily to His purpose. It
enabled Him to face unterrified and alone
the powers of death and hell when the
sustaining forces of nature were exhausted.
It filled Him with peace in the midst of
malignant hate, and gave Him a sublime
confidence in the success of His mission. By
the inspiration of His own faith Jesus brought
a group of men to beheve that they too might
attempt the impossible. That belief has
never died out, but it has ever been to its
missionaries that the Church has looked for
illustrations of daring faith and a quenchless
hope.

John G. Paton and his wife, young and un-
tried missionaries, were sent to the New
Hebrides group where, on the island of Er-
romanga, John Williams and Harris had
been clubbed and eaten. One of their first
experiences was that of an encounter between
hideous, painted savages, more like devils
than men, who rent the air with frightful
yells. Five were killed and dragged to the

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 197

edge of a spring. So polluted did the water
become that tea could not be made of it, and
they were obliged to drink the juice of a
cocoanut instead. A sleepless night was
passed. The shrieks and wails from the
village were heartrending. Women were
being strangled that their spirits might ac-
company their dead husbands into the nether
world. No God, no sense of sin, no shame,
no natural affection. Nothing but ignorance,
bigotry and vice. All nakedness, and murder,
and deceit. Is it possible to do anything with
them ? He answers the question in his jour-
nal. The God-idea must be wrought into
their consciousness. It had been done on the
island of Aneityum, and it could be done on
Tanna. It must be done. ** Our hearts rose
to the task with a quenchless hope."

The Church with the vision of a redeemed
humanity has the right to look forward to
the consummation of her hopes of an evangel-
ized world. She has at the same time the
inspiration of looking back over her history
and of reviewing the long roll of saints and
martyrs who were faithful unto death. In all
the great army there are none more worthy
than those in ancient days who laid the solid
foundations of the Kingdom of our Lord and
cemented them by their blood.

198 MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC

It is not altogether the glamour of romance,
and the lengthening shadows of the receding
centuries that make the men and women of
the past great in stature. Denied the revela-
tion and the blessing of which we are the
heirs of all the ages, they saw the promises
afar off, were persuaded and embraced them.
It was this magnificent faith which swept the
heavens with telescopic view, believed that
out of the inter-stellar depths, which their
eyes might never fathom, would burst upon
the world the Bright and Morning Star.
These are they *' who through faith subdued
kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained
promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
quenched the power of fire, escaped the
edge of the sword, from weakness were
made strong, waxed mighty in war, turned
to flight armies of aliens.'*

" The Son of God goes forth to war,
A kingly crown to gain ;
His blood-red banner streams afar;
Who follows in His train ?

" Who best can drink His cup of woe
Triumphant over pain ;
Who patient bears His cross below
He follows in His train.

MISSIONS AND THE HEROIC 1 99

** A glorious band, the chosen fevy
On whom the Spirit came ;
Twelve valiant saints, their hope they knew
And mocked the cross and flame.

** They climbed the steep ascent of heaven
Through peril, toil and pain ;
O God, to us may grace be given
To follow in their train."

LECTURE V
A MISSIONARY CHURCH

LECTURE V
A MISSIONARY CHURCH

A WORLD cannot be won save by a
faith that lives and grows and con-
quers. Such faith does not depend
upon tradition, upon a creed, upon ritual,
upon socialized religion, nor upon the au-
thority of the Church. Not upon any or all
of these can it be based. It must stand upon
the substance of things unseen ; upon the
impregnable rock of the very Word of God ;
upon a personal experience with Christ as
Saviour and Lord wrought out in the soul —
vital and constantly being renewed ; upon
the witness of the Spirit, bearing in upon our
consciousness ** the inexpugnable reality of
the life of God in the soul of man."

This heroism of faith is needed as much by
the Church at home as by the missionary in
the regions beyond. Chalmers says, " Our
chief business with Christianity is to proceed
upon it." It is our hesitation that imperils
the day, and our slowness to proceed upon
a divinely-ordered program, withheld from
203

204 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

angels, but outlined for man. A failure to
go forward with world-wide evangelization,
when the world is ready and expectant, ex-
poses the nations which have broken with
paganism to greater evils, and a hesitant
Church, at the home base, to the paralysis
which comes from inaction.

The absence of a positive and aggressive
faith always opens the way for credulity. A
man who fails to believe that which is true
and to act upon it soon finds himself open to
almost every form of untruth. It explains
why in an age of doubt so many exaggerated
forms of mischief exist. They creep unbidden
into the mind and heart and take possession.
Is it not here that the parable of the evil spir-
its has its application ? When the evil spirit
which went out of the man returned and found
his house empty, swept and garnished, seven
other spirits more evil than himself entered
in and dwelt there. Empty I No truth, no
faith, no purpose, no expulsive power of a
new affection, no master passion from God
to become the occupant.

Men who can lead and have large capacity
for leadership are needed here and there.
But it is the common man that God seeks
most, finds oftenest, and uses in His King-
dom. It is not the wise and mighty, but he

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 205

that is humble and lowly whom He delights
to honour. The humble earthen vessel,
though seamed and scarred, takes on a new
lustre under the divine touch, is filled with a
new spirit and is transformed into a vessel
of honour. It is ever the mission of the
higher in Christianity to seek the lower, and
the glory of the lower to be lifted up by serv-
ice into the higher.

The Church is set for the exaltation of
Christ and for the progress of the Kingdom.
This should be the supreme expression of her
desire, and the burden of her prayer. There
can be neither spiritual growth nor true prog-
ress without the exaltation of her Lord ; and
to exalt her Lord is to ensure her enlarge-
ment and her glory. No program will se-
cure it, no creed, no ritual, no councils, no
decrees, no priestly authority — only an up-
lifted Christ.

The Church should ever be ready to sound
the note of faith and courage — faith that com-
pels an expanding horizon, and courage in-
telligent enough to weigh, then dare. If ex-
plorers are eager to penetrate regions yet
unknown, why not the Church the areas of
divine love, only the fringes of which we have
been able to touch. If scientists search the
mysteries of nature, why not the Church the

206 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

hidden springs of grace ; if merchants are
seeking for new markets, why not the Church
for new fields ; if militarism is bent upon the
destruction of humanity, why not the Church
bestow its energies not upon the re-creation
of humanity alone, but upon the extirpation
of sin, the tap-root of all evil. Shall the Church
capture the world or the world capture the
Church? There can be no truce with the
powers of darkness. To hesitate is to invite
disaster in her own ranks, and dishonour
from her enemies. Paralysis comes from in-
fidelity. To mark time never measures the
spirit of the soldier — it is the advance, the
charge upon the enemy.

We face a giant task — the rebirth, the re-
construction, the restoration of the individual,
of society, of the nation, of the race. Shall it
be said of us, *' Like as the children of Ephraim
who being harassed and bearing bows turned
themselves back in the day of battle " ? Gid-
eon with his three hundred was equal to the
hosts of the enemy. One man and God
could chase a thousand and two put ten thou-
sand to flight. The presence of Napoleon
upon any battle-field was said to be equal to
ten thousand men. If our Captain is at the
front, victory is assured. It is not so much a
question of our being upon the field, the su-

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 207

preme question is that of His being there.
For His sake no sacrifice is too costly, for
Him no odds too great.

The Church at home has too long gazed
upon a sky-line of roseate hue. It has been
too much attracted by the enchantment of
distance and the glamour of missionary ro-
mance. There is a romance of missions, and
there is the call of the wild and the untutored
races. These do weave a spell about the
soul, if there be a spark of imagination left to
kindle into a glow. But there is no substan-
tial basis in all this for that imperious pur-
pose which must lie at the foundation of all
sustained effort.

It should not be necessary, now and then,
to open a new mission in order to stimulate
flagging interest, or glowing reports of suc-
cess be required to prompt to larger gifts.
Above all to demand heroic sacrifice of
our missionaries, and missionary graves, to
touch the sentiment and quicken the con-
science of the Church is pandering to a mor-
bid taste, and will but end in repeated at-
tempts to galvanize a dead body into life.

The Church does need the spirit of the
heroic in the missionary, but it must be pre-
ceded by the heroic spirit at home. It does
not need the practice of self-denial in the

208 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

messenger, but that messenger must be
backed by greater self-denial upon the part
of those who send him. It has a right to ex-
pect a prayer life of faith and power in the
missionary body on the field, but there must
be more prayer and greater power of inter-
cession at the home base. The Church on
the field should not he expected to rise in its
spiritual life higher than that of the Church at
home. If it does rise higher, it should lead
to severe scrutiny of motive and of purpose in
the home Church lest while the effort is being
made to give the Gospel to the heathen there,
we lose its power here and suffer a lapse of
faith.

What does the Church supremely need?
The Church does not need prestige, she has
that ; she does not need numbers, her rolls
are long and full ; she does not need ma-
chinery, she is over-organized ; she does not
need money, she has more wealth than con-
secration. She does need the spirit of prayer
which is the key to power. There must be
leadership in prayer which will bring the
power to surrender her sons and daughters,
put the machinery to work, consecrate the
wealth, and send her reenforced upon her di-
vine mission.

The Church needs a vision of One high

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 209

and lifted up, and yet infinitely near ; confes-
sion of the sin of unbelief and of disloyalty to
her Lord ; purification through the truth, and
enduement of power through the Spirit. The
Church needs a moral earnestness which
leads to the acceptance of a world-task de-
manding all her powers ; a rediscovery of
brotherhood in service pushed to the point of
sacrifice, and to know the joy of it ; a cour-
age which fears nothing but sin ; and an
optimism which has " a persistent faith in
God's to-morrow." The Church needs to
know the mind of Christ ; to be filled with
His purpose to establish the Kingdom of God ;
to offer daily intercession for the same and to
put in practice the prayer *' that they all may
be one."

What is all this but the superhuman task
of erecting a Kingdom in which there is to be
'• a union of all souls that are in union with
God, a world-order in which the will of God
shall be reproduced in all human lives. To
establish that Kingdom in east and west, and
north and south, in trade and industry, in
philanthropy and education and government
and religion, in home and school and church,
among all nations and all races — all that,
whether fully anticipated or not," the Church
must come to realize is " involved in the

2IO A MISSIONARY CHURCH

great overmastering vision of Jesus of Naz-
areth." There is only one religion which can
comprehend such a Kingdom and inspire
a world order, which has adequate breadth
and depth.

** It appears to be a growing conviction
that in the religion of our Lord Jesus Christ
there are certain universal and permanent
elements, which constitute the essence of
religion. I shall not describe this essence as
the irreducible minimum, lest I be supposed
to teach that its content is small and meagre.
On the contrary its content is majestic and
opulent. The fullness of the Godhead is in
it ; the depths of the riches of divine grace are
in it ; the unspeakable gift of God is in it ; the
treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in it ;
the depth and height and breadth and length
of the love of God are in it. The growing
appreciation of the Biblical content, the
broadening scope of Christian experience are
disclosing the vast proportions of these
universal and permanent elements that con-
stitute the essence of the Christian religion." ^

The world is to be won by love. It can-
not be subdued by any other power ; it can-
not be won in any other way. It is not only

1 Chas. Cuthbert Hall, " Universal Elements of the Chris'
tian Religion," pp. 126-127.

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 211

the greatest thing in the world — it is the
greatest force in the world. We may not
like men because they are unlovely, but we
must love men because they are lovable,
just as we must believe men can be saved
because they are recoverable. Men are to be
loved because of their pitiful need. They are
to be loved because of our common brother-
hood in Christ. They are to be loved be-
cause God loves them as having the stamp of
His own personality.

Doctor Cairns has asked the question —
" Why did Jesus so love men ? " He answers,
" Because they were the likest thing, in the
world around Him, to Almighty God.
They had the spark of the divine life in them.
They were capable of being loved into the
image of God, of becoming such as would
manifest God, revealing God the Father of
man. It is the most reassuring thing about
man in history that such a one as Jesus loved
men as Jesus did."

Through the ages this has been the magnet
which has drawn and held the soul of man.
Its silent but powerful current searched and
swept the heart-strings of a rugged fisherman,
stout limbed and rough handed, with volcanic
fires burning in his breast, and held him in its
golden meshes until he could pen in burning

212 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

words to the strangers scattered throughout
Pontus and Asia : *' Whom having not seen
ye love ; in whom, though now ye see Him
not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy un-
speakable and full of glory."

This has been the heavenly magnet, the
dynamic of the Kingdom, the heart-throb
which has never ceased to beat for sinful
man. Its yearnings and its searchings were
with a tender solicitude that would not let
man go, and prompted the oldest and most
saintly of all the apostles to exclaim : ** He
that loveth not knoweth not God ; for God is
love. Herein was the love of God manifested
in us, that God hath sent His only begotten
Son into the world that we might live through
Him. Herein is love, not that we loved God,
but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be
the propitiation for our sins." How beauti-
ful, how persistent the power of divine, of
deathless love.

