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JAMES COOKE SEYMOUR. 7 TORONTO. WILLIAM BRIGGS. 78 & 80 KING STREET EAST. C. W. CoATES, Montreal, Que. S. F. Huk^tis, Halifax, N.S, >...'• PRKKAC]^. TT is now about thirty-three years since the import- -^ ant collection of essays on Christian Gfiving, entitled "Gold and the Gospel," was given to the world. These essays, it is believed, have been of great service in awaking the Christian conscience to the scriptural obligation of systematic and propor- tionate giving. It has been deemed that the time has come to call public attention to the increased obliga- tion laid upon the stewards of God's bounty by the opening of new doors for missionary effort every- where, the increased demands for the exercise of Christian philanthropy, and the increased ability of the Church of Christ to respond to appeals presented to its consideration. Hence the recent invitation, by a gentleman who takes a deep interest in the subject of systematic beneficence, to write upon this import- ant subject of which this volume is the outcome. In response to that invitation, five-and-twenty essays were submitted — several of them of a high order of merit. The committee of adjudication found itself VI PREFACE. under the necessity of recommending the division of the prize of £50 stg., generously offered, between the writers of the essays tearing the titles, " Occupy till I Come" (in Greek) and "Theophilus Philander." These essays were found to have been written re- spectively by the Rev. Charles A. Cook, Pastor of the Parliament Street Baptist Church, Toronto, and the Rev. James Cooke Seymour, Methodist Minister, Thomasburg, Ont. These essays are given to the world with the prayer that they may largely promote the grace of Christian Giving and thus hasten the coming of the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (Signed), W. H. WITHROW, I ,- Ailjndicatora ELMORE HARRIS, j Toronto, Feb. 1888. *^e division of J, between the ' " Occupy till ^'^ "Piiiiander." '^ written re- i'astor of the '«to, antr the ^^ Minister ' ^^^^ prayer '*' ^^^^H^tian CONTENTS. J' II. Christian (living is Unseltish— A Willing Ortering . . 12 III. It is Systematic .17 IV. Money is » Power for (iood— Christians have l*lenty . 'iH V. Fay as We Value Things ."jO VI. Here is an Honest Debt ........... 34 VII. Christian Benerioence Does Ourselves iJood 37 VIII. Good for the Family 47 IX. Sorely Needed for the Churoh || X. Look at the Poor—The City Slums— The Liquor Traffic 58 XI. Some Tremendous Social Froblenjs fjs XII. It is Needed for Our Country's Sake 79 XIII. The Great Dead Sea of Humanity 90 XIV. The World's Conquest for Christ . .' 98 XV. Eucourajfements , , IO7 fi THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY; OR, svsrKMAric chkisiian hkneficknce— lis NA'IURK AND NKKD. CHAPTER I. BENEFICEN'^E IS DIVINE IN ITS OIlIGIi;— IT fS A CHRISTIAN GRACE. THERE is but one Absolute Proprietor — God. This is true, because absolute proprietorship implies the power to create without restraint, and to possess without dependence. Of no being or thing but God, can this be said. " By Him," the Scripture sublimely .says, " were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him ; and He is before all things, and by Him all things consist." Ownership then, in the highest sense, belongs to no creature — it is an attribute of God. Have we existence ? It was His pleasure chat we were created. Have we vigorous bodily members ? 6 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. They are the workmanship of His hands. Have wo the faculties of an immortal nature ? It is the Eternal that has breathed into us a living soul. Have we, energies and skill to compass great under- takings ? The power to do and accomplish, are all from His endowment, and by His blessing. Can we turn matter into new forms of beauty, utility, and value ? • Every ounce of matter, with the wondrous hand that fashions, and the more wondrous brain that guides, are His gift. Our herds may multiply apace, but 'the cattle on a thousand hills are His." Our gran- aries may be filled with the ripe products of the field, but it is God who " clothes the smiling fields with corn." We may pile up our millions of money, but it is God that gives us power to get wealth — and all the gold and silver are His. We may proudly tread the soil and boast our title-deeds that call it ours, but a hundred generations of such owners as we, have called it theirs before we were born, and a hundred more may do the same after we are dead. What are we then ? In what sense do we possess anything ? We are stewards^ only. We occupy till He comes. All we have, are delegated possessions for which we must render account to God. This great truth — one of the basal truths of reli- gion — has, as a rule, been but faintly apprehended by mankind all along the ages. The history of mankind is largely the history of the usurped prerogatives of the Almighty, and of this one in particular. Even now, the world, and the Christian world, needs a fresh BENEFICENCE IS DIVINE IN ITS ORIGIN. T in flood of light on this subject. The "yours" and "mine" of our common parlance too often betray a notion of ownership little short of the absolute. Men talk of their money, their houses, their lands, as their own, in a sense that leaves but scant room for any claims of God. Antecedent to all just notions of Ciiristian beneficence, is a proper appreciation of the axiomatic truths — God's ownership, man's stewardship. True beneficence has its birth in the bosom of God Himself. His noblest attribute is Love. And Love's noblest expression is work. Hence God is the great Giver. Creation is His gift. He did not rest in soli- tary majesty, satisfied in His own self-sufficiency and independence ; but " in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." His generous thoughts took form in those countless worlds that fill the skies. We may guess how He has furnished, ordered, c m- ditioned those distant spheres, by what He has done for our own. We only begin to know the good things He has given us here, and it may take ages yet to dis- cover them all. His loving oversight is given to all things; equally to the ponderous star and the floating atom ; the loftiest archangel and the lowliest insect ; the affairs of the greatest empire and the least con- cerns of the humblest child. Much more than this, "God so loved the world that He gave His Son." Redemption opens wide His heart to view. Jesus \a God's triumphant Love enshrined in flesh and blood. In Him, that Love cuts its way through every obstacle to reach a guilty race ; stoops to the last depths of THK GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. suffering to lift us up ; pours upon us an ocean of sympathy, and fixes on us still from heaven's height, an eye radiant with infinite solicitude. The Bible ; what is it but the great and glorious thoughts of God, shining forth into the human soul, for more than 1500 years ? The later ages of time ; what are they but one long dispensation of grace, wherein every soul of man may share the most royal blessings of salvation ; free as the winds, full as the ocean depths, and as accessible as the light of heaven ? And when time shall cease, that current of Divine beneficence will but break forth in grander volumes on the eternal shores, and roll on in ceaseless develop- ment for evermore. It was in the very image of such a generous God man was made. As far as finite nature could, he was designed to share and exercise these noble qualities. Sin smote from him this Divine magnanimity ; but the lofty aim of Redemption is to restore the lost image, and in far greater degree. The godliness of the Bible hence is the most emphatic Godlikeness. The ideal Christian of the New Testament is a char- acter of the very noblest sort, closely patterned after his glorious Lord; and as Christ's most conspicuous attribute was self-sacrificing and generous beneficence, it is so — it must he so — with all His true disciples. This is the very bent and disposition of the regener- ated soul ; the spiritual heart-beat of the Royal sons and daughters of God ; the very genius of that spirit- ual life, begotten in us by the Holy Ghost. BENEFICENCK IS DIVINE IN ITS ORIGIN. The true classification of Beneficence is, therefore, as a Christian Grace ; because, like all other graces it is the outcome of a rlivinely regenerated nature. It is a Christian grace ; but one so often distorted in human hands as to be scarcely recognizable — so often misunderstood as to be almost forgotten as one at all. Polemic disputants have fought for ages about how many sacraments there were. The Christian philanthropist of our day might well study the equally important question, "How many Christian graces there are." Much effort has been spent in trying to recover some of the ''lost arts" of antiquity. Might there not be some lost graces of primitive Christianity well worth recovering? and, with many, is not this Christian beneficence one of them ? St. Paul, in addressing the Corinthian Christians who, notwithstanding their other good (qualities, were deficient in liberality, told them of " the grace of God bestowed on the churches of Macedonia, how that in a great trial of affliction, the abundance of their joy and deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality." " Therefore," he adds, " as ye abound in every grace, in faith and utterance and knowledge and in all diligence, and in your love to us, see that ye abound in this grace also" The exercise of this grace is an act of worship. All true worship manifests itself in offerings to God. We sing, that is, we offer Him our joyful praise. We pray, that is, we offer the expression of our dependence on Him, and our faith in His all-sufficiency. In the 10 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. IP reading and hearing of His Word, we offer reverence, submission, obedience. In the silent worship of the soul, we offer the admiration of the mind, the loyal love of the heart, and the decided obedience of the will. And in our gifts of time, labor, influence, money, we offer a fjrateful acknowledgment of our indebted- ness to Him for every blessing we have, and our obli- gation to spend and be spent in His service. This was the teaching of the Jew, who ever regarded his offer- ing of a bullock, a sheep, some fine flour, his silver shekel, or even a young pigeon, as an essential part of his worship. It equally accords with the spirit of the New Testament, since "To do good and communicate" of our substance, we are not to forget, "for with such sacrifices God is well pleised ! " It may be doubted whether our acts of worship from time to time are complete, unless they embrace offerings that represent all our faculties and powers, and all our worldly possessions as well ! Here is a privilege indeed ! It is something that we have anything to give. The endowment of man is lavish — lavish bordering on the infinite. The human body, for beauty, complex mechanism, and varied powers is without a peer among all the organisms of matter. The human mind, for deep penetration, bold- ness of sweep, fertility of resource, and capacity of growth is, next to God Himself, the most wonderful thing we know of. The moral capabilities of man are as vast as his existence is enduring — simply endless. This world is his kingdom, over which he is fitted to BENEFICENCE TS DIVINE IN ITS ORIGIN. 11 reign with a sovereignty most majestic, powerful, and undisputed ; while the possibilities of his being in the boundless future, surpass all the calculations of his most exuberant fancy. Out of such riches as these, the poorest man on earth may make offerings to God, worth more than many stars of heaven. That we are permitted to give, is a most benevolent arrangement of God. Of all the qualities of our re- newed spiritual nature, gratitude is one of the most prominent. To feel the mighty throbbings of that Divine instinct, and have no chance for their adequate expression, were hard indeed. But, full as the heart may be, its deep gush of love can always find sweet relief in acts of beneficence towards God and man. That God will accept our offerings, and make them contributory to His great designs, is certainly supreme condescension. Had He endowed us a thousandfold more richly than He has, His need of our aid, were then, as now, absolutely none. He receives our gifts that we may be elevated into co-partnership with Himself in His labors of love, and share in the dignity, and joy, and glory of doing good. CHAPTER II. CHRISTIAN (HVING IS UNSELFISH— A WILLING OFFERING. SELF is the genius of sin. It is antipodal to the spirit of Christianity. What we do, in order to be Christian at all, must be done to glorify God. Judged by this rule, many a splendid benefaction would lose all its value. Much of the giving that is done is mere barter for some equivalent worldly or selfish advantage. The ancient Pharisee blew his trumpet in the market-place, and scattered his osten- tatious charities. He got his reward — the passing plaudits of the crowd— but that was all. Hosts of modern Pharisees do the same. They give to gain the reputation of being generous. Even on their death-bed men will give with a keen eye to posthu- mous reputation. A rich man left by w^ill $20,000 for a bell to be hung in the city hall, his name to be inscribed on it, and that it should be tolled for an hour on each anniversary of his death. Others will not begrudge a million to found some institution that will sound out their name and fame in still louder tones, and to a far wider circle of listeners. But such is not Christian giving. It is only paying the price vanity demands for its gratification. CHRISTIAN GIVING IS UNSELFISH. 13 Many a business man gives because it conciliates bis Christian customers, and he sells more goods. But that is not giving — it is only a part of his stock-in- trade. Some give with a strong latent impression that they are doing a very i-ieritorious act indeed. They are like the little boy whose mother, after hearing him say his prayer one evening, added : " That's a very good boy." On after evenings similar praise was not forth- coming, and the little fellow added on his own ac- count : " Amen, that's a good boy — a very good boy." Many a contributor, we fear, makes in his heart the same addition to his gifts : " That's a good boy — a very good boy." But he does not give — he but burns in- cense to his idol of self-righteousness. Men give to build a church or promote some Chris- tian institution in their locality, because it will en- hance the value of their property; but that is not Christian beneficence, it is only a little sharp specula- tion. Covetous, tight-fisted, hard-hearted men sometimes give. They have spent their lives in accumulating, often by rascally swindling and cruel wrongs ; they finish their mean, selfish career by a big donation to some charity. But they do not give ; it is only a bribe to ease the bitter reproaches of a guilty con- science, or soften the tierce hatred of their fellow-men. Many give simply because they must. Death is relaxing their terrible grip of wealth. They must let it go to somebody or something, much against their u THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. will. So some Christian object gets a windfall of bequests. If thanks are due, the dread King of Terrors might claim the largest share. Some give to buy the favor of Heaven, With an air of wonderful condescension, they cast some of their superfluities to the poor, and imagine that God is greatly obliged to them ; or they donate a round sum to the Church, as a sure talisman to make the gates of Paradise fly open at their approach. They can buy their way into heaven as successfully as Simon the sorcerer bought the Holy Ghost. Christ, whose meri- torious blood their gifts insult, will tell them as Peter told Simon, " Thy money perish with thee, because thou has thought that the gift of God may be pur- chased with money." The touch of self turns the gold of our beneficence into dross; but it is in the fires of self-denial that this grace puts on its purest and brightest lustre. The box of ointment which the loving woman of Bethany pouied upon the Saviour, was exceeded in value hundreds of times by many a rich Pharisee, for whom Christ had no word of commendation. Yet Christ ordained that " wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached throughout the world, this also that she had done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her," be- cause " she had done what she could." The widow's two mites — but a Roman farthing — was an offering, whose true beneficence shines as illustri- ously and imperishably on the sacred page, as the building of Solomon's Temple, because it was the CHRISTIAN GIVING IS UNSELFISH. 15 richest gift that self-denial could make; 'She of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living." On this principle, the gifts of multitudes are not worth much, for they cost them not the shadow of a sacrifice. And even the liberality of whole nations may be of small value. It is said that " the whole missionary revenue of the Protestant world is not as much as is expended on kid gloves ; that the contribu- tions of the United States churches, for home and foreign missions to the heathen, is not much over the amount expended on ostrich feathers." How much self-sacrifice can be involved in such gifts ? Christian Giving works in a willing, joyous spirit, " Not grudgingly or of necessity," for " God loveth a cheerful giver." There is nothing slavish in religion. Its ret^uire- ments are all in agreement with the instincts of an intelligent, free, and noble nature. It ought to be no hardship for a candid man to speak the truth, for an honest man to pay his debts, for a good man to do right. True goodness takes its exercise with delight. The grace of Christian beneficence, when it is a grace, issues forth with the spontaneity and gush of the living spring, as it bursts from the clefts of the rock. It is the degenerate sort of beneficence that needs such vigorous pumping to bring it up from the depths of selfishness. There is nothing we should more gladly do than give m If THE OIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. to God. No act of worship should bring with it more hallowed joy. How is it, then, that many professors of religion can apparently sing with unction, pray with fervor, listen with enraptured ears to the Word ; but when it comes to giving, they are strangely dumb, unresponsive, uninterested ? Why should not their faces beam with as much holy joy ut sight of the collection-plate as at the sound of the «weet melodies of Zion or the living words of truth that burn from the preacher's lips ? Is it that the Lord can have plenty of their breath of praise and prayer ; but they prefer keeping that sordid thing, their money, pretty much to themselves ? Or is it