Twelve centuries elapse ; the long night of
the Dark Ages begins to be spent. The light
of a new day is breaking everywhere. I see
another man, not from the Isle of Patmos, but
from Majorca on the coast of Spain. He is a
courtier, a musician, a poet and a prodigal.
He comes to himself. Suddenly he sees Jesus
hanging upon the cross with eyes reproach-

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 213

fully fixed upon him. It proves to be the
turning point of his life. Shot through with
conviction, and overwhelmed by the tide of
divine love which swept over his soul, he sur-
rendered for life as a missionary to the
Mohammedans, the hardest and the most
perilous task of that or any age.

Fifty years of unremitting service go by.
In his Contemplations we read : " As the
needle naturally turns to the north when it is
touched by the magnet, so is it fitting, O
Lord, that Thy servant should turn to love
and praise and serve Thee ; seeing that out
of love to him Thou wast willing to endure
such grievous pangs and sufferings." Then,
as if lifting his pen for a moment of prayer
and upward look, he adds these words, ** Men
are wont to die, O Lord, from old age, the
failure of natural warmth and excess of cold ;
but thus, if it be Thy will. Thy servant would
not wish to die ; he would prefer to die in the
glow of love, even as Thou wast willing to die
for him."

Is it a magnet to which we would liken
love ? That is too cold. Is it a dynamic ?
That is too material. Is it the heart-beat of
the world? That is almost too human. It
is Christ. It is God, for God is love.

Doctor Zwemer well says in his Biography

214 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

of Raymond Lull, ''The inner life of Lull
finds its key in the story of his conversion.
Incarnate love overcame carnal love, and all
of the passion and the poetry of Lull's genius
bowed in submission to the Cross, The vi-
sion of his youth explains the motto of his old
age : * He who loves not lives not ; he who
lives by the Life cannot die.' "

*• The image of the suffering Saviour," con-
tinues Doctor Zwemer, "remained for fifty
years the mainspring of his being. Love for
the personal Christ filled his heart, moulded
his mind, inspired his pen, and made his soul
long for the crown of martyrdom. Long
years afterwards, when he sought for a rea-
sonable proof of that greatest mystery of
revelation and the greatest stumbling-block
for Moslems — the doctrine of the Trinity — he
once more recalls the vision. His proof for
the Trinity was the love of God in Christ as
revealed to us by the Holy Spirit."

Love is immortal, imperishable. It is found
in the waste places of the earth ready to be-
come the basis of a new hope for humanity.
We were lost in the heart of Africa. For
two days our guide was without his bear-
ings. The first day's march made a com-
plete circle. We halted in the middle of the
afternoon to find we were at the starting point.

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 215

Our sixty caravan men were almost mutinous.
They had had nothing to eat. The night was
spent in utter bewilderment, our men sleep-
ing upon the bare ground. Long before
day the march was resumed. We held to
a dim trail until a late hour, when once
more uncertainty came down upon us like a
fog.

A hunter appeared who told us there was
a village ahead, but it belonged to a can-
nibal tribe of bad reputation. The question
was hotly debated as to whether we should
spend the night in the forest, or go forward.
Our hungry men decided to risk cannibals
rather than leopards, so we pushed on.
Night had fallen, when a gleam of light
shot along the path. The caravan swung
boldly in to the centre of the village where
fires were burning and began a parley for
food.

Utterly exhausted I threw myself upon a
log. We had marched from starlight until
the stars had risen again. At this juncture
a young man, lithe and powerful, pressed his
way to the front, bowed low, and begged the
Ngangabuka (physician) to come at once and
see his mother. I put him off, saying I was
too tired to walk and would come later. He
went, but returned insisting that I go to see

2l6 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

his mother. Again I refused, but promised
to come as soon as a cup of tea had been
prepared. Reluctantly he disappeared in
the darkness. The third time he returned.
So insistent was his plea that I said to Pro-
fessor Gilbert, my companion, ** I cannot
stand it; I must go because of his impor-
tunity."

He led me a few paces to his hut. A fire
was smouldering at the door upon the ground.
Silhouetted in the flicker of light was the
outline of his mother. We crawled in upon
hands and knees to the place where she
crouched moaning upon a mat of reeds. An
examination developed the fact that she had
an abscess of the middle ear. Her sufferings
must have been terrible, but perforation had
taken place. It was not the pain now but the
discharge that terrified them both. In their
childlike simplicity they imagined the brain
itself was oozing out. A few kind words re-
assured them. Some medicine was given and
I returned to my fellow traveller. '' Gilbert,"
said I, ** thanks be to Almighty God, I have
found an unquenchable spark of divine love
in the breast of a cannibal. There is love
enough in that man's heart for his mother,
and hope enough in mine upon which to
build one's faith in the possibility of a re-

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 21 7

deemed Africa through the larger, diviner
love of Jesus Christ."

The relation of the foreign missionary to
the native worker and to the native Church
is one which involves the nicest adjustments,
and calls for the wisest statesmanship. In no
alignment of forces on the foreign field is
there involved so much that is vital to the
propagation of an aggressive Christianity.
An element of over control on the one hand,
or of ultra independence upon the other, is
fatal to that growth and progress of the
Church which must be fostered, if nation-
wide evangelization becomes an accom-
plished fact.

There is a statement in the action of the
Indian National Congress, recently held in
Madras, which while it refers to what is con-
sidered the ideal relation between the Indian
and the Englishman, both subjects of the
same empire, both equally loyal to the same
governing head, applies closely to the mis-
sionary and the native Church. The action
referred to is as follows : "The two extremes
— the one of separation, the other of sub-
ordination— are both equally impossible and
must be put out of our mind. The ideal
that we must pursue, and which the Con-
gress has set before itself, is that of coordi-

2l8 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

nation and comradeship, of a joint partner-
ship on equal terms."

This goes to the heart of the matter. The
ideal relationship in the kingdom of grace is
one in which all men are equals — there are
no terms of privilege save as grace is a God-
given privilege to all men.

The student life of the world must be won
for Christ. As a piece of Christian strategy
it is central and vital. The greatest con-
structive evangelistic and missionary move-
ments of modern times have, through the
Spirit of God, been born of young and en-
thusiastic life, which has optimistic faith and
dares the impossible. Zinzendorf and The
Order of the Mustard Seed ; John Wesley
and The Oxford Club ; Samuel Mills and the
Haystack Conference at Williams College;
George Williams and the Young Men's
Christian Association ; Mount Hermon and
the Northfield Student Conferences with the
Volunteer Movement for Foreign Missions,
and the World's Student Christian Federa-
tion are tremendously significant in this con-
nection.

Herein lies one of the most potent features
of the Evangelistic Movement recently in-
augurated in Methodism. It involves not
only the conversion of the individual, but re-

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 219

lates itself to those decisions for life service
which will recruit the organized body of lay
and ministerial workers, at home and abroad.
Young life is peculiarly open to conviction
when the needs of the world and the de-
mands of the Kingdom are intelligently and
adequately presented. The claims of Christ
and of humanity upon the life in the need
of nurses, deaconesses, colporteurs, teachers,
stewards, social service workers and mission-
aries should be vigorously and earnestly
presented.

The response will always be equal to the
investment of prayer and faith in this the
most promising and fruitful field of the
Church. If we would emphasize devotional
Bible study, recruit the ranks of the ministry,
direct the wealth of the Church into channels
of benevolence, secure men and women for
constructive Christian work, and qualify for
leadership in the same, the place of decision
must be in the Sunday-school and in the col-
lege. It will be inadequate, however, unless
special effort be put forth, and time given to
it, and the leadership be of those who have
both sympathy and experience in dealing
with young life and who constitute the basis
of appeal in their own surrendered lives. No
eye is so clear to detect the weakness and

220 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

inconsistency of a man's life as that of the
student. No one respects straightforward
honesty and manliness as he.

Methods are a matter of detail, but some-
times vital. Small prayer groups of students
focusing intercession upon their own body;
utilization of speakers selected from the regu-
lar pastorate, or young men from the mission
field, because of their experience in dealing
with the problems of young life, those who
can present the claims of Christ and missions
in such way as to lead men to open their
hearts and bring them face to face with God.
Mr. Moody discovered Henry Drummond at
Edinburgh University as a past master in
such work. It is at such moments decisions
are made which change the course of a life
and may influence the destiny of a nation.

God gives man a Saviour, Jesus Christ,
who can really save. He reveals to man a
religion, Christianity, which gives freedom
and yet holds man to God. By faith in the
one, man has the gift of eternal life ; by faith
in the other, he has the divine charter of hu-
man liberty. But God does not give man
moral character. He cannot. I say it rev-
erently. That must grow by self-denial, by
sacrificial service, and by vital touch with
Christ for vital force.

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 221

It is the missionary's task to wisely direct
that growth. No master builder of men re-
quires deeper wisdom and diviner grace ;
none needs more human skill and Christly
sympathy. Responsibility must be placed
upon the native convert, but not too heavy ;
safeguards must be raised about him, but
not too restrictive. It is rather the spontane-
ous buoyancy of hope that springs from un-
shakable faith in God the Father that is to
be desired, and the masterful control which
grows out of unquenchable love for his Lord
that is to be sought for.

Christ did not lay unnecessary burdens
upon men. He chose rather to bear them
Himself and thus fulfill the law. He looked
deeper than actions and searched for motive.
With Him it was not so much what man was,
but what man desired to be. It was this that
made Him patient with doubting Thomas,
and forbearing with impulsive Peter.

He placed no arbitrary rules and restric-
tions upon men. He taught that the letter
killeth, and that it is the spirit that maketh
alive. We have to be very patient with a
people who have for centuries been living in
an order of society which tolerated customs
that are more than objectionable, actually
sinful. Jesus did not spare sin, but He was

222 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

tender to the sinner for He loved men and
reverenced their personaUty. He came not
to them who were whole, but to those who
needed a physician.

A missionary church far out upon the rim
of civilization — how shall I describe it? It
was the day after Christmas when the Sam-
uel Lapsley steamed up the Lulua River.
She rounded the bend, cleared the forest and
brought us in sight of a great throng gath-
ered on the right bank. The lion-hearted
Morrison, tender and true, was returning
with us to his devoted friends. After an ab-
sence of two years I had come back with
a mission party of eight. Standing there
before us were missionaries and native
helpers ; men, women and children salut-
ing us with handkerchiefs, palm branches
or extended hands. Among them, Mudimbe
and Dufanda, the faithful companions of our
first journey, and the stalwart four with
Wembo Niama's spear, who had just walked
twice five hundred miles to tell the great
chief of the Batetela that Kabengale would
be true to his word, and return to his village
with missionaries by the twenty-fourth moon.

For a single moment a solemn stillness
pervaded the atmosphere — the awe-inspiring
hush as of a prayer — then from a thousand

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 223

throats there burst forth, in the Baluba
tongue, the words of that triumphal song,
** Onward, Christian Soldiers I '* and simul-
taneously from the Lapsley an answering
refrain from our sixty lusty wood- choppers
and firemen, who sang out the words, ** We'll
Trust and Obey." No language can describe
the thrill and power of it all. Tears could
not be repressed. There was the overmaster-
ing sense of the Presence of Almighty God in
Central Africa. Greetings were exchanged
with our Presbyterian fellow-workers of fair
complexion and of dusky hue, but who alike
as faithful intercessors had prayed ten years
for the coming of the Methodists. Then they
climbed the hill, filled the great church and
heard the recital of the goodness of the Great
Father during all the intervening months of
absence and of travel. As that mighty com-
pany bowed their heads in reverent thanks-
giving, we realized that Ethiopia had not
stretched out her hands in vain and that we
would yet see Africa redeemed.

Was it a prayer of empty words that day ?
Was it a vision or a mere dream ? Within
ten days of that wonderful hour, that Presby-
terian church made up of converts from raw
heathenism, some of them ex-slaves and from
cannibal tribes, gave us two of its leading

224 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

evangelists and their wives and fifteen Chris-
tian workmen as the nucleus of a Methodist
church in the remote interior. The King-
dom is coming and Christ is in the midst
when such things are possible.

There can be no true missionary Church
which has not its centre and source of inspi-
ration and power in Christ as the head of the
Church. Shift that centre to an ecclesiastical
oligarchy ; shift it to an hierarchy, or any
human source of authority and of power ; and
the Church is doomed. To Hve, and grow,
and rejoice in the fulfillment of her God-given
mission, Jesus Christ must have the supreme
place. It must be a Church that is surren-
dered to Christ, catholic in her sympathy, burn-
ing with zeal in evangelistic effort, consciously
called into the fellowship of her Lord, daily
enriched by communion with Him, and abid-
ing in the unity of the Spirit, and in the bonds
of peace.

Members of such a Church cannot content
themselves with simply being exponents of a
principle, or advocates of a cause. They
must be exemplars of a life. They must be
the pioneers of spiritual progress, the educa-
tors of the social conscience, and the creators
of a corporate sense of responsibility to God
for the advancement of His Kingdom. Fail-

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 225

ing this, she loses her spiritual power, forfeits
her place of leadership and ceases to fulfill
her mission in the world.

*' No Church can live on its past ; it must
live by faith and duty in the present; no
Church has any claim to be whose only right
is historical. The only claim is present truth
and life, love and service, making the Church
a temple of the living God, a body for the
Spirit of Christ. Churches, then, everywhere
live under the judicial and by the evangelical
law. This makes it necessary that no Church
or body of Churches lose for one moment
their evangelical zeal. The Churches are
bound to be vehicles of the grace of God,
living centres of evangelical energy and
force, changing ever the secret life that is in
them into the lives that are to be, penetrating
the present, preparing the future, being in all
their parts as bodies of the living God."

It is not sufficient that the pastor shall
master the subject of missions. He must be
mastered by the truth, that the object for
which the Church exists is the establishment
of the Kingdom of God in all the world.
This goes beyond the mere advocacy of mis-
sions, it goes to the heart of the matter and
gives " the subject of missions its true place
in his ministry." To the pastor belongs in a

226 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

preeminent degree the privilege and the re-
sponsibility of solving the foreign mission
problem.

The missionary passion is as necessary to
the pastor at home as it is to the pastor
abroad. There is no neutral ground. Both
are in the war. The minister, like his church,
must be either cold or hot. If cold he is dis-
loyal to his Master. If neither cold nor hot,
he is unworthy of the Cause and is in danger
of being spewed out. The Christian who does
not go as a foreign missionary must give a sat-
isfactory reason why he stays at home. The
burden of explanation rests upon him. The
man who enters the pastorate at home must
seek to know the mind of Christ. He must
have the largest possible grasp of the world's
evangel ; a keen sense of the world's need ;
a deepened sense of compassion ; courage to
meet opposition ; intelligence in presenting
the claims of missions so as to overcome ig-
norance and prejudice ; masterfulness in grap-
pling with problems of policy and adminis-
tration ; ability to " raise the supplies at home
that should maintain the work of God abroad."
The majority of great missionary secretaries
have been missionary pastors, some of them
on the foreign field itself.

The world is to be won by presenting

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 227

Christ as a Redeemer who is able to save hu-
manity at its lowest, and who is not only able
to save, but is to-day restoring men — sinful,
degenerate men — to their rightful relationship
as sons of God, and brothers to all other men.
We can have, therefore, no patience with a
philosophy which announces as the first prin-
ciple of humanity that ** the weak and the
botched must perish." If that be human-
ity, it is a remnant of a barbaric age and
should be outlawed as unworthy a place in
the Kingdom of God. It is a part of the sen-
timent from the same source that defines what
is good as *' all that increases the feeling of
power, the will to power, power itself in man."

Our Gospel is an evangel of comfort to the
broken-hearted, of strength to the powerless,
and therefore of hope to ** the botched and
hopeless." It was to the philosophizing
Greeks that Paul wrote, ** If our Gospel be
hid, it is hid to them that are lost : in whom
the god of this world hath blinded the minds
of them which believe not, lest the light of
the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the
image of God, should shine unto them."

It is not the good in man, not the feeling
of power, nor is it the power itself in man that
is to save humanity. " We have this treas'
ure in earthen vessels," continues the Apostle,

228 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

** that the excellency of the power may be oi
God and not of us." It is the commonplace
that Christianity comes to uplift and glorify.
Under its touch a clod becomes vibrant with
power, and every bush aflame with the pres-
ence of God. The clod may nourish a seed
that can feed a world, and the bush burn with
an energy that speaks of pentecost and
tongues of fire.

" No one Church is equal to the task of
evangelizing the world ; and if the various
Churches working in foreign fields do not
cooperate with each other, but fall to fighting
among themselves in the presence of the
heathen, all of them together will do some-
thing worse than fail. On the mission field
only bodies pervaded by a catholic spirit are
of any avail. But the doctrinal basis of evan-
gelical Christianity is the only platform wide
enough for all parties to stand harmoniously
upon. Strifes about forms of ordinances,
doctrines of historic episcopates and apostolic
successions, and dogmas concerning forms of
governments and ecclesiastical jurisdictions,
appear ridiculous to intelligent pagans, and
it is worthy of remark that such worthless
things disappear from the home land, even,
whenever a great revival sweeps over the
country. These minor matters cannot be of

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 229

the essence of Christianity, and no amount of
verbal jugglery or astute argumentation can
make them appear as of prime importance to
any healthy mind which is free from partisan
bias, or to any devout soul filled with the joy
of the Spirit." ^

This is a wise and timely utterance. It
recognizes the bigness of the task, the neces-
sity for cooperation, and the certainty of fail-
ure without both the spirit of catholicity and
the doctrinal basis of evangelical Christianity
which makes catholicity secure. May strife
about forms disappear, the things that are
worth while emerge, and the revival come,
at home and abroad, through the ministry
and unifying power of the Spirit which shall
cover the earth with the knowledge of the
glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

'' It is not possible," says Mr. J. H. Old-
ham, editor of the International Review of
Missio7ts, '* to go back to the unity which was
broken up at the Reformation, but only to go
forward towards a larger and higher unity,
which recognizes and is based upon the free-
dom of the Christian man. To seek co-
operation along these lines, however, makes
large demands upon character. Behind all
the consideration and discussion of the ques-

1 Bishop Candler, " Great Revivals," p. 304.

230 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

tion of cooperation, ennobling it and filling
even petty details with large and deep mean-
ing, lies the question — a question of real and
great historical significance — whether there
is among the leaders of the missionary move-
ment the loftiness of Christian character, the
statesmanship, the largeness of vision, the
breadth of sympathy, and the faith in God to
enable them to achieve, for the sake of the
evangelization of the world, in a measure that
has never been achieved before, a living, free,
rich, effective unity, in which the gifts that
God has bestowed upon each will find their
highest expression, and the resources with
which He has entrusted His Church will be
used to the uttermost for the speedy advance-
ment of the Kingdom of God." ^

The extension of the Kingdom — that is
what we stand for. It is what we are saved
for. To tell the world of the Father's love —
was not that Christ's mission ? To tell the
story of the Saviour's love — is not that our
mission? How true have we been to the
command to go? That is the test of dis-
cipleship. How loyal have we been to the
love which impels to go and tell ? That is
the test of Christianity.

1 Conference of Missionary Societies in Great Britain, June
1913-

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 23 1

In the province of Shansi, Mrs. Han, an
old Chinese woman, was soundly converted.
*' Her love and faith and the consistency of
her Christian life were undoubted. And yet
she never asked to be received into the
Church, and seemed distressed when the
subject of baptism was mentioned. This
puzzled the missionary ladies, who could not
think of any reason why Mrs. Han should
hold back. At length in a quiet talk one
day the old lady unburdened her heart.

'' * Alas,' she said wistfully, * if only 1
could be a true follower of Jesus and be
baptized.'

" ' And why not ? ' questioned the mission-
ary, much interested. * Is there anything to
hold you back ? '

*' * Me ? Why, of course there is,' ex-
claimed the visitor sadly. * How could I be
His true disciple ? I could never accomplish
the work.'

" ' What work ? ' said her friend kindly.
* Did not Jesus do it all ? '

** ' Oh, yes ! and I do love Him, and am
trusting Him alone for salvation. But I know
that the Lord Jesus said that His disciples
were to go into all the world and preach the
Gospel to every creature. Alas, I am not
able to do that.

232 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

** * I do love to tell of Him,' she went on, as
her missionary friend seemed unable for the
moment to reply. ' I have told my son and
his wife, and all our neighbours, and in the
summer time I can go to several villages near
at hand. Oh, I am not afraid to tell of
Jesus ! It is not that.

" ' But I am old and very feeble. I cannot
read. My eyes are growing dim. And I
can only walk a little way. You see it is im-
possible for me to go to foreign countries and
preach the Gospel. If you had come when I
was young — but now it is too late. I cannot
be His disciple.' " '

Who among us does not come under con-
viction from that simple story ? Accomplish
the work ! Have we done it ? Go into all
the world ! And we have not gone ! To
every creature ! And millions perish without
the Gospel. Mrs. Han said, ** I cannot be
His disciple." We accept the discipleship
and disobey the command.

The sense of mission. How overmaster-
ing it should be in the soul. The Church can
no more live without it than the individual.
As for the Church she has numbers enough,
resources enough, organization enough, to
complete the work to which she is commis-

1 Mrs. Howard Taylor, " Pastor Hsi," p. 93.

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 233

sioned, and to do it in this generation.
What then is lacking ? The sense of God
and of mission ; the sense of responsibility for
a world yet unevangelized ; the prayer spirit
and the power of the Holy Ghost. If she
falters, she loses her opportunity and her
crown. If she fails she dies. There is no
failure if the Church is true to her Lord, and
ready to do His will.

Men who can lead and have capacity for
leadership are always needed. But it is the
common man, after all, whom God seeks
most, finds oftenest, and uses in His King-
dom. It is not the wise and mighty, but he
that is humble and lowly whom He delights
to honour. The humble earthen vessel,
though seamed and scarred, takes on a new
lustre under the divine touch, is filled with a
new spirit and is transformed into a vessel of
honour. What is all this but a miracle?
But we need not go back to the apostolic age
for the miraculous. It is all about us. The
mission fields, at home and abroad, abound
in illustrations of God's power in the trans-
formation of life and character.

Jerry McAuley, converted thief, gambler,
and drunkard, founded the celebrated Water
Street Mission of New York City, which be-
came a Door of Hope to thousands of lost

234 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

men and women. It was the name of Jesus
falling upon his ear while stretched upon the
floor recovering from a drunken debauch that
touched the spring and drew the rusty bolt of
a hardened heart. " Whose name was
that ? " he asked. " I loved that name once,
but I have lost it." It was a mere gleam of
light. The bolt snapped back and darkness
resumed its sway. Months elapsed. He is
in prison and reads that Jesus died for sinners.
Upon his knees he pleads far into the night,
light comes again, and he shouts, "I have
found Jesus ! I have found Jesus ! " At-
tracted by the unusual sound the keeper
threw the rays of his dark lantern upon him
and demanded, " What is the matter with
you ? " ** I have found Jesus ! " replied
Jerry. ** Fll put you in the cooler in the
morning," said the keeper, and put down his
number. But he forgot to carry out his
threat.

Next morning to the criminal on his right,
and to the criminal on his left, as they sat at
breakfast, Jerry imparted his burning mes-
sage. It was his only chance. ** I have found
Him. I have found Him." To his fellow
prisoner in front of him, and to his fellow
prisoner behind him, as they marched with
locked step in column from the workshop

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 235

that day, he repeated the same glorious mes-
sage. It was his only other chance, and he
improved it. What wonder that a revival
fire kindled under the dynamic of a new-
found love — a fire that burned and leaped
from man to man and from cell to cell, until
scores of hardened criminals were saved.

Let us turn to the foreign field. A con-
verted Japanese pilot presented himself at
our mission home in Kobe years ago, homely
and uneducated, but full of zeal and of un-
tiring energy. He had found Christ out on
the Pacific Coast five years before, worked as
a cook while studying the Bible, but could re-
main no longer. It was the call of an un-
converted mother — a devout Buddhist — that
brought him back. He led her to Christ, led
his family, led hundreds of his countrymen,
and was wonderfully used in having a large
share in laying the foundations of a great
evangelical and educational work along the
shores of the Inland Sea.

Years later, I was on a visit to Korea. A
knock came upon the door one day. ** Who
is it ? " is the question ; and the reply, " Only
old Mr. Kim the tiger hunter." There he was
when I went to greet him, this grizzled old man,
with his weather-beaten face, and sunburned
neck and shoulders furrowed by the claws of

236 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

more than one tiger with which he had had
a personal encounter in the mountain fast-
nesses of the Hermit Kingdom. " Plow many
tigers have you killed, Brother Kim ? '* " Only
eleven," he modestly replies, though some of
these had been hunted and dispatched with
spear and knife, as incredible as it seemed.
It was for this heroic service the Emperor
had decorated him. ** What have you in
that bag. Brother Kim ? " " Ammunition," is
the laconic reply, with a smile. It was his
New Testament and hymn-book. ** Do you
no longer hunt tigers ? " " No, Moksa, I am
hunting for men." And then followed the
beautiful story of how Jesus had found and
tamed him — for he had feared neither man
nor beast, and now he was spending his days
going from hamlet to hamlet hunting for men
to whom he could tell the love of the Saviour
he had found.

These are diamonds in the rough. Earthen
vessels ! Common people ! Yes, but it was
the common people who heard Jesus gladly.
Unpromising material ? Perhaps so. But it
is out of this very material saints and martyrs
are being made, and the good work will go
on until the Great Architect has fashioned a
temple in which Jesus Christ is the chief
corner-stone, and every true believer shall

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 237

have a place somewhere in pavement, or
wall, or dome. The crooked lines of human
nature — and there are many — are they not
'* the master strokes of God " ? How often
has our Father guided us when we knew it
not, and how marvellously does He work out
the divine pattern in the mosaic of imperfect
human lives.

" When a visitor to Rome ascends into the
dome of St. Peter's," writes Doctor Watkin-
son, ** he is surprised by the general coarse-
ness of the mosaic with which it is covered —
the material is rough, the inlaying without
taste, the colouring devoid of delicacy or de-
sign. Yet, surveyed perhaps three hundred
feet below, it is grand enough ; the apparently
crude and slovenly artistry becomes a vision
of fair shapes and colours. The ornamenta-
tion of the dome was designed with a view to
its being seen from the floor, and its imper-
fection is its perfection ; for had the work
been smooth and delicate, it would have
proved an utter failure, whereas it is the
crowning glory of the shrine. The concep-
tion of the whole thing evinces on the part of
the artist the fullest knowledge, the truest
genius, the completest mastery of his voca-
tion. The apparent imperfection is part of a
larger perfection."

238 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

Christless is the one word which best de-
scribes the condition of the non-Christian
world. Under the spell of heathenism there
is stagnation, darkness and pessimism. Souls
without Christ are morally and spiritually be-
numbed, atrophied, dead. It is the insidious
advance of sin through every member of the
body, until spiritual death supervenes. There
is no remedy save through the impartation of
life by those who have life.

Is there not a profound suggestion in the
raising of the son of the Shunammite woman
from the dead at the hands of Elisha, the
prophet? She journeyed in haste, and found
the man of God at Mount Carmel. The sad
story of the death of her boy was told by the
mother. The prophet commanded his servant
Gehazi in the words, " Gird up thy loins, and
take my staff in thy hand, and go thy way :
if thou meet any man, salute him not ; and if
any salute thee, answer him not again : and
lay my staff upon the face of the child." And
Gehazi passed on before them, and laid the
stafi upon the face of the child ; but there
was neither voice, nor hearing. He returned
therefore, met the prophet in the way, and
said, *' The child is not awaked."

What could the wooden staff do ? What
could the faithless servant accomplish ? There

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 239

was no more life in the one than in the other.
It remained for the prophet himself to enter
in and shut the door, to pray unto the Lord,
and then to stretch himself upon the lifeless
form, until he that had no life in himself re-
ceived life. It is a remarkable illustration of
our dealings with a dead heathenism. Neither
man-made machinery nor spiritless messenger
can convey life to a lifeless body. It is only
the Church of God, instinct with the pres-
ence and spirit of her Lord, who can stretch
herself by the side of heathenism. Her
warmth, her power, her very spirit of life
from God can be so imparted that even the
dead may be quickened and raised up. But
it must be a living Church and not a faith-
less one. And at last, it is not by might nor
by power, but by the Spirit of the Hving God.

We are entering upon a new era of mis-
sions. It is one of final survey and occupa-
tion. The world field is open and ready.
Heathenism has been undermined. The pre-
paratory stage has ended. We are within
sight of the goal, and have but to press the
advantage gained.

A native Church of vigour and power has
been planted in the mission field. It is in a
sense an indigenous Church, rooted in the
soil. It has grown and spread like a mustard

24© A MISSIONARY CHURCH

seed. In the older fields the Church is com-
ing into a state of self-consciousness and self-
expression. It is the natural and logical out-
come of more than a century of faithful seed
sowing and cultivation. Native leaders of
capacity have been trained on the field.
Christianity has become the religion of the
home — its hymns and its prayers are in the
vernacular of the people. It is in these fields
to stay, and a withdrawal of the missionary
force would not uproot it.

Missionaries and Boards are at times per-
plexed at the stirring of independent thought
and life in the young Church. For years
they have prayed for growth and fruitfulness,
and have hoped and planned for self-support
and self-propagation. But when prayers
have been answered, and plans are reaching
fruition, uneasiness is created by the spirit of
independence. Methods of self-government
and forms of polity differing from that of the
mother Church are feared. Beyond a care-
ful indoctrination in the principles of Chris-
tianity, is it wise and have we a right to run
an Oriental membership through Occidental
moulds ? To foreignize may be to create ** an
imperfect imitation of the imperfect Church
at home." To westernize may be to place a
yoke upon young shoulders difficult to bear,

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 24I

and may result in arresting spontaneity, if
not growth itself. Soundly converted men
and women have witnessed to the faith, and
sealed their testimony with their blood.
Thousands more are ready to follow in their
train. Surely the task of the maintenance
and propagation of Christianity must, under
the guidance of the Spirit of God, be en-
trusted to them.

It does not necessarily follow that the
evangelization of the world demands organic
union of Churches on the mission field,
though in some cases that is desirable and
in the providence of God will surely be
brought about. But to do the work which
has been committed to us with the greatest
possible economy and efficiency and to finish
the task at the earliest possible day, there
must be coordinate and cooperative effort far
beyond what has yet been attempted. To
fail here is to be untrue to the tremendous
responsibility which we have assumed in ac-
cepting the Gospel.

Commission VIII of the World Missionary
Conference at Edinburgh gave expression to
the following sentiment :

'* We are beginning to see that the Church
is again facing a mighty conflict, like that
which arose when the living forces of the

242 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

Gospel contended with the forces of the
pagan world in the early centuries. While
we recognize the incidental advantages which
may result from separate administrations, and
rejoice in the testimony to any successful
efTorts which have been made to improve or-
ganization and promote cooperation, yet the
fact remains that the Christian forces are
confronting their gigantic task without ade-
quate combination and without sufficient
generalship.'^

There are indications of a movement in a
number of fields which looks to a unification
of purpose and the wise conservation of work-
ing force which must tell in the near future
upon the advance of the Kingdom of God.

The Federation of Evangelical Churches
which makes provision for provincial coun-
cils and a national federal council in India,
includes Methodists, Presbyterians, Friends,
Disciples of Christ and other denominations.
The constitution provides that while '* the
Federation shall not interfere with the exist-
ing creed of any church or society, the fed-
erating churches agree to recognize each
other's discipline and to welcome members
of other federating churches to Christian fel-
lowship and communion," and that " the ob-
ject of the Federation shall be to attain a

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 243

more perfect manifestation of the unity of
His disciples for which the Redeemer prayed,
by fostering and encouraging the sentiment
and practice of union." The importance of
this movement cannot be overstated since it
looks to complete occupation, economy, na-
tive agency and the most effective distribu-
tion of forces in order to the evangehzation
of India.

Dr. Arthur J. Brown, in his timely lectures
on " Unity and Missions," refers to the action
of the missionary body in the Philippines as
one which, while it does not ignore the diffi-
culties of such federation, recognizes the ne-
cessity and the wisdom for a determined
effort to bring the evangelistic forces at work
into a cooperative whole.

The Evangelical Union of the Philippines
sets forth as its object the union of " all the
evangelical forces in the Philippine Islands
for the purpose of securing comity and effect-
iveness in their missionary operations." In
its constitution, among other provisions, the
following with regard to the division of ter-
ritory was adopted :

** Whereas, several evangelical missionary
societies are entering upon their work in the
Philippine Islands, and whereas the evan'
gelization of these people will be more

244 A MISSIONARY CHURCH

Speedily accomplished by a division of the
territory, thus avoiding waste of labour, time
and money arising from the occupation of
the same district by more than one society,
which has marred the work in other and
older fields ; therefore,

** Be it resolved, That each mission now
represented on the field accept the responsi-
bility for the evangelization of certain well-
defined areas, to be mutually agreed upon,
such agreement to be open to revision at the
end of three years by the Evangelical Union
at its regular meeting." ^

The world will never be won by emphasiz-
ing our denominational differences, but by
magnifying the great fundamental truths
which we hold in common as evangelical
churches — truths which are vital and incon-
vertible because of their relation to Jesus
Christ our common Lord, who is Himself the
author and finisher of our faith. It will
never be evangelized by any union of
workers at home or abroad, which has a
single compulsory element in it. At the
same time, it will never be won for Christ so
long as we present a divided front to hea-
thenism. The ranks must be closed up.
There must be one great unifying purpose,

» A. J. Brown, " Unity and Missions," pp. 148-149.

A MISSIONARY CHURCH 245

and one spirit animating the body — that of
Him who said of Himself, " And I, if I be
lifted up from the earth, will draw all men
unto Me." Here is where the enduring
emphasis must be placed. He is the centre
about which all effort for the extension of the
Kingdom of God must be organized.

It is Jesus who is '* far above all rule, and
authority, and power, and dominion, and
every name that is named, not only in this
world, but also in that which is to come."
It is the Christ of God the Father, who hath
had all things put in subjection under His
feet, and who has been given to be head
over all things to the Church, which is His
body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in
all."

It is this same Jesus who prayed, " And
the glory which Thou hast given Me I have
given unto them ; that they may be one,
even as we are one." Shall we not with the
great Apostle to the Gentiles reverently bow
our knees unto the Father and say : ** Now
unto Him that is able to do exceeding
abundantly above all that we ask or think,
according to the power that worketh in us,
unto Him be glory in the Church, and in
Christ Jesus unto all generations forever and
ever. Amen."

LECTURE VI
THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

LECTURE VI
THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

AS in the stellar worlds there is said to
be a central cosmic sun about which
all worlds revolve, so in the world
of men and of spirits must Christ be central
and regnant. To hold the universe of nature
with all its flying orbs of fire and of light ;
the supernatural with all its principalities and
powers ; the universe of men and myriads of
angels in one cohesive, intelligent, purpose-
ful whole, there must be one supreme and
dominant figure ; not blind force, but a reg-
nant, masterful person. That ruling, reign-
ing spirit is Jesus Christ, the Son, whom God
" appointed heir of all things, by whom also
He made the worlds ; who being the efful-
gence of His glory, and the very image of His
substance, and upholding all things by the
word of His power, when He had made
purifications of sins, sat down on the right
hand of the Majesty on high ; having become
by so much better than the angels, as He
hath inherited a more excellent name than
249

250 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

they." It was not unto men, nor unto
angels, but unto the Son that it was said,
''Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever;
and the sceptre of uprightness is the sceptre
of Thy Kingdom."

An imperial Christ is represented by an
imperial gospel. His scheme of redemption
is world-wide in its conception, terms of
grace, inspiration to man's faith, and applica-
tion to man's need. His is a royal decree
which commissions the Church and places
imperative obligation upon His followers to
go and preach His Gospel to every creature.
No humbler soul ever walked among men,
and yet no more majestic figure ever trod
the earth. He emptied Himself that He
might serve — He claimed His divine Sonship
that He might command nature and the
supernatural, men and angels to do His will.
He bore the cross that we might wear the
crown, and tasted death for every man that
we might be called the sons of God. He is
the world's dynamic.

As the Washington monument towering
over our national Capitol seems to lift itself
higher and higher as it recedes from view, so
the Man of Galilee grows upon mankind as
the centuries mark the mile-stones of human
history from His advent into the world.

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 25 1

" If we estimate," writes Romanes in his
"Thoughts on Religion," **the greatness of a
man by the influence which he has exerted
on mankind, there can be no question, even
from the secular point of view, that Christ
is much the greatest man who has ever
lived."

It was said of Socrates that he died like a
man, and of Jesus that He died like a God.
But Jesus did not come to teach men how to
die. He came to teach them how to live.
His sacrificial death as an atonement for the
sins of the world lifts Him at once out of the
category of men. But the giving of one's life
for the carrying of Christ's message of love
to the ends of the earth is not too great a
sacrifice for any man. It was rather to teach
men how to live a sacrificial life that Jesus
rose again, a far more difficult thing to do
than laying a man's life down. The motives
He gives, the principles laid down, and His
doctrines declared, are those which have for
their object the richest and most fruitful life
possible to man. The truths which He im-
parts as the world's greatest teacher are
germinal seeds out of which life grows. It is
the carrying of these seeds to those who are
remote, and their faithful planting under the
quickening influence of the Holy Spirit that

252 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

may be counted upon to yield the fruits of
the Spirit in the lives of men. Those fruits
are love, joy, peace, — principles and poten-
tialities out of which spiritual empires may
be builded if men would only yield their am-
bitions to Him.

Viewing- Jesus as a man what is the ver-
dict of those who have studied His life and
character ? Ernest Renan writes :

" All history is incomprehensible without
Him. He created the object and fixed the
starting point of the future faith of humanity.
He is the incomparable man to whom the
universal conscience has decreed the title of
Son of God, and that with justice. In the
first rank of this grand family of the true sons
of God we must place Jesus. The highest
consciousness of God which ever existed in
the breast of humanity was that of Jesus.
Repose now in Thy glory, noble founder !
Thy work is finished. Thy divinity established.
Thou shalt become the corner-stone of hu-
manity so entirely that to tear Thy name
from this world would rend it to its founda-
tions. Between Thee and God there will no
longer be any distinction. Complete Con-
queror of death, take possession of Thy King-
dom, whither shall follow Thee, by the royal
road which Thou hast traced, ages of adoring

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 253

worshippers. Whatever may be the sur-
prises of the future, Jesus will never be sur-
passed. His worship will grow young with-
out ceasing ; His legend will call forth tears
without end ; His sufferings will melt the
noblest hearts ; and all ages will proclaim
that among the sons of men there is none
born greater than Jesus."

Christianity is a religion with the most sub-
stantial elements of permanency and vitality
for its content, and the largest promise of
universality. For two thousand years it has
stood the most crucial tests, and at the same
time has spread to the limits of humanity.
Nor has it lost its vitality by age. Nations,
institutions and civilizations may decay and
disappear. It constantly renews its youth
and its strength by a return to the divine
source of its life, its inspiration and its power.
Therein lies its permanency. '' All flesh is
grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the
flower of the field," exclaims the prophet.
" The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but
the Word of our God shall stand forever."

It is not one of several religions — it is the
only religion. It is not a religion for a par-
ticular people — it is for all nations. It is not
the religion of the West, nor is it of the East,
but a universal religion revealed in world

254 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

terms. When the Psahnist comes to give
utterance to God's promise to His Son, He
says : '' Ask of Me and I shall give thee the
nations for thine inheritance, and the utter-
most parts of the earth for thy possession."
It is Christ Himself who expressed the Gospel
in terms capable of infinite expansion : " For
God so loved the world, that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth
on Him should not perish, but have eternal
life." The great Apostle to the Gentiles held
this cosmopolitanism steadily in view when
he wrote to the Romans, ** I am not ashamed
of the Gospel of Christ ; for it is the power of
God unto salvation to every one that be-
lieveth; to the Jew first and also to the
Greek."

The glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ has
always been its absolute freedom. It forms
no caste to restrict its progress. It is at lib-
erty to dip down to the lowest pariah and
reach up to the highest levels of social life.
It preempts no territory, closes no door, and
excludes none from its privileges and does
not hesitate to ofTer God's grace on the same
terms to the Roman soldier gripping his
spear, to the king grasping his sceptre, to the
proud owner of the Italian villa and his slave
destined for the gladiatorial arena. "Noth-

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 255

ing," says the Apostle, " can separate us from
the love of Christ."

Christianity seeks man at his worst and
brings him to his best. This is its task and
this the glory of its mission. If a mountain
range is measured by the distance between
its deepest valleys and its highest peaks, a
religion must be measured by the power to
transform the most degraded into a lofty
nobleness of life and character. Judged by
this standard, Christianity stands without a
peer, and rejoices in its mission of recrea-
tion, restoration, and good cheer. It starts
with the uprooting of sin, but it does not stop
short of the infilling of the Spirit. An
emptied life must become a spirit-filled life ;
an incomplete life must become a perfected
life by the grace of God, through the power
of God, and into the Kingdom of God.

The message of the missionary cannot be
delivered with power unless he is impelled
by the love of Christ. Neither can he realize
the power and urgency of his message unless
he is filled with love for men. Christ alone
can create a yearning for the lost, and a will-
ingness to become all things to all men. The
truth, to have power with men, must be
spoken simply, sincerely, and with that love
into which truth may pour itself ; an incarna-

256 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

tion as it were of truth expressed in terms of
love. What is the final answer to the need of
our age ? It is not the love of truth for the
sake of the truth, neither is it the love of life
for the sake of life, but the love of truth and
the sacrifice of life for the sake of man.
Christ did not die for the truth, though He
counted it as dear as life, but He died for sin-
ful men that they might be redeemed from
sin into a life of service through time and
through eternity.

Jesus Christ, the Son of the Living God,
made preeminent by the Holy Spirit, is the
supreme and final answer to the need of our
age. All life must be related to His life ; all
faith must be centred in Him. His revela-
tion of the Father is the world's most precious
truth ; His love the world's greatest dynamic ;
His life and ministry man's best illustration of
the possibilities of a glorified and consecrated
manhood.

The world's religious faiths have their
roots deeply embedded in the past. Those
roots have become dry and sterile. There is
one guarantee that Christianity will not share
their fate. That is the living Christ who is
in the midst of humanity, the heir of all the
ages, to reenforce His teachings, making
them ever new and ever fresh. Without

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 257

this, His followers would become utterly
hopeless. With it they are blessed with an
optimism born of a faith which will stand
the supremest tests of life, here and hereafter.

It has been well said that '* the function of
great beliefs is not to find perfect men, but to
make them." It takes more than a great be-
lief, however, to make a perfect man, though
faith is a large element in such divine work
as that of building men. Christianity seeks
for lost men, sinful men, and out of this poor
material builds character, commissions wit-
nesses, and creates a kingdom of light. But
after all, it is Christ in Christianity doing the
work. There is no Christianity without
Christ — the central force, the driving power,
and organizing personality of the moral and
spiritual universe.

*' The most stupendous and irrefragible
proof of the truth of Christianity is our Lord
Jesus Christ Himself. It is the solitary
grandeur, the sublime character, the divine
teaching of this mysterious One, this sublime
Christ, this effulgence of His Father's glory
and the very image of His substance which
we are to resemble : we are to be not like
some glowing seraph who stands beside His
throne, not like some archangel who flees to
do His will ; but like Him who is * the chief-

258 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

est among ten thousand ' — * the altogether
lovely.' " '

We make Christ preeminent because our
life, our service, our power to bring forth
fruit, are all centred in Him and drawn from
Him. If we are dependent upon Christ, He
is in a mysterious sense dependent upon
us. I say it reverently. But He has taught
it. He is the vine, we are the branches. He
is the corner-stone, we are the building fitly
framed together. He is the head, the Church
is His body — His hands, His feet — His only
means of expressing Himself to the world, of
conveying His message to lost men.

What more wonderful, what more inspiring
to mortal man than to have a share in the mani-
festation, the unveiling, the epiphany of the Son
of God. Christ as our mediator has taken the
High Priest's place, and man through Jesus
Christ now comes boldly unto a throne of
grace, then filled and impelled by the Spirit,
he goes forth to unveil, by his life and testi-
mony, the Christ to his fellow men. Indeed,
he himself as he grows to be Christlike be-
comes a lesser manifestation of the glorious
epiphany.

Jesus came to save lost men, and in doing

1 The Rt. Rev. M. S. Baldwin, Bishop of Huron, Student
Volunteer Convention, 1898.

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 259

this to save the world. He chose to send
His Gospel to the world through men. He
might have selected angels, but it was not in
God's plan. Men could do it better than an-
gels, because Jesus Himself became a man.
Men were more fit than angels because they
were a part of humanity, sharers of its sin and
sufferers from its guilt, but fellow heirs in a
Christly purpose and in the glory of redemp-
tion. Men on such a mission must become
Christlike. They do become Christlike in
their self-denying ministry to other men, and
win by the power and passion of an all-
conquering love.

The Master uttered a great truth in terms
of a paradox when He said : *' Whosoever
would save his life will lose it : but whoso-
ever shall lose his life for My sake, the same
shall save it." The principle holds true of
our efforts to save others. By the way of
the cross we come into life ourselves, and by
the same way we bring men into vital union
with our Lord. The sacrificial spirit of the
Master must be interpreted to the world in
terms of a sacrificial life. The sufferings of
Christ, wrought into our lives, become by
some mysterious process ** profoundly co-
operative with His in the ministry of salva-
tion." It is often through the deepest ex-

26o THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

perience of suffering that we find the richest
ministry of service. Is it not in a very real
sense an identification with Him ? The
Apostle understood the profound significance
of it all, and with reverent spirit accepted the
privileged fellowship when he exclaimed, '* I
fill up that which is behind of the sufferings
of Christ." . . . *' Who is weak and I
am not weak ; who is offended and I burn
not ? " . . . *' I bear in my body the
marks (the brands) of the Lord Jesus."

Not long after the Boxer Movement Dr.
Harlan P. Beach spent a Sunday in North
China. It was the day for the sacrament
of the Lord's Supper. The elements were
passed by native elders, among whom was
one whose hands were terribly misshapen.
As the broken bread was presented to him
by this Chinese brother, the doctor involun-
tarily shuddered — it was those misshapen
hands. Why had they permitted a diseased
man, or one maimed, to be a bearer of these
memorials ?

The service over, the question was asked
and the answer given. This man had been
counted faithful. He was a notable illustra-
tion of a living faith in a preeminent Christ.
The Boxers had put him to the test. When
urged to deny his Lord he refused. Again

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 261

and again his poor tortured body was flung
upon the rack with stick and cord upon his
hands until they hung Hmp and Hfeless be-
yond recovery. But faith rose triumphant
over all the enemies of the Cross. They
might destroy his body — they could not de-
throne his Christ.

Only an humble Chinaman, far from the
centres of Christian thought and activity in
the west from which the Gospel came. Only
a simple minded trustful believer in Jesus —
but those scars, how they glowed with light
in the doctor's eyes after that day. Ten
thousand had perished for their faith. This
man had lived to suffer, to have continued
fellowship in sufferings, and to bear upon his
body the brands of the Lord Jesus, but through
that suffering and fellowship his Christ had
been made preeminent.

The faith of the native Christian on the
mission field is beautiful in its simplicity.
He knows nothing about the Christ of art
and of literature, and little about the Christ
of history and of theology ; the central and
vital thing of all is that he does know Jesus —
the Christ — the Son of the living God, trusts
Him, would die for Him and ever seeks to
make Him preeminent. These are the cre-
dentials of Christianity. They are not creeds

262 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

or formulas inscribed on parchment, or cut in
stone, but living epistles emblazoned with
fire, messengers who speed like arrows
straight from the bowstring, sent not by the
hands of a man, but shot forth by the im-
pulsion of a God. To a Chinaman belongs
an honour greater than that of the Victoria
Cross on the field of battle. It's that of de-
liberately selling himself as a slave, that in
accompanying his fellow countrymen in the
hold of a coolie ship on the voyage to South
America, and in the mines he might find op-
portunity to win them for his Lord and
Master.

It is not, therefore, so much the Christ of
history, nor the Christ of theology we would
seek to present to men in the evangelization
of the world, but the personal Christ. He it
is who seeks to reveal Himself to us, who de-
sires to have us share in His life, and to enter
into a sense of real and vital fellowship with
Him. It is through Jesus that we are to come
to the theology of the schools. It is through
the historical Christ to the theological Christ,
and both are to be realized by an overmaster-
ing sense of the presence of the personal
Christ, dealing with the individual soul until
one can truly say, He it is who forgives 7ny
sin, renews my life, and impels me by His love.

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 263

The Kingdom of God then becomes in us
an acceptance of the idea and the fact of God
as realized in Jesus Christ. He alone of all
religious teachers has been able to make God
" become a credible, conceived, believed, real
Being," a personal God and a divine Father.
In doing this through His own flesh and by
the agency of the Holy Spirit, He has estab-
lished His own claims to divinity.

"Jesus Christ is a name that represents
the most wonderful story and the profoundest
problem on the field of history — the one be-
cause the other. There is no romance so
marvellous as the most prosaic version of
His history. The Son of a despised and
hated people, meanly born, humbly bred,
without letters, without opportunity, unbe-
friended, never save for one brief and fatal
moment the idol of the crowd, opposed by
the rich, resisted by the religious and the
learned, persecuted unto death by the priests,
destined to a life as short as it was obscure,
issuing from His obscurity only to meet a
death of unpitied infamy, He yet, by means of
His very sufferings and His cross, enters upon
a throne such as no monarch ever filled and a
dominion such as no Caesar ever exercised." ^

1 Fairbairn, «• The Place of Christ in Modern Theology,"
pp. 6, 7.

264 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

Warneck, in his study of animistic religion
which prevails among all primitive peoples,
insists that ** fundamental uncertainty is found
everywhere." The answer given to every
deeper question is " We do not know." A
heathen in Suriname admitted *' You serve the
truth and we serve lies. The lie always gains
increasing power over us." Bankruptcy of
faith and consequent uncertainty always fol-
lows the sacrifice of truth upon the altar of
mendacity. The religious life of the heathen
is pervaded by an atmosphere of falsehood.
The man who is capable of a religious lie soon
becomes the possessor of a lying religion with
its moral sterility and spiritual catastrophe.

Out of this loss of truth comes an inversion
of the entire moral order, and a growing
estrangement from God. "A melancholy
gravity, and a tragic sadness " run through
animistic religion. "The splendour of the
tropics has been unable," says Warneck, " to
brighten the religious life of the animist.
The results of his reflection are dark, hard,
and cheerless. The friendly gods are far
away, the spirits are numerous and formi-
dable, their service hard, while fate is pitiless
and their own souls unmerciful." ^ In my

1 Warneck, "The Living Christ and Dying Heathenism,"
p. 81.

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 265

own travels through Central Africa I passed
through entire villages, especially on the
Upper Congo, where I did not hear a laugh
save the occasional prattle of a child. A
cloud of gloom and death seemed to have
settled down like a pall. There is no hu-
man release from the grip of fatalism which
makes the heavens like brass and life a
tragedy. No relief from the bondage of
evil spirits in this world ; no hope for the life
to come.

It takes a powerful and a superhuman
force to break through such conditions and
give man hope for the life to come. Vital
Christianity is alone able to do it. Its enter-
prise of missions is steadily winning the
world. Not because it is one of mechanics,
but of dynamics. It is not ethical, but spir-
itual. It involves a force the most potential
in the universe, but that force is personal,
vital and concerns every man. It is Jesus, a
personal Saviour to be presented to every
sinful man, a personal Advocate with the
Father for every man, and a Presence in the
person of the Holy Spirit — manifesting both
the Father and the Son — God with us — with
every child of God who accepts the terms
of grace. Immediately present, immanently
present, forever present. To accept this Per-

266 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

son, to realize Him, to live Him, is the heart
of the Gospel and the soul of the missionary-
enterprise.

If the world is to be won, Christ must be
made preeminent and His evangel presented
in the spirit of the Apostle who wrote to the
Thessalonians, " Our Gospel did not come
to you in word only, but also in power, and
in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance."

With the exception of a personal conscious-
ness of God, nothing so convinces men as
moral certitude. When certitude in the mes-
sage and consciousness of a divine sending
in the messenger are united, conviction
through the Holy Spirit is sure. Men have
sought for God, but '* None of the religion of
the Indian Archipelago, or Africa, has ever
conceived of God making Himself known to
men." Christianity, on the other hand, is
full of such a conception, and finds its deep-
ening realization in Jesus Christ. How
beautiful the certainty of faith and growing
personal experience of Christ in one of the
greatest preachers of our age.

** All experience comes to be but more and
more of pressure of His life on ours. It can-
not come by one flash of light, or one great
convulsive event. It comes without haste
and without rest in this perpetual living of

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 267

our life with Him. And all the history, of
outer or inner life, of the changes of circum-
stances, or the changes of thought, gets its
meaning and value from the constantly grow-
ing relation to Christ. I cannot tell you how
personal this grows to me. He is here. He
knows me and I know Him. It is no figure
of speech. It is the reallest thing in the
world. And every day makes it realler.
And one wonders with delight what it will
grow to as the years go on." ^

Christianity has brought new and nobler
ideals into the world. It is a part of its mis-
sion. Ideals are not mastered by men, but
men by their ideals. We are always in need
of a reconsecration to our ideals. Human
nature is weak. Loyalty, as well as steel, has
its breaking point. The assault upon the
citadel of our nature is fierce, and is liable to
be renewed when weariness and pain lower
vitality, and when the power of resistance is
diminished. A man in such hours may do
things that are unworthy of his high calling.
There is a real danger, then, of lowering our
ideals and of cheapening our calling and of
our work.

It was at the point of weakened vitality
that the tempter made his first fierce assault

* Phillips Brooks, Sermons, pp. 193-194.

268 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

Upon Jesus. The very surroundings were
full of wild suggestions. Hunger gnawed at
His vitals, the atmosphere was oppressive
with a sense of loneliness, on the one hand,
and of the pressure of the powers of dark-
ness, upon the other. He did not have the
companionship of three sleeping disciples
even. But He entered the arena with a re-
consecration of His life purpose and a re-
newal of His loyalty to God. He seized the
shield of faith, and wielded the sword of the
Spirit. Divine credentials had been given at
His baptism. There was such a conscious-
ness of Sonship, and of a heaven-sent mission
that His ideals lifted his whole life. Jesus
stood upon a plane where, in the Spirit of the
Lord of Hosts, He could meet the spirit of the
evil one and conquer. He triumphed over
the power of the flesh and of the devil, but by
the power of the Spirit. The devil left Him
and angels came and ministered unto Him.

Dr. Kenneth MacKenzie of Tientsin was a
noble example of loyalty to ideals and to Christ.

The success of Doctor King and himself in
the recovery of Lady Li opened the way for
the most tempting offers from Li Hung
Chang, the Viceroy of the metropolitan
province. These were the more seductive
since they were from the highest official of

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 269

the Chinese empire, who had become favour-
able to missionary medical work, and seemed
to open the way to princely friendships,
imperial favour, and almost boundless in-
fluence. This came at a time of great
domestic sorrow, much loneliness and severe
trial. His wife, disordered in mind, had to
be cared for in England. It was a sore
temptation to accept these brilliant offers.
Had he done so, instead of enhanced in-
fluence and a larger field he might have lost
the central purpose of his life, and with it all
that was worth while.

Steadfastly MacKenzie held the even tenor
of his way, healing the sick and preaching
the Gospel. What was the sustaining power
of a life which thus refused to cheapen itself
and steadily pursuing its one great aim main-
tained its high purpose ? It was a deepen-
ing prayer-life, and the daily renewal of his
ideals. His bedroom was a library of devo-
tional literature, and its walls were hung with
reminders of an unseen Presence. In the re-
tirement of his closet, and in audiences with
the Viceroy ; in the hospital chapel and by
the bedside of the lowliest patient, he silently
practiced the presence of God.

Here was a man who won men while
touching science at its highest points, and

270 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

human need at its deepest depths ; whose
only passion was Christ, and whose supreme
work was to make men whole. It was said
of him that he brought more souls to Jesus
Christ the last year of his life than the entire
mission put together. What wonder that a
poor old Chinese farmer at midnight, as he
lay dying, exclaimed, ** I cannot go I I can-
not go ! until I tell the doctor farewell ; it was
he who led me to Jesus." There through the
small hours, by the old man in the hospital
ward, sat the beloved physician, unmindful of
a weary body, for angelic messengers were
bending to earth, and the morning stars were
singing together.

What had happened ? Was it the celestial
city let down from above ? Has God the
Father changed that He would thus commit
so heavenly a ministry to men ? He has
not changed. God has ever yearned over
the world and loved it.

" The world itself is changed and is no
more the same that it was ; it has never been
the same since Jesus left it. The air is
charged with heavenly odours, and a kind of
celestial consciousness, a sense of other
worlds, is wafted on us in its breath. Let
the dark ages come, let society roll back-
ward and Churches perish in whole regions

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 271

of the earth, let infidelity deny, and, what is
worse, let spurious piety dishonour the truth ;
still there is a something here that was not,
and a something that has immortality in it.
Still our confidence remains unshaken, that
Christ and His all-quickening life are in the
world, as fixed elements, and will be to the
end of time ; for Christianity is not so much
the advent of a better doctrine as of a perfect
character. And how can a perfect character,
once entered into life and history, be sepa-
rated and finally expelled ? It were easier to
untwist all the beams of light in the sky,
separating and expunging one of the colours,
than to get the character of Jesus, which is
the real Gospel, out of the world. ... In
Him dawns a hope — purity has not come
into the world except to purify. Behold the
Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of
the world ! Light breaks in, peace settles on
the air, lo ! the prison walls are giving way.
Rise, let us go." ^

Our conception of personality, its sacred-
ness and power, grows with our deepening
knowledge of God the Father manifested in
Jesus Christ, who is God the Son. It is a
conception which in us is expanded from the
finite terms of personality to the infinite, and

* Horace Bushnell.

272 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

brings back to us a new realization of the
infinite value of the human soul, and an
awakened and intensified obligation to seek
lost men at any cost.

This enlarged conception of personality
was ever present in the consciousness of the
great missionary apostle. It was because he
realized Christ. Nor was it at the periphery
of his Hfe that Paul came to such a realiza-
tion. It was at the centre. Then that centre
was shifted and became identified with the
centre of spiritual gravity — the pivot of the
universe. This is the explanation of the fact
that Christ was the source and inspiration
of his missionary activity. It was not the
heavenly vision that accounted for it, though
he had not been disobedient to the vision.
It was not conviction, though he had a pro-
found sense of obligation, and could say
with tremendous emphasis, '* I am debtor
both to the Greeks and to the barbarians."
It was not because he was sent as a mes-
senger with divine credentials, though he
could boast more than any other man of his
apostleship. It was the personal Christ to
whom he had surrendered unconditionally,
and from whom he had received that spiritual
gift which it was his burning desire to im-
part to others. Identity with the Christ life

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 273

had become the supreme fact, and he was
ready to interpret vision, enforce his message,
declare his apostleship, and confess his in-
debtedness to all men in terms of that higher
personality into which his own had been
merged.

It was at the New Orleans Missionary
Conference that Bishop Thoburn exclaimed :
" The first great work of the Spirit of God is
to manifest Christ to His own believers.
Jesus Christ is alive to-day ; He is in this
world. If you think Paul had a special
miracle wrought in his case when he says
that it pleased the Father to reveal the Son
in him, you are mistaken. I am talking to
men and women who know Jesus Christ
better than they know me, far better than
they know any person in this world. Some
of you understand me perfectly. The great
truth which the Christian Church needs to
learn to-day, and to thoroughly master, is
that Christ is manifested to His own. And
He is not only manifested to them, but He is
with them in the world. You can talk to Him
to-night. You may ask : ' Will He reply ? '
He will reply, sometimes through His provi-
dence, sometimes through His Word, some-
times by a whisper from His own loving lips,
and oftentimes by a manifestation of the Spirit

274 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

which only the beUever can understand ; but
I would feel as if my Gospel were gone if I
did not know that there is One above all
others in this world, whom I can seek and
find, and with whom I can hold converse be-
fore I sleep to-night." ^

Was there anything new in this statement ?
For years this veteran missionary had been
living in the restful assurance of a conscious
fellowship with Jesus Christ who said : '* Abide
in Me and I in you." The bishop was on his
way from Bombay to London. An avowed
infidel — a passenger by the same steamer —
accosted him one day as follows: **I learn
that you are a missionary." ''Yes," was the
reply. '' I have been trying to preach the
Gospel of Jesus Christ for forty years in
India." ** Your Christ is dead," answered
the sceptic ; " a dead Christ cannot save
India." The bishop quietly replied, '' Yes,
my friend, that is true, but Christ is not
dead, He Hves. I met Him in my stateroom
this morning." The man looked at him in
amazement. He made no rejoinder. How
could he in the presence of one who said he
knew Christ and had preached Him as a
living and ever present Saviour for nearly

* Thoburn, " Missionary Issues of the Twentieth Century,"
P-52.

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 275

half a century. Such certitude and such as-
surance were overmastering. The conscious-
ness of a personal and preeminent Christ is
Christianity's final and complete answer to
heathenism and to infidelity.

Principal Cairns says : " The historical fact
of Christ is the central secret of the New Tes-
tament." That being true, the personal fact
of Christ, interpreted by experience, is the
central, pivotal point of Christianity. Every-
thing hinges on this — on Him, it would be
better to say, and especially the great mis-
sion of the Church to the unsaved world.
Experimental religion is at the heart of mis-
sions, at home and abroad ; a vital saving
faith in a personal Saviour, who saves not by
historical evidence, but by His personal
presence, ** touching men to-day with living
hands, and searching the depths of men's
personality with living force."

Christianity is not a doctrine ; it is a truth.
It is not a code of ethics ; it is a Gospel. It
is not a system of theology ; it is a life. It is
more than a religion ; it is Christ. Christian-
ity has for its content a divinely revealed
body of doctrine, but it has more ; its ethics
have never been surpassed, but it strikes its
roots into a soil deeper than any ethics ; it
embraces all the framework and furniture of

276 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

theology, but there may be a theology and a
sterilized life ; it is a religion vital and true,
but that religion finds its only centre and cir-
cumference in Jesus Christ. Without Him
the whole fabric would collapse. With Him
faith stands secure. In Him the hope of hu-
manity rests. To carry Christianity to the
world is to carry Christ incarnate to those
who abide in Him, and in whom He abides.

God's plan of redemption in Christ in-
cludes far more than the salvation of the in-
dividual, as important as that is, and with all
the emphasis that Christianity places upon
personality. Jesus came not only to save
men, but man — all mankind. It is in the
corporate relation — ** in the Church that God's
consummate glory will be seen. No man in
his fragmentary selfhood, no number of men
in their separate capacity can conceivably at-
tain * unto the fullness of God.' It will need
all humanity for that — to reflect the full-orbed
splendour of divine revelation. Isolated and
divided from each other, we render to God a
dimmed and partial glory . . . where-
fore the Apostle bids us ' receive one another,
as Christ also received us, to the glory of
God.' " '

» G. G. P'indlay, " The Expositor's Bible " : Epistle to the
Ephesians.

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 277

It is by Jesus Christ that all who believe
have access by faith into the grace wherein
we stand. Here is a breadth and compre-
hensiveness of the missionary movement in-
augurated by Jesus Christ, administered by
the Spirit, and propagated by the apostles
which knows no limitations and stops at
neither nationality nor race. As Christ re-
ceived us into His fellowship, so are we to
extend a spiritual brotherhood which shall be
all inclusive of the inheritance of the saints in
light.

With prophetic vision Isaiah announced
from Jehovah the dawn of a new light upon
Israel and upon the world, and the coming of
a glorious Prince whose name should be Im-
manuel, God-With-Us. This Royal Presence
and the realization of it in Christ has been,
and is, the most stupendous fact in all of man's
life, past or present. He has been Immanuel
while man groped among the shadows, in cen-
turies past, and Immanuel as man stood upon
the threshold of a larger life and rejoiced in the
light of a new age and a heaven-born hope.
What wonder that the evangelist, seven hun-
dred years later, with his eyes fixed upon the
Messiah should quote the words of the
prophet : " The people that walked in dark-
ness have seen a great light : they that dwell

278 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

in the land of the shadow of death, upon them
hath the light shined."

It does not concern us here whether Isaiah's
conception is limited by his immediate hori-
zon, or is pushed out until it encompasses the
coming of the Messiah. What does concern
us is the realization of a nation-long desire,
the consummation of a world's expectation, a
new emphasis upon personality, the vision of
a spiritual kingdom in terms of love rather
than law, a deeper meaning given to man's
sin, and God's suffering, and " the pledge of
ultimate salvation."

'' Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is
given," exclaims the prophet, " and the gov-
ernment shall be upon His shoulder : and His
name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor,
The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father,
The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His
government and peace there shall be no end,
upon the throne of David, and upon His
kingdom to order it, and to establish it with
judgment and with justice from henceforth
even forever. The zeal of the Lord of hosts
will perform this."

That zeal is " the mixture of hot honour
and affection " wherein our Father-God de-
mands much, and gives more than He de-
mands. " It is that overflow of the love,"

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 279

writes George Adam Smith, "that cannot
keep still, which, when men think God has
surely done all He will or can do for an un-
grateful race, visits them in their distress, and
carries them forward into unconceived dis-
pensations of grace and glory. It is the
Spirit of God, which yearns after the lost,
speaks to the self-despairing of hope, and sur-
prises rebel and prophet alike with new reve-
lations of love."

It is in the Son of Man that the desire of
the nations finds expression, and in the Son
of God that divine grace and truth become
incarnate. How beautiful the words of our
own poet, Sidney Lanier, as he accords the
faultless, flawless, Peerless One His rightful
place as King of men and Lord of glory.

'' But Thee, but Thee, O sovereign seer of Time.
But Thee, O Poet's poet, Wisdom's tongue,
But Thee, O man's best man,
O Love's best love,
O perfect life in perfect labour writ.
Of all men, Comrade, Servant, King or Priest,
What if, or yet what mole, what flaw, what lapse,
What least defect or shadow of defect,
What rumour, tattled by an enemy,
Of influence loose, what lack of grace,
Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's or death's,
O, what amiss may I forgive in Thee,
Jesus, good Paragon, Thou Crystal Christ."

28o THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

The leadership for the hour must be that
of men who know Jesus Christ. This is the
prime requisite. Nothing can compensate
for the lack of a vital personal experience of
saving faith in the Son of God. To know
God in Christ is to apprehend His purpose,
to recognize His providence, to carry out His
plans, and to be filled with His spirit in
order to be the servants of His will.

As important as they are, it is not by
conventions and conferences that we are to
know the will of God and to do it, but in
those meetings of two in which Christ makes
a second, and of three in which He makes a
third. It is He who illuminates the mind,
and strengthens the purpose, in the service
of the Father. It was His meat and drink
to do His Father's will and to finish His
work. He trod this path alone and blazed the
way for man. Nay, He Himself became the
Way, that in Him might be found the royal
road to the service of God and man.

For winning the world, workers are needed
who are willing to enter with Christ into the
school of prayer, be led of the Spirit and be-
come intercessors. It is through intercession
that the hidden springs of life are to be
touched ; hearts opened to divine grace ; the
choicest sons and daughters of our homes

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 281

set apart for God's work ; our colleges and
universities made the reenforcing centres of
religious activity ; the wealth of Christendom
placed upon the altar ; the Church become
the heart and source of an aggressive Chris-
tianity ; and the spiritual forces of the un-
seen world unlocked and brought to bear
upon the unevangelized millions. Are these
things possible ? They are within our grasp.
Nothing is impossible with God.

The great enterprise of missions can only
be led by those who are willing to pay the
price of leadership in labours, in watchings,
in fastings, in loneliness, in wrestling with
principalities and the powers of darkness, in
sharing responsibility for the souls of men, in
bearing the world's burdens and in the care
of all the Churches.

True leadership must have capacity for
vision. It is both breadth and fore-gaze
that are required of one who is praying and
planning for the extension of the Kingdom.
Provincialism and prejudice too often react
upon each other. In the spiritual realm,
failure in lifting power may come from little-
ness of soul. It must be striven against. It
was Carlyle who said that while we may be
engaged in doing only parts, we must culti-
vate the faculty of seeing wholes. God will

282 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

not be hampered in His providence by limita-
tions of time and space. He works through
the ages and beyond the bounds of man's
habitation. He seeks men who, like the
Apostle to the Gentiles, have a vision of an
empire with all its outlying provinces, cities
and populations won through a Gospel
written in world terms, and then are ready to
follow the leadership of His Son in the spirit
of implicit obedience.

Men are ready to follow Jesus because by
His incarnation He made God personal,
made Him more real, and convinced men
He was as much love as He was law ; as
merciful as He was just, and that He could
be a real Father in His compassionate care
of His children as well as in His authority
over them. In His own person, in the
days of His flesh, Jesus Christ became a
true Son in obedience to the Father, and a
real Brother in tender love and loyalty to
His brethren.

Never was God so completely identified
with humanity as in Jesus Christ. Never
was Fatherhood so beautifully related to son-
ship as in God and man. Never was brother-
hood so expanded and so enriched as by the
Great Brother of the race who condescended
to share the burdens of the overborne, to

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 283

impart strength to the weak, and to save
unto eternal life those that are lost.

The glory of God in the perfecting of man
is the purpose of religion. God's supreme
work in creation was the making of man.
Sin's supreme work has been man's unmak-
ing. Christ comes to recreate and restore
from a blurred and broken image into a rich
and perfect life. '* Be ye perfect even as
your Father in heaven is perfect." Is not
this a movement towards God, and in the ap-
proach to Him, are we not gradually filling
out our powers and fulfilling His purpose for
us ? Is it not the meaning of the Apostle
when he repeats in his prayer for the
Ephesians, *' And to know the love of Christ
which passeth knowledge that ye might be
filled unto all the fullness of God " ? It is the
filling of an empty life, the rounding out of
an incomplete life, the enrichment of a poverty
stricken life, and the discovery of a life with
divine possibilities.

As the ocean, seeking the shores of a great
continent, pours its tides into every inlet and
bay, floating the tiny barge and the great
iiner upon its bosom, so are the rich currents
of divine love ever ready to sweep into a
man's life, possessing and uplifting until he
catches a vision of that divine commerce be-

284 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

tween God and man, and man's interchange
of spiritual hospitality with man which brings
him to a realization of his mission.

God is doing the best He can with man.
He is bent upon it. He will not be satisfied
with less. His best is beyond our power to
conceive. ** Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard,
neither hath it entered into the heart of
man." He begins the work through Christ
by uprooting the sin in man's heart, bursts the
bonds of deadly habit, enlarges shrunken
capacity, restores blurred vision, and by His
creative power the great Architect of souls
transforms a mass of ruins in man's moral
nature into a beautiful temple in which the
Spirit of holiness shall dwell.

Some men are saying in these latter days
that Christianity has failed. Has Christianity
failed ? There is no failure in vital Christianity.
If there is failure it is in us. There may be
failure in our faith, if so it is bankrupt and will
be rejected of God, and should be of man.
The salt that has lost its savour is henceforth
good for nothing, but to be cast out and
trodden under foot of men. There can be no
failure in Christianity ; its centre, its very soul
is the living Christ.

The world will not be won by our civiliza-
tion, not by our material resources, not by our

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 285

institutions, not by our ideals, not by our
creeds, not by our leadership, but by Jesus
Christ and the preaching of His Gospel. It
is not our Gospel, even, but His ; it is not our
power, but God's. The last and final differ-
entiation between our race, and those of the
non-Christian lands is the measure of Christ
in our civilization, personal experience, and
life. The centre of Christianity will be with
us as long as we have most of Christ. When
as a race we come to have least of Christ, the
centre of Christianity will be shifted, and all
our boasted civilization, resources, institu-
tions, creeds and leadership will not save us
from the dry rot of godlessness.

After all, are we not in danger of claiming
too much ? Has Christianity a geographical,
or a population centre ? Where Christ and
one true believer is, there is Christianity. It
needs not a temple made with hands, nor a
palace, to enshrine His love. Christ may be
enthroned in the heart of the humblest, poor-
est creature in the universe. " All this," said
an old woman to Bishop Burnett, as she held
up a crust, '* all this and Christ."

A beautiful recognition of the claims of the
preeminent and universal Christ was made by
Chili and Argentina when, upon the very
summit of the Andes and on the boundary

286 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

line between the two republics, was raised a
great statue of the Prince of Peace. The
Hon. Henry B. F. Macfarland, Commissioner
for the District of Columbia, in referring to
this statue and a proposed disarmament be-
tween South American republics by selling
battle-ships, remarks :

" The bright vision of universal peace must
wait upon Christ Himself. He is the One
and the only One who can keep peace be-
tween nations or peace between individuals ;
and it is to Him that we all look for that in-
crease of international comity which shall
lead eventually to international peace, to
universal peace, when all men and all women
will be men and women of good will."

The world's hope of international and
universal peace centres more and more in
Jesus Christ. Outside of Him it is a fiction
and a Utopian dream. He constitutes its
hope, its inspiration, and its constraining
motive. Bands of steel may girdle the con-
tinents and bring the world into a neighbour-
hood, but chains of love can alone bind
humanity into a great brotherhood. Only
upon the basis of Christian character more
solid than granite, and upon the eternal
foundations of righteousness and justice can
peace be enduring.

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 287

The Gospel of Jesus Christ will win the
world because of its deep note of joy. The
announcement that God was to come to man
begins with a song of angels, and the record
closes with the glorious anthem of the Spirit
and the Bride, for man to come to God.
*' And he that is athirst, let him come : He
that will, let him take the water of life freely."

Jesus was preeminently a fountain of joy.
He was a man of sorrow and acquainted with
grief, but a deep peace lay at the centre of a
life which never lost its poise. Within a few
hours of Calvary He could say — *' Fulfill ye
My joy." It is the wholesomeness of Jesus'
life which makes Christianity wholesome.
No abnormal introspection, no straining
after character — just being true, always true,
that is all — a perfectly normal religious life.
When the world of men, civilized or savage,
once comes to realize that love and sacrifice
and joy are bound up together in a true
Christian life and are never disassociated,
but are entirely natural because true, and
true because natural, then human hearts will
yield a joyful homage to the preeminent
Christ.

The biographer of Henry Drummond
writes of his friend, " Perhaps the most con-
spicuous service he rendered his generation

288 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

was to show them a Christianity which was
perfectly natural."

After all, was it not the naturalness of Jesus
and His unselfish interest in others which
won the common people and especially chil-
dren ? It always wins. There was no sham,
no affectation, no self-seeking — all sincerity,
all interest in others, all forgetfulness of self.
It is this very sincerity and transparency of
character in the missionary which most
quickly wins the heart of the pagan and
even that of the savage. The latter is a
shrewd observer. He searches with quick
eye for the motive that is central in life and,
finding it sound, yields his confidence with
amazing readiness. Deceive him, and you
lose him forever.

When the central motive is love, the life
becomes almost irresistible. Moody said of
Drummond : ** Some men take an occasional
journey into the thirteenth of First Cor-
inthians, but Henry Drummond was a man
who lived there, constantly appropriating
its blessings and exemplifying its teaching.
. . . All the time we were together he
was a Christlike man and often a rebuke to
me." It was the song of love in Drum-
mond's heart, the high note of joy ready for
any service, prepared for any sacrifice.

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 289

These are days when the forces that make
for a world-wide Christianity must go for-
ward. But it is not sufficient to sound the
bugle note for an advance. There must be
a deeper spiritual note preceding it, without
which no advance can be made. The Cap-
tain must be sought for on the field, and at
the front, not in the rear. His voice be heard
and His spirit pervade the force, then Chris-
tian conquest is sure. To send men forward,
without preparation, without discipline and
without the sacrificial spirit is to rush weak-
lings to the front and to imperil the cause.

Robert Louis Stevenson says : ** There is
one fable that touches very near the quick of
life — the fable of the monk who passed into
the woods, heard a bird break into song,
hearkened for a trill or two, and found him-
self at his return a stranger at his convent
gates ; for he had been absent fifty years, and
of all his comrades there survived but one to
recognize him."

In commenting upon the fable he adds :
** All life that is not merely mechanical is
spun out of two strands, — seeking for that
bird and hearing him." Should he not have
added a third strand — the joy of telling
others ? This last, though unconscious, per-
haps, was the secret of Stevenson's power.

290 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

He told what thrilled his own soul, and what
he felt, with such a sense of joy and whole-
heartedness that the world found a new in-
terpretation of friendship through him.

Doctor Fosdick says : " When a poet takes
fire from Jesus' joyful conception of God, he
pictures, as Browning does in * Saul,' a man
longing to help his friend, and then pictures
him rising from this human love towards
God to cry :

** * Would I suffer for him that I love? So wouldst

Thou — so wilt Thou !
So shall crown Thee life's topmost, ineffablest,

uttermost crown —
And Thy love full infinitude wholly, nor leave up

nor down
One spot for the creature to stand in ! '

This thought of God is peculiarly Jesus' con-
tribution to the world, and no other ever
compared with it in joyousness. It stands
to reason that no gloomy soul ever really
held, much less originated such a jubilant
conception of Deity. Out of this thought of
God a boundless hope inevitably comes." ^

The place of Jesus Christ in the Apostolic
Church has a beautiful illustration in the
epistle addressed by Peter to the strangers
scattered here and there. He styles himself

1 H. E. Fosdick, *« The Manhood of the Master," p. 13.

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 291

the apostle of Jesus Christ, and speaks of
Him as the Shepherd and Bishop of souls.
He blesses God for the lively hope which has
come to men by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead ; expresses the desire
that their faith might be found unto praise
and honour and glory at the appearance of
Jesus Christ ; and reminds them of the cruci-
fied One whom he denied, but to whom he
now offers the homage of his soul. Love for
the preeminent Christ gushes forth as from
a fountain in the words : " Whom having not
seen ye love ; in whom, though now ye see
Him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy
unspeakable and full of glory . . . that
God in all things may be glorified through
Jesus Christ to whom be praise, and do-
minion, forever and ever. Amen."

To the Philippian Church Paul seems most
freely to have expressed his affection and
communicated his central motive. He re-
minds them that they have been in his heart
and partakers of his grace while in bonds
and in the defense and confirmation *of the
Gospel. He longs for them in the tender
mercies of Jesus Christ ; he prays that their
love may abound yet more and more in
knowledge and in all judgment, that they
may be sincere and without offense till the

292 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

day of Jesus Christ ; that they may be filled
with the fruits of righteousness which are by
Jesus Christ ; rejoices that his very bonds
have been helpful in securing a hearing for
the Gospel of Christ ; is confident that this
shall turn to his salvation through their prayer
of intercession and by the supply of the Spirit
of Jesus Christ ; and then with a final out-
burst of faith and hope, he exclaims, " In
nothing shall I be put to shame, but that
with all boldness, as always, so now also
Christ shall be magnified in my body,
whether by life or by death. For to me to
live is Christ and to die is gain." Then fix-
ing his gaze, as it were, upon the Son of God
who had become obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross, he exclaims with pro-
phetic vision, ** Wherefore also God highly
exalted Him, and gave unto Him the name
which is above every name ; that in the name
of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in
heaven and things on earth and things under
the earth, and that every tongue should con-
fess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of
God the Father."

The more one ponders the words of West-
cott the more convincing their truth. ** The
absolute uniqueness of Christianity lies in
this, that its capacity for good is universal

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 293

and in itself without alloy." Herein rests the
distinction between it and all other religious
faiths. Its capacity for good includes all
need, all time, and all men without respect of
race, location or class. It is in itself, and
without alloy, that its good is found, because
that good is not based upon the abstract, nor
upon the ideal, not upon institutions nor
creeds, but upon Christ. Without Christ
there is no Christianity. Take Christ out
and it is bankrupt in morals, in faith and in
spiritual power. The Christianity, so called,
which uses the name to cloak its hypocrisy,
professionalism and selfishness, is not worthy
the name.

It is the Christ of the resurrection — the liv-
ing Christ — the world needs. He is all in all.
Without Him, nature is nothing but blind
force, life a riddle, and death a tragic col-
lapse. Tear Christ — the living Christ — out
of the universe and faith shrivels, hope turns
to ashes, and man gazes into the future in the
spirit of defeat and despair.

Shall we say there is no resurrection from
the dead ? Then Christ has not been raised
and we have a dead Christ. Hear the con-
fession of Paul, the once arch enemy of Christ,
who had denounced the faith, breathed out
threatenings and slaughter, and challenged

294 THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST

the Lord whom he had persecuted. '* If
Christ hath not been raised, then is our
preaching vain, your faith also is vain. Yea,
and we are found false witnesses of God ;
because we witnessed of God that He raised
up Christ . . . and if Christ hath not
been raised, your faith is vain, ye are yet in
your sins. Then they also that have fallen
asleep in Christ have perished. If we have
only hoped in Christ in this life, we are of all
men most pitiable. But now hath Christ
been raised from the dead, the first fruits of
them that are asleep."

In an art gallery in London, a few years
since, I spent an evening studying a private
collection of paintings by Russian artists.
Among them was a scene upon the plains of
Manchuria. A lone cross upon a once hotly-
contested battle-field in the war with Japan.
Two figures kneeling in the long grass — a
Russian lady of rank and her little daughter,
from Moscow perhaps, and standing by her
side with bowed head, the stalwart son.
That was all, save the blood-red poppies
thrusting their heads through the rank grass
and an evergreen freshly planted at the head
of that grave of buried hopes. Tragedy !
Death !— Yes, but the conquering sign — and
the resurrection. " All human sorrows,"

THE PREEMINENCE OF CHRIST 295

writes the author of ** Ecce Homo," ** hide in
His wounds ; and human self-denials lean on
His cross."

All of Manchuria, all the world is not big
enough for the grave of human faith if we
have Christ. Had it not been for Christ —
the transcendent Force which burst the bonds
of nature, of Roman seal and guard, and of
death itself ; the stony sepulchre of Joseph of
Arimathea would have held forever the ashes
of man's shattered hopes. Almost as old as
the race are the words of Job — '* I know that
my redeemer liveth." Ours is a vital faith
in a living Lord — the Lord of glory who said
of Himself, "I am the resurrection and the
life. He that believeth in Me though he
were dead, yet shall he live." Jesus Christ
is the world's dynamic. May not the tri-
umphant note of the great singer of Israel
become the antiphony to-day of the army of
redeemed and blood-washed souls, who go
forth to meet their conquering Lord ? " Lift
up your heads, O ye gates ; even lift them
up, ye everlasting doors ; and the King of
glory shall come in. Who is this King of
glory? The Lord of hosts, He is the King
of glory."

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the fact that divine grace is needed to change human hearts
and to make this a new world. The book is a strong plea
for a clean life for both men and women." — Herald and
Presbyter.

ERNEST GORDON

The Anti- Alcohol Movement in Europe

Illustrated, 8vo, cloth, net $1.50.

The mayor of Seattle, Wash. (George F. Cotterill) says:
"I cannot urge too strongly that every effort be made to-
ward the widest distribution of this book as the greatest sin-
gle contribution that can be made toward greater prohibition
progress in America."

L. H. HAMMOND Author of ' * TAe Master WonT*

In Black and White

An Interpretation of Life in the South. Illus-
trated, cloth, net $1.25.

"A valuable, optimistic study of the problem of work
among the colored people in the South. The author studies
the Southern negro in his social, civic, and domestic relations.
The ever increasing multitude of those who are eager to
solve the problem of the negro, will find in this book much
that is extremely helpful and suggestive."— C/tWjf ton Ob-
server,

FRANK TRACY CARLTON Prof, of History and Economics
• Albion College, Mtch,

The Industrial Situation

i2mo, cloth, net 75c.

"A useful little book on 'The Industrial Situation.* Bn
Carlton gives a survey of conditions as they existed prior to
the era of modern industrialism and treats the economic
and industrial developments of our own time in a concise
and enlightening way, giving brief expositions of such topics
as 'Women and Children in Industry,' 'Industry and the
School System,' etc." — Review of Reviews,

IMMIGRANTS IN THE MAKING

Each, illustrated, i2mo, paper, net 25c.
The Bohemians. By Edith Fowler Chase.
The Italians. By Sarah Gertrude Pomeroy.

The purpose of this series is to give, in compact form, tha
history, life, and character <^f people whose w»rse sides alone
are usually displayed upon their arrival in this country. Other
volumes, on the Syrians, the people ©f the Balkaus, etc., are
in preparation.

QUESTIONS OF THE DAY

REV. D. M. CANRIGHT

The Lord's Day Neither from Catho-
lics Nor Pagans

A Defense of the Christian Sunday as the Lord's
Day from the Historical Side. i2mo, cloth, net $i.oo.

The object of this volume is to combat the Seventh-Day-
Adventist theory that Sunday was originally a pagan festival,
observed in honor of the sun, and afterward adopted by the
Roman Catholic Church.

J. J. TAYLOR

The Sabbatic Question Boards, net 35c.

"Among a good many books on the Sabbath question, we
have seen none equal to this, for the condensation of the ar-
gument in a small compass and the thorough presentation of
all that the Scriptures of both the Old Testament and the New
have to say concerning the Sabbath." — Journal and Messenger.

ARTHUR V. BABBS, A.B.

The Law of the Tithe

As Set Forth in the Old Testament. New Edi-
tion. i2mo, cloth, net $i.oo.

"Covers the ground admirably, drawing illustrations from
every Biblical source, including the Babylon talmud."

— Z ion's Herald.

CHURCH WORK

CHARLES STELZLE

The Call of the New Day to the Old

Church i2mo, boards, net 25c.

What the Church needs of new equipment, in order that
her answer should be full and adequate is here discussed in
Mr. Stelzle's straight from the shoulder fashion.

PROF. JOHN A. KERN

Vision and Power Cloth, net $1.50.

A study of the Ministry of Preaching. Prof. Kern con-
tends strongly for the power of the personal touch in the
preacher, emphasizing the agreement that the Church of
Christ herself is founded on Truth as expressed in Personality.
The "ground-plan" of the work is Peter's vision at Joppa,_ the
various clauses of which form the sub-divisions of the subject.

BISHOP THOMAS B. NEELY

American Methodism

Its Division and Unification. Cloth, net $1.50.

Dr. Neely knows the history of his church as few men
know it, and the fruit of this knowledge is here presented.
He has ransacked the annals of Methodism and brought to-
gether many historical facts, never before issued in book
form. An important, authoritative volume.

Princeton Theological Seminary Libraries

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