that they have yet great need to learn that to "honor the Lord with our substance and the first- fruits of all our increase," is as pleasing an offering to God, and as delightful a spiritual exercise for ourselves, as anything else we can do ? CHAPTER III. IT IS SYSTEMATIC. - ORDER is Heaven's first law." It perriieates the Divine nature. It is supreme in all the vjrorks and ways of God. Sin is confusion. Religion restores moral order in the nature, character and life of man, and throughout the universe as well. " Let everything be done decently and in order." Beneficence, as one of the highest expressions of reli- gion, is systematic. It works by intelligent and ade- quate rules, not by hap-hazard and chance. The idea of proportionate giving was of very early introduction, and runs distinctly throughout the Word of God. Abraham, returning with the spoils of the Canaanitish kings, allotted a tenth as a religious offer- ing to the typical Melchisedek. Jacob, journeying to Padan-Aram, vowed he would devote to the Lord the tenth of all he should ever possess. This principle of tithing was afterwards incorporated into the Mosaic Code, and is a prominent regulation in all the succeed- ing ecclesiastical history of the Jews. It was a Divine arrangement for God's ancient people, and nothing could have been more reasonable, wise and beneiiciai. From a solitary pair, chosen from among the idola- ters of Chaldea, God had prospered them into a great 10 18 THE OIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. nation. He had set aside the warlike tribes of Canaan, and bestowed on them that goodly land. He had put them apart from all nations as the depositaries of His truth, the vehicles of His messages to the world, and as the race from whom the world's Messiah should spring. To keep alive true spiritual worship, amidst the abounding idolatries of the earth. He appointed them the splendid ritual, pure moral code, instructive symbolism and generous precepts of the Mosaic econ- omy. To carry out this noble system of religion in- volved large, continual and varied cost. The tithe- plan was exactly what was required. It was a definite proportion of every man's means. It could be regu- larly, and without difficulty, set aside as the Lord's portion. It was a share of every species of property the Jew had. It was a periodical contribution. It was reasonable in amount, and it was at the same time sufficient for the abundant needs of even that expen- sive religion. Besides this, it was a most beneficial self-education for each individual Israelite, and a most powerful bond to unite the nation in brotherly amity, and in loyal love to their sublime faith, and to their God. Few things in all the Jewish system exercised a more powerful and salutary influence than this. Its faithful exercise marked their most prosperous eras of wealth and piety, its disuse, through selfish disobedi- ence, marked their most disastrous lapses? into poverty, anarchy and wickedness. This principle has been carried into the Christian system only to be sublimed, spiritualized and per- IT 18 SYSTEMATIC. 19 fected — as all the rest of Judaism had been — by our Lord and His apostles. The letter of the Jewish law, prescribing a tenth, it is true, is not in the New Testa- ment ; but the spirit of that law, generous, .systema- tic, pure-minded giving, is there, only on an ampler scale, and enforced by far loftier motives than the Jew ever knew. The freedom of the royal family of Christ is not re- stricted V)y a regulation like the Jewish tenth, because the true Christian spirit is so sublimely generous and self-sacriticing as not to need such a rule. The Chris- tian standard of liberality ' not a mere tenth, but the example of Him " who was rich, yet for our sakes be- came poor, that we through His poverty might be rich." It would be the climax of meanness and perversity to claim that in the absence of a specific Christian pre- cept requiring us to give a tenth, that therefore we are under no obligation tc give that much. On what ground could a Christian plead for a less generous liberality than the ancient Jew ? Are we not as highly favored as they ? Israel had the grandest revelation God made to any nation of antiquity ; but to us God has revealed Himself, even in His Son. The Hebrew Code of Ethics was high and holy ; but the Christian Code is certainly higher and holier still. The Jew found access to God through the bleed- ing sacrifice and the priestly mediation ; we may approach even the holiest of all, through the precious blood of Jesus. . , !! 20 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. ; \ I I Did the Jew look forward throuf^h the misty haze of symbol, type and shadow, to the bright Messianic time ? We walk to-day in the glorious light of that Saviour come. Did the grace of salvation descend on the Israelite ? Ours is the very dispensation of the Holy Ghost. Did the Jewi.sh religion produce a type of civilization, the richest in ail antiquity in intelli- gence, humanity and social comfort ? It v. ce little compared with the unspeakable blessings of our Chris- tian civilization. " Blessed indeed are our eyes, for they see, and our ears, for they hear ; for many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things that we see, and did not see them, and to hear the things that we hear, and did not hear them." Neither was the Jews' religion more costly than ours is, and ouixht to be. The Jew maintained the Priesthood ; even so it is the Christian law that " they that preach the Gospel should live of the Gospel." ; The Jew had his magnificent and expensive temple ; Christianity requires its tens of thousands of churches. Israel had their benevolent and costly feasts ; we have our national charities, and ought to have ten times more than we have. It cost the Jew a good deal to maintain the national character of his religion ; it costs the Christian a good deal too, to make his country thoroughly Christian, and ought, as a rule, to cost him vastly more than it does. ^ IT IS SYSTEMATIC. 21 It cost the Jew very little to propagate Judaism amoiij' the heathen nations of the world ; it ousrht to cost US millions on millions to send tlie glorious Gospel of Jesus to the ends of the earth. Neither had the Jew a right to be more orderly and hit>iinesH-like in his contributions to reliorion than we. Judaism was certainly replete with splendid rules of living ; but Christianity shows us the Divine philoso- phy of every wise and orderly and right rule of life, and commits us to its use, as no other religion ever did. The Christian has a right to be the highest style of man — even of a business man. And if the Jew found precision, accuracy, business adaptation, and business satisfaction in the practice of tithing, why should the more enlightened Christian content himself with the slovenly, uncertain, inadequate and thoroughly unsatis- factory way of giving by hap-hazard and mere im- pulse ? There is not a single reason why it was right for the Jew to give his tentn, but stands equally good for the Christian to give his, likewise. The only differ- ence is that the Christian obligation is as much greater as his religion is a more advanced and highly privi- leged one, than that of his Israelite brother. And yet how few Christians equal the Jew in this measure of liberality ? How many professing Christians have squeezed their notions of Christian liberality into a far nar- rower channel than the giving of a tenth ? Are there not church members by the ten thousand to-day who n THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. simply ES OURsEl.VES (J()()l>. 4'^ OW progress in the Christian life. Ten, twenty, tliirty years of Christian profession, find them not much more than spiritual babes still. How is it ? Have those Christian hearts and purses been all along as widely open to God's cause as they should ? Have they been doing the generous thing with the Saviour they have professed to love? They have bought fine clothes, built fine houses, put away lots of money ; but as to giving, one of their grand entertainments to their friends has cost them" more than a whole year's gifts to the Church. A summer's outinor has cost them more than five years' contributions to every sort of Christian benevolence. Their guilty parsimony is totally out of line with the whole genius of that religion they profess. The real wonder is, that they have a spark of spiritual life left in them. It is safe to say, that without this Christian benefi- cence the higher Christian life is unattainable. Holi- ness and stinginess are incompatible. Holiness implies full, the fullest, consecration to God — just as well the depths of the purse, as the depths of the heart. It is not true that we have devoted our all to God, while we persist in practising the miserable, slip-shod, spas- modic and utterly beggarly and unprincipled way in which many of us are giving to Christ's cause. We know of a better wav that commends itself to our in- telligence, our sense of propriety and of right — that conscience, Scripture and the sore necessities of the world all call upon us to adopt ; and until we do, in vain we aspire after those glorious Beulah -heights of !: ^m 11 I ^i ■ II' ^^;^ i' ' 'Uli 44 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. advanced Christian experience, which certainly are our privilege thr< h the Blood of the Covenant. We need it if we are ever to see the kingdom of heaven. Some of the most startling and terrible words Christ ever uttered, were spoken respecting the rich. " Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again, I say unto you. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." When the -disciples heard this, " they were exceedingly amazed, saying, who then can be saved ?" The rich man here is our old familiar money idolater, the man who believes that mammon is king, and who, as Christ Himself afterward explains, trusts in riches. That was the trouble with the inter- esting young man, whose failure to obey Christ had called forth these fearful words of warning. He seemed ready for anything that he might be saved. He could do everything but give. To touch his "great possessions " was to touch the apple of his eye. No ! this Christian beneficence (and doubtless Christ hit the right proportion in his case) could not be dreamed of, and so he went away sorrowful. Well he might. He had kept his money ; but he had lost his soul. There need be no amazement about the difficulty of such men being saved. How a man bloated with the pride and vanity that unsanctified riches always engender, and laden with the money-bags that ought to have been emptied into the hands of the poor and into the trea- suries of God's cause, how he could find an easy passage CHRISTIAX BENEFICENCE DOES OURSELVES GOOD. 45 through the strait gate of life, that would be the real wonder A camel might easier squeeze through a needle's eye. With men it is impossible, but not with God, for His Almighty grace can smite this cursed covetousness from its usurped dominion, and enable even the rich man to practise a beneficence, worthy of the most royal of His sons and daughters, and make his passage to the skies as facile and safe as any. We need this beneficence for our own happiness. This world is made far more of a " vale of tears " than it ought to be. The largest share of human sorrow on earth is of human manufacture. Allowing for all the painful discipline and severe education God sees we need to fit us for heaven, there is plenty of room left for a vast amount of happiness during our brief stay here. Happiness — all he could contain — was the nor- mal state of man. Happiness — restored in Christ with even higher than Eden joys — is our privilege now. Happiness, with a " fulness of joy " heaven only can supply, is our prospect hereafter. God does not thank us for making ourselves miserable. On the whole, this world is not a bad place at all to live in. It is full to overflowing of things of beauty and of joy, andi moreover, it is full to overflowing of ways to multiply joys. But it is the fewest number that know how to extract the honey out of life and leave its poison alone. The happiness of even many professing Christians is nothing to boast of. Their money, friends, luxuries, amusements, somehow pall so quickly on their taste, and their cares, perplexities and griefs gloomily cloud m ^ggmmmmmimm i ■ i \ i 46 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. ■■'*■ ill I their days. They sigh heavily for more satisfying joys. They could find them easy enou^^h, if they would. Let them give their hearts without reserve to God, and pour a stream of generous, loving benefi- cence out upon the arid wastes of suffering humanity ; let them make big investments in the stock of the various philanthropies going on in the Church and in the world ; let them go forth to feed the poor, visit the sick, raise the fallen, and save the lost ; and they will soon find, with delighted astonishment, how much of heaven has been suddenly imported into their lives. CHAPTER VIII. GOOD FOR THE FAMILY. THIS Christian beneficence is needed for the Family. The family is not a mere matter of Imman con- venience, but is an institution of Divine appointment. Its dignity, sacredness and power for good can scarcely be over-estimated. It is the true prototype of national life, and the best nucleus out of which a noble nation- ality can be evolved. A Christian home is a peerless training school for Church and State — for earth and heaver If there be human responsibility anywhere that i 'emn, heavy and untransferable, it is that of the Christian parent — the prophet, priest and king of the home. If any man or woman needs the religion of Jesus, it is a father — a viother; if any need sound principles and exemplary practices, it is they. It is just here that the right training in Christian benefi- cence should begin, and where it will do the most good, and it is just here where failure in this direction is too often found. Many professing Christians would plead exemption from any such systematic and generous giving as we are advocating, and yet try to claim innocence from the charge of either covetousness or stinginess. They have children to be provided for, and their resources nr ^ I 'I 111 |M 1 48 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. are all too limited for that, without giving so much away. That is a standard of generosity to children they themselves make, but God never made. It is not wise to rob Peter to pay Paul. It is well to provide for children, but not well to do it at the expense of solemn obligations to God and the urgent claims of our fellow-men. Nor does it work well. It has in it the elements of self-defeat, like all other acts of selfish disobedience. What comes of all this work and worry of parents, all this tijjht-tisted treatment of God's cause in order that children may be well provided for ? One thing scarcely ever fails to come of it — loss of Christian in- fluence of the parents over their children. As a rule, children are not so dull as not to see the ruling prin- ciples that are actuating their parents. A man can be a hypocrite better anywhere else than at home. A man, whose ruling passion all the week is to rake, and scrape, and get, and keep, even if it js professedly for his boys, need not think that those boys will regard him as a saint, while he wears a sanctimonious look on Sunday and puts his beggarly dime on the (Collec- tion plate. They see through him, and are valuing his religious character ; and if he only knew how little they think it worth, it would startle and pain him a good deal. It is often a matter of no small wonder why the children of so many parents who are professing Chris- tians grow up unconverted, and sometimes even averse to religion and the Church of God. Parents can hardly GOOD FOR THE FAMILY. 49 expect their children to be better than they train them. ]f all along, by their own precepts and ex- ample they have taught them to put the claims of the world and self first, and God's claims last, if at all, they need not wonder if their children profit by their training and let God and religion and the Church pretty much alone. If parents, by their niggardliness slight religion for half a life time, small wonder, their children follow up their example a little further, and reject it altogether. Property gained in fi\m way, is not worth as much to children as many parents think. Property that lacks the Divine blessing, and in the hands of those deficient in right principles and solidity of character is oftener a curse than anything else, and frequently melts away in the costly vices and foolish extrava- gances of its possessor. The sons of the stingy old Christian, for whom he has toiled and saved for the very best of his days, and sacrificed his duty to God be- sides, often make short work of it all, when his property gets into their hands. And it is but little thanks he gets either. Many such parents in their old age bit- terly prove, that it does not pay to cheat the Lord, even for the sake of their children. It pays a thousand times better for parents to do the square, honorable, iienerous thing with God's cause, and to teach their children diligently, and from early infancy, to do the same. If they have less of this world to leave them, they will have the solid satisfaction that they did their duty before their offspring, that they have labored 50 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. !■' V.t faithfully to implant within them the elements of a substantial and noble character, and they can lie down on their dying pillow, content in believing that their labor shall not be in vain in the Lord. Nor shall it be. Such a memory is a blessed inspiration to suc- ceeding generations, and such teaching and such ex- ample, often afterwards bears the richest harvests in every species of prosperity — material, moral and spiritual. CHAPTER IX. SORELY NEEDED FOR THE CHURCH. THE Church is the Royal Family of God. Its mem- bers are God's children — redeemed, regenerated, and adopted as His sons and daughters. This alone is the true mystical body of Christ. These spiritual children are all included in no one of the visible church organizations of the world — the vast bulk of them are undoubtedly found in some or other of those organi- zations. By the Church of God on earth we mean the afrfjrefifate of all evangelical denominations, and of all evangelical Christians. This is the noblest association on earth. Whether we regard its origin, principles, character, aims, or work, it stands in solitary and un- approachable moral grandeur — the perfection of all things human in what is beautiful, true and good. The Church is Christ's human representative in the world. Here are found His witnesses to the power of grace, the beauty of holiness, the beneficence of His religion, the fidelity of His promises, the reality of things spiritual, the certainty of things eternal. It is no trifle to the Saviour, what sort of testimony these witnesses bear for Him, in what manner they represent Hira here. This is the Christian evidence most potent of all ; and it is almost the only evidence the world .1 52 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. reads. It is not the learned tomes on Christian apologetics men study much ; but they do look keenly every day at the behaviour of their neighbors who profess religion, and belong to the Church. If they see honesty, manliness, generosity, purity, brotherly kindness, impressions favorable to religion are made I if they see meanness, trickery, tight-fistedness, and a general dodging of responsibilities, secular and sacred, they are ready — too ready — to jump to the conclusion that religion and church membership makes but slight differences in human character. So Christ is wounded in the house of His friends. The mission of the Church is immense. It includes the ameliorating of all sorts of human miseries, the reclaiming of all sorts of sinners, the education of all sorts of pure and noble characters, the administering of all sorts of holy con- solations, the victory over all sorts of unholy antagon- isms. To expect it to do all this, without a vast net- work of agencies and a vast outlay in money, is un- reasonable and absurd. It is the costliest undertakinor in the world, and is worth every cent it costs. It takes more brains, pu.sh, tact, courage, perseverance, enterprise, and a larger expenditure of every descrip- tion of talent, as well as far more money, to work the Church, as it should be worked, than any other human undertaking. And if it took a hundred times as much, it is cheap at that. If there is any human enterprise where intelligence, business ability, system, high prin- ciples, as well as thoroughly adequate resources, are , SORELY NEEDED FOR THE CHURCH. 59 net- un- iman mcb, rprise prill- are required, it is in this work. This is the field above all others, where the most systematic and the most large- hearted liberality ought to be applied. It is just the field that gets the least of either the otu or the other. How, and on what system of finance, is modern church enterprise conducted ? Its system is conspicuous chiefly for its absence. There is none. It would be a gross misuse of that dignified term, to apply it to the prin- cipal methods for raising church funds in vogue almost universally at the present time. The chief features of all these methods are persistent entreat)'', almost to mendicity, and a doubtful or dishonorable barter of churchly commodities. It is either a perpetual asking for money, or a host of secular devices to make it. There is scarcely a pulpit but voices this cry, " Give, give," almost every Sabbath. There is scarcely a week, sometimes scarcely a day, but some church entertain- ment of one kind or other to make money, is taking place. The Church has no proper business basis of operations, no assured capital on which to work, no adequate financial plan by which it can conduct its affairs with dignity, consistency and efficiency. All this unreasonable, unscriptural way of working involves the Church in frightful difficulties and perils. She has her choice of the horns of a terrible dilemma. She can cease this everlasting begging, and these ever- lasting church-shows, then the supply of funds is instantly cut off, and all her work crippled. She can go on as she is, with perpetual heart-burning, no small dissatisfaction, and at the peril of her spiritual life and power. 54 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. Would God have His Church in such a predicament ? Is it right for Christian men to put her there ? The burden of care, anxietv and real trouble that all this brings to ministers and church officers, is something that many people have very little idea of. There are Christian men and women by the thousand, who find these burdens almost too intolerable to be borne, and it is the distressing choice with them either to worry along the best way they can, with what are their most trying financial perplexities, or abandon the Church altogether. How to raise money for this or that church enterprise, is what often brings sleepless nights, aching heads and sick hearts to multitudes of the best men and women alive. These methods likewise dis- parage the Church in the eyes of the world. Men of sense, who are no professors of religion, can see the discrepancy between people's professed admiration for religion and the difficulty of getting them to give much for its propagation. This constant importunity for money fosters the impression that the Church is a covetous institution, whose object is largely to get all the money it can out of people ; and the church entertainment — at least oftentimes — is seen to be a palpable coming down to meet the world a good deal on its own plane, in order to get its money. The world is quite willing the Church should come down to it, but it thinks all the less of it for coming down. The whole thing is a failure when done. All this pleading, all these ingenious devices, all this sacri- fice of dignity and consistency, result in a supply I SORELY NEENED FOR THE CHURCH. 55 IS get of resources as meagre in their extent, as they have been unsatisfactory in their acquisition. As the Church's work extends, these difficulties will increase ; the begging must grow more urgent and frequent; the church-shows must be made more popular to meet the taste of the crowd, and the Church's character must suffer further deterioration. Must this indeed be so? God forbid. There is a better way. The simple, scriptural, honorable and thoroughly satisfac- tory plan of systematic and proportionate giving from Christian principle, would wipe out all these difficulties in an instant, and place the Church of God in her true financial position, and she never can be otherwise. Let every man, as a part of his religion, if he has any, honor God v/ith a definite proportion of his means — say a tenth at least ; let this be a willing offering to God — a sacred thing, no longer his, but the Lord's ; let this be regularly done as the weeks and years roll by ; let this proportionate giving keep pace with his growth in means, and let the whole be done with an eye single to the glory of God ; and you have the finest solution of the Church's financial problems this world ever saw or ever will see. Let any individual congregation or denomination in Christendom try this plan, and they will be astonished at the results. Such a plan has everything in it in keeping with common sense, good business habits, sound principles, the nobility of Chris- tian character, the dignity and purity of the Church of God, and the full and efficient performance of all sorts of church work. Were this systen^ adopted, the li ill: I h Urn iii! 'i i?' 56 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. energies of the Church, now so largely diverted to mere money-making, could be concentrated on legiti- mate spiritual work. The incessant pulpit-calls for funds would be no longer necessary. The social gather- ings of the Church would be freed from opprobrious panderings to the world, and elevated into far more refined and deeply spiritual occasions. The question of raising funds for any Christian object, would be simply a question of appropriation — simply how much of the Lord's tenth should be applied to this or that. The financial meeting's of the Church might be — would be — seasons of prayerful and delightful consultation in regard to the respective claims of each department of God's work — how best to divide and distribute the Lord's money, and what new Christian work to enter upon. The connection, too, between this worthy sort of Christian liberality, and the spiritual life and equip- ment of the Church, is not so remote as might be ima- gined. Generous giving and a robust piety are very near relations. A heart opened wide to gi^'e, God is sure to fill with grace and blessing. When God would have His ancient people " prove Him " that He would indeed open the windows of heaven and pour them out a blessing; that there should not be room enough to receive it, their surest way to get it was to " bring all the tithes into His storehouse." It is a good way stiil. The spirit of a revival of religion is wrapped up in this generous Christian beneficence, because it is the spirit of faith and love and self-sacrifice and consecration. V ?>. SORELY NEEDED FOR THE CHURCH. 67 Who ever heard of a Church dying spiritually because it gave so much to God. Plenty have wastedin spiritual consumption for years because they did not give half enough. If this scriptural, systematic beneficence were gen- erally adopted in the churches, there would be the most powerful, wide-spread, genuine and lasting re- vivals of religion that have been witnessed for ages. The churches keep praying for the baptism of the Holy Ghost, while they go on practising their stingy and unrighteous treatment of God's cause. Let them cast out this covetousness, come up with true Christian generosity to the help of the Lord, and the blessed Spirit, whose gracious influences are ever present with us, will soon be poured out abundantly. i m m |ii!i ■ill' HI, CHAPTER X. LOOK AT THE POOR— THE CITY SLUMS -THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC. IT is needed to help the poor. However favorable may be the conditions of society, the poor have we always with us. The fluctuations of trade, the disasters inseparable from this mortal life, the in- capacity of multitudes to earn their own bread, the afflictions of body and mind to which humanity is ever liable, to say nothing of the lack of foresight and good management which is the constitutional failing of many, and the distress of others, the innocent vic- tims of fraud or of wasteful vices — all combine to swell the great army of those who need the aid of their more fortunate fellow-men. That aid it is one the most sacred of Christian duties to give. How to get this aid bestowed so that it will be timely, wise, and sufficently large as to meet all real cases, in any given community, is a problem that has perplexed and distressed multitudes of philanthropists. The chiefest difficulty of all — and the very hardest to overcome — is the lack of means. Every thing else could be managed by the free use of good judgmentj tact, perseverance and combined effort, but where is the money to come from ? There is plenty of it in piii Hiiii LOOK AT THE POOR. 6d to my :ed :he to jlse Christian hands — plenty and to spare to meet all the claims of true charity — but, as often as not, it cannot be had. Many rich Christians give themselves but little concern about practical charity. It is not in their line. They know very little about the condi- tion of the poor around them, and they are not very anxious to know more. Recently theio was published in an American newspaper the story of a poor woman who, deserted by her husband, was driven to seek shelter in a rickety stable where alone, in the dark- ness, she gave birth to a babe. The article attracted the attention of a gentleman while staying at a water- ing place, and believing that such a pathetic recital could not fail to arouse sympathy, he clipped it out, pasted it on a sheet of foolscap paper and putting his own name down for live dollars, placed the paper on the centre table of the hotel parlor. Probably fifty millions of dollars were represented that day in that hotel. There were a number of society belles with caramel-fed pugs, and quite a gathering of dowagers, who during the winter devote many hours a week in discussing society gossip and amusement. The gentleman congratulated himself on being thrown into a company where a thousand dollars or so, could be raised in five minutes without the owners feeling it. He sat down and watched the centre table. In less than ten minutes every woman in the house had read the details of the sad story. This was the result: a dozen sneers, half a dozen shoulder shrugs, but not a solitary nickel. Nay, not 60 THE OIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. HI 1 even a kindly word. In thoir expensive robes, and with fortunes blazing at their fair throats in diamonds, these women passed by the appeal which, of all others, draws out true womanhood, with less attention than they gave to the yelping of one of their lap dogs. This may be an instance of extreme heartlessness, but if there were not nlenty of just such a spirit, there would be far few^i* unr«^lieved miseries araongf the poor than there are to-day. God's eye has a special glance of tenderness for His poor; His ear, a special sensitiveness to their cry. The widow, the orphan, the hungry, the naked, the forlorn, the destitute, are His special wards, and He has commanded His richer children, under penalty of His wrath, to supply their wants. " Whoso hath this world's goods and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him ? " This divinest of Christian duties would be done in the most comprehensive, intelligent, ample and deliglit- f ul manner, but for the curse of that same covetousness that rests like an incubus on the heart of Christen- dom, and palsies its energies whenever any great ex- penditure of money for the Lord is demanded. The relief of the poor in no Christian country in the world, nor even in any large section of country, as a rule, is attended to with the thoroughness, system, generosity and promptitude that are imperatively re- quired. The charity that is practised is chiefly the spasmodic, intermittent acts of individuals — often, I i: LOOK AT THE POOR, 01 indeed, very noble and generous, but it falls vastly short of what is needed. It is the systematic benefi- cence of the Bible that can alone overtake this work likewise. The Christian tithe-fund could aftbrd far larger supplies for this great department of Christian work, than people dream of. Plenty of that tithe- fund is to-day in the hands of Christians in the shape of millions they do not know what to do with. They are weary waiting for a first-class chance of invest- ment. There is one ready to their hand, and best of all, one where the stock is the safest, the dividends highest and surest, and the President is God Himself. " He that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth unto the Lord ; and that which he hath given, will He pay him again." Systematic Giving is needed to redeem the Slums of Society. Society everywhere has its residuum — human dregs, that sin deposits at the very bottom — where vice reigns unchecked. It is the saddest spectacle on earth to see poor humanity so embruted and be-devilled by sin. There are few places but some such moral sore is festering. Men and women by hundreds and thousands are found who have graduated up from the " Street Arab " into the fur fledged ruffian and strumpet. Almost their on means of subsistence is by preying on others ; imost the • only pleasures the horrible orgies o£ lust. Wha ^ shall be done with them ? There is only one ans \rer that any Christian can give — lift them up out of their mora! filth & . ndition of thinfjs that ou^ht to awaken the deepest ij mpathy of Christian statesmen, philanthro- pists and Evangelical Churches. In this century of Christian light and liberty, the average Frenchman there exists in all but the gloom and tyranny of the Mediaeval Ages. The Pope rules in Quebec far more despotically than he does in Rome, or scarce any other country on the globe. There is probably not a Iioman Catholic country in the world where Popery is more completely the State Church, where it more tyran- nically monopolizes everything than in this province of a Protestant Empire. Jesuits, who have been driven from every Roman Catholic country in the world, can here find the snuggest of harbors and the most abun- dant of privileges. In a country teeming with Bibles, here are a people, to whom it is a mortal sin to read that Book of God. In a country blessed with the freest institutions and THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. the utmost civil and religious liberty, here are a peo- ple whose liberties are pretty much summed up in one thing — abject submission to the priesthood — and that priesthood one of the greediest and most unscrupulous on the face of the earth. Between the utter repres- sion of their whole manhood, the ecclesiastical embarofo laid upon every species of industry, the cruel exactions of this voracious and insatiable Church, and the almost omnipotent grip with which it holds them down in ignorance and superstition — the poor French habitant is probably, of all men on this continent, the most to be pitied. And yet it is but little of that he gets from many professors of Evangelical Protestantism. They seem somehow to think that Romanism has a sort of patent right to do what it pleases with these people. These Romish oppressions awaken but little of their sympathies, if they even believe half the tales of wrong that are constantly coming to their ears. With the exception of the noble efforts of a few, very little has ever been done by the Protestant Christians of this land for the evangelization of their French -Canadian countrvmen. A handful of brave men and women — and they had need to be the bravest of the brave — have done and suffered much for Christ's cause in that Province ; they have toiled on with but little co-operation and scanty aid, and encompassed with difficulties, the like of which are hardly to be met with in any mission-field the world over. Surely all this ought not to continue. The French- men of Eastern Canada are our fellow countrymen. IT IS NEEDED FOR OUR COUNTRY S SAKE. 81 they are redeemed by the same blessed Saviour, in- heritors of the same precious promises as we, entitled to all the blessings of Christ's pure religion, and all the comforts and joys and hopes of His Salvation. They have in them the elements of a noble citizenship, they may be most valuable factors in the rearing of our grand Christian nationality. They deserve at our hands all the help we can give in their disenthrallment from this fearful spiritual bondage, and their elevation to the high privileges of the true sons and daughters of God. The lethargy, the stinginess, the selfishness, that would leave this vast mass of Canadians to their sad fate, is an unprincipled and unchristian thing, for which we must answer at the dreadful bar of God. It is needed for Home Missions. — Very much of the evangelization of our country is being conducted on Home Mission fields. The ordinary home mis- sionary and his work make no great show in even tiie records of missionary toil. If a man or woman sails for India, Africa or Japan, they go with a sort of halo of Christian heroism around them, which marks them for large Christian sympathies, and no small edat That is all well enough, but there are scores of men and women hid away in the obscure corners of our country just as noble, as heroic, and as self-sacrificing and, in their sphere, doing as grand a work as any foreign mis- sionary. These men an>d women, and their work, often get H 82 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. I ill I but a small modicum of the appreciation they deserve. Their work is often rough and hard, their surround- ings, with little that is congenial to refined tastes, their salaries often meagre in the extreme,, and their isola- tion almost as complete as if in a foreign land. They spend their lives in obscurity, neglect and poverty, finding a Christly joy and reward in their abounding labors for the poor and the ignorant and the wicked. But such workers are rapidly turning hundreds of moral wastes into fruitful spiritual gardens, and are weaving into the web of our national character and life the most precious and imperishable elements of good. It is time that these yeomen toilers of the Church received a larger share of its liveliest sympathy, a good many more of the honors it may have to give, and an immense deal more of the Lord's money, of which they have been unjustly deprived of far too long. Their salaries ought to be made reasonable and decent, their numbers vastly increased, and their work eniarged in manifold degree ; a need which even this Christian country cannot afford to leave unsupplied. It is needed for the North- West. — The period of pioneer settlement in Canada is not a thing of the past. It is in fact scarce more than well begun. The vast stretches of Western prairie, as well as the immense regions of unoccupied territory eastward, invite, and will, for long to come, the adventurous and enterprising settler. The pioneer everywhere needs to be a most resolute, self-reliant and persevering char- I IT IS NEEDED FOR OUR COUNTPi'S SAKE. 83 and work this ed. d of the ill as 'ard, and Ids to Ichar- acter. But for the first few years he requires help. The great North-West of Canada will be abundantly able to help itself by and by. But its need of help presses just now. If that great regioi is to be worth anything, its prosperity must be built on a Christian foundation. Education, law, order, good morals, and a vigorous type of evangelical relig'on, must preside authoritatively over its developir.-jnt. And now is the time to establish firmly these great Ijulwarks of Chris- tian civilization. It would be a fatal mistake to wait until the heavier flow of emigration passes into that land. Christian institutions of the best type and on the broadest foundations, must be there to receive that larger emigration when it comes. This means at the present time, the wisest planning, the most adventur- ous Christian enterprize, the boldest faith, the greatest self-sacrifice and the most generous giving from the older provinces. Something of all this has been al- ready done, and is being done, by the Churches ; but if that land of promise is to be conquered and held firmly for Christ, then Evangelical Protestantism has got to throw itself into the work with a consecration and a far-sighted wisdom and a liberal expenditure enor- mously ahead of anything yet attempted. If a twen- tieth of the headlong enthusiasm and lavish outlay of money, that marked the speculating mania out there a few years ago, were now devoted to Christ's cause in that rogion, the thing would be done. And surely if there is an atom of truth in the Christian faith, and in our professions of it, it is equally important to take 84 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. and hold that wondrous territory for Jesus, as it was or is, to secure eligible city lots or promising sections of land. Then there is the difficult Indian Pvohlein to deal with. What is to be done with the Indians of this country ? The answer is not far to seek. Christianize and edu- cate them. These poor children of the forest have claims upon us peculiarly their own. We have dis- placed them as the lords of the soil. Their magnifi- cent hunting-grounds have become our fat pastures and rich harvest fields ; their majestic wilderness, our beautiful and happy home. It is easy for us to follow the steady instincts of civilized life, the results of many ages of habit and culture. It is not so easy for Indians, whose ancestors from time immemorial, have led the wild, but exhilarating life of a bird of the air or beast of the forest, to drop down at once into the dull monotony of European labor. The white man's treatment of the^lndian, with some signal exceptions, has been little to his credit. It has been, in fact, far too much a villainous combination of wilful ignorance, abominable swindling, and cruel oppression. While we in Canada have been far more honorable and Christian in this respect than our neigh- bors to the south of us, yet we have never done half our duty by the Indian yet. We owe them all the blessings of Christian civilization, and freedom, as far as possible, from all its curses. .Nothing that ever came in the red man's way has equalled in hellish malig- IT IS NEEDED FOR OUR COUNTRY'S SAKE. 85 the into nity the white man's " fire-water." That omnipotent curse of the Saxon race has decimated and demoralized him more than all his internecine wars, his small-pox, or even his cruellest rites of superstition. We owe it to the poor Indian that he shall not be murdered and extinguished by this infernal thing. The Christian religion has already amply proved itself to be the Indian's greatest blessing. Thousands of them have experienced its saving power. They have been lifted from their depravity, filled with com- fort, light and joy, and have shown the reality of their change by pure lives and triumphant death.s. The experiment of teaching and civilizing the Indian has hitherto been the most successful, only when preceded by his conversion. Bring them to Jesus first, and teach them civilized arts after. That has been done, and succeeded wonderfully well. It can be done again, and ought to be done on the largest scale, with the most unflajQfginjj zeal, and no matter what the cost. Such treatment would have saved our neighbors their numerous expensive and disgraceful Indian wars. Such treatment, even on the liroited scale it has been tried in Canada, lias saved us from all Indian wars up to the last Riel Rebellion ; and even then, it was the chief, if not the only, cause that prevented a general Indian rising. Not a solitary Protestant Indian was actively implicated in that Rebellion. If the Christian people of this Dominion are wise to learn from the severe but instructive experience of the past, they will in future regard the Indian with far deeper Christian 86 THF GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY, interest, and cheerfully expend vastly more of the Lord's money for his evangelization. It is' needed in View of the PerilH of Emigration. — Emij];ration is one of the greatest hopes of this coun- try. It may likewise be one of our greatest fears. The quantity of emigration is a great factor in our growth and prosperity, but the quality counts for a good deal too. This is a free country, open to all. The good will always be welcome, but it is not so easy to exclude the bad. There is nothing to prevent our country being made the dumping-ground of the very worst of Europe's populations. We may have a descent upon us of hordes of European barbarians as danger- ous as the Huns of Attila were to the Roman Empire. Whether our Christian civilization is to be buttressed with additional strength by emigration, or torn to pieces, is a question with which the character of the emigrants will have considerable to do. The only safe course for us is to nourish our Christian institutions into such colossal strength as to be able to resist the most violent shocks that may come. Our Christian civilization must be made so vigorous and pervasive that it cannot be absorbed by foreign barbarians, how- ever numerous, but it can ever transform and absorb them. That means the speedy expenditure of toil, zeal, money, on an immensely greater scale than in the past, or is being now attempted. It is needed for the Future of this Country. — We are but laying the foundations of Empire. And in this wondrous land there is plenty of material to IT IS NEEDED FOR OUR COUNTRY'S SAKE. 87 build with. Here is halt* a continent, equal in area to the whole of Europe, washed with the world's two greatest oceans — the oceans of commerce — ribbed with the most majestic mountains, arteried through with a lake and river system unparalleled on the globe. Its provinces are vast kingdoms, much of its soil the richest under heaven ; its fisheries the most prolific of the seas, its mines of coal and iron, of silver and gold, inexhaustible. Here is a climate that looks upon you in summer with the sun of Italy, in winter with the bracing rigor of Russia. Here you have scenery that ranges from the soft landscape of England, to the Alpine grandeur of Switzerland. Here is everything to make a maritime nation of the very first order, the most extended sea-board, the finely harbors, the best material for ship-building, and the most immediate use for the ships, when they are built. Here is a field for agriculture, manufacture, trade, commerce, which is practically without limit. Here is the poor man's chance. Here he may rise from the lowest round of the ladder to the highest place of wealth and power. Five millions, a population about equal to the City of London, possess this vast country, a country with all the natural capabilities to support five liundred mil- lions of human beings. Perhaps never has God given such a splendid heritage to so small a fraction of the human race. Not for nothing did He permit the white Caucasian to dispossess the dusky denizen of the forest. Not for nothing, either, did He supersede all over North America the rule of the French Celt IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 1.0 I.I ;f: ilM IIM v: '1^- IIIIM u 2.0 1.8 1.25 1.4 1.6 ^ 6" — ► % ^ /}. %. /a -Pi ♦ '/ /^. Photographic Sdences Corporation ^^ A ^v o % s^. ^ M O^ ^ 23 * EST MAIN STREET WEBSTER, NY 14580 (716) 872-4503 ft/* #? ^^ M Ua > ir^ 88 THE GIFTS or THE ROYAL FAMILY. by the rule of the British Saxon. When the dying Wolfe, on the blood-stained heights of Abraham, uttered the triumphant cry, "They run," there were fleeing away far more than the discomfited warriors of Montcahn. French dominion and Popish supremacy were failing in that hour before British freedom and Protestant ascendancy over half of North America. What shall the future of this country be? Shall Romanism — that sworn foe to all liberty of the human understanding, to all rights of the royal sons and daughters of God — shall it climb once more to supre- macy in this land ? Shall its profound cunning, sinis- ter plots, brazen impudence and overriding violence prove successful through the apathy of false Protes- tantism, the truculence of politicians, or the cowardly sellishness that would sell the most priceless of liberties for the paltriest f gains ? Shall the arena of our politics be the battle-ground where partyism, extravagance and corruption shall struggle for mastery, or be the elevation, on which the hi::hest Christian statesmanship shall perform its illus- trious exploits ? Shall the liquor traffic be permitted ,to drown the prospects of the land in a quagmire of infamy, corruption and ruin ? Shall modern infidelity, with its pompous mysticism and icy negations, sweep with the chill of moral death the rising intellect of this land ? Shall loose morals unfasten our anchorage to the sure teachings of Divine truth, and send our national ship drifting on the rocks and sands of un- godliness ? IT IS NEEDED FOR OUR COUNTRY S SAKE. 80 Or shall the foundations of this young nation be laid strong and well in righteousness — that righteousness which alone exalteth a nation ? Shall the equitable, the pure, the ennobling, the immutable principles of the Christian faith assert omnipotent dominion in cur halls of legislation, courts of law, marts of commerce, in every trade, profession and busi- ness, in all our institutions, in every phase of society, and in all the walks of life ? Shall we rise on such iirm foundations to vast national development, to enormous wealth, to a population numbered by scores of millions, to intelligence abreast or ahead of the world, to high moral excellence, the admiration of mankind, and to a stability which can defy the shock of revolutions and the lapse of time ? These questions that tremble under the weight of ponderous possibilities, all find answer in the greater question. Shall we be a thoroughly Christian nation ? And that again largely finds its answer in the momentous enquiry. Shall the Cana- dians of to-day, be a people distinguished by the broad, noble, wise and generous beneficence of the Book of God? wk ir CHAPTER XIII. THE GREAT DEAD SEA OF HUMANITY. WE should take no pessimistic view of the world's moral condition, neither should we shut our eyes to the true facts as they are. There are about fourteen hundred and thirty mil- lions of human beings now in the world. Of these, there are only some four hundred and thirty millions that can be reckoned in any sense, or in any form, as Christians. The remainder — one thousand millions — are heathens, Mohammedans and Jews. The most startling fact in this is, that there are now some two hundred millions of heathens and Mohammedans more, than there were a hundred years ago. There are about three millions of converts which all the Protestant missionary societies of the world claim as the present adherents of the Christian Church. That is, that heathenism and Mohammedanism have dis- tanced the united missionary efforts of Christendom in the race of the hundred years, by one hundred and ninety -seven miUions of souls. It is thought by some that the missionary labors of Hindus and Mohammedans in central Africa, among the aboriginal hill tribes of India, in Java, and* the adjacent Isles and in other lands, are winning more i THE GREAT DEAD SEA OF HUMANITY. 91 ^hat dis- idom and converts to those systems, than are being won by all the Christian missions the world over. The African explorer, Stanley, relates that in his journey of 7,000 miles from Zanzibar, he saw neither Christian disciple nor one who had heard of the gospel of Jesus. " Map the continent of Africa into squares of two degrees each — comprising 700 squares in all. Cut off 100 for desert and the lakes, and de- duct also those from which there is no crying need of missionaries, and those in which even a single mission- ary is working, as well as all the land through which a missionary has once passed, there would be still 500 squares left in which the message of salvation has never been heard. Each of these squares represents a dense population covering 15,000 square miles. In other words, one hundred and fort3"-two millions in Africa have never yet heard of Christ." A missionary recently said : " In China, a year ago, — I don't know if it is changed now — you might run a swath 1000 miles wide and 1300 miles long, through the densest population in the world, and cut down but a single missionary." In India, which is considered an occupied field, a returned missionary stated a short time since, he knew of a district containing five mil- lions of souls — a population equal to that of the whole Dominion — without a solitary Christian missionary. The world, as a whole, is in darkness, although the light of Christ, the Sun of Righteousness, has come for near nineteen hundred years. The centuries have rolled their many weary rounds since the Son of God if f' i 1 r m ; ) f . ^ 4 u ■ t 92 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. trod this earth and hung suspended on the tree, a sacri- fice for its sin, but this nineteenth century still sees Satan regnant over the vast majority of the human race. Christ's religion alone is fitted to enlighten, and purify, and save mankind. The non-Christian faiths of the world must forever leave the great dead sea of human depravity and wretchedness unhealed. Whatever shreds of ethical truth may be interwoven more or less largely in all these systems, yet, in the main, they are the religions of superstition, of lust, of violence. They but reflect human nature in its degeneracy, and Satanic power in its ascendency. It is a far more terrible thing to be a heathen tlian most Christians are capable of imagining. " Contrast the social life of these millions of the heathen with your own. You have schools for the culture of morals and intellect; they have none. You have skilled physicians to attend you when stricken with disease ; they have none, save a few who are sent out as mis- sionaries. You have a Christian literature which fos- ters purity and stimulates the love of truth ; but their literature reeks with the very sediment of vileness. You have the Christian Church, with its holy Book, its sacred day, its inspiring services ; they, the Pagan temple, with its senseless idols, its low and revolting ceremonies, presided over by sensual priests and priest- esses. You have Christian homes full of comfort and blessing ; their homes abound in degradation and misery. You care for your infant girls with motherly THE GREAT DEAD SEA OF HUMANITY. m love and tenderness ; in China, little girls are sold in the cities like chattels, and generally for the vilest purposes. You educate your young women and pre- pare them for every possible sphere of usefulness ; but in Japan, the father frequently compels the grown-up daughter to enter upon a life of shame and misery, that he may derive profit from her debauchery and ruin. You decorate the walls of your homes with paintings and precious souvenirs ; but the king of Dahomy a few years since, slaughtered 6000 captives that he might ornament the walls of his palace with their heads." In all non-Christian lands woman's condition is deplorable. In Africa she is a beast of burden ; in Mohammedan countries, a slave of lust ; in heathen nations, a creature treated with the utmost contempt, and considered hardly worth rearing from infancy. A missionary lady in China states that she knew of one hundred mothers, who had destroyed one hundred and fifty-eight female children ; of forty others, who had destroyed seventy-eight ; of six, who had destroyed eleven. The census of the north-west provinces of India showed in 1881, 280,790 married girls under nine years of age, and over a million, between the ages of ten and fourteen. Those early marriages mean for those females, secluded confinement, dense ignorance, stunted growth, impossibility of mental or moral training, and often child-widowhood, the prohibition of re-marriage, and, till lately, the terrible " Suttee," or widow-burning. Of 124,000,000 femal«.s in India, IV 94 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. \ \ according to the Government census in 1881, there were 21,000,000 widows, 600,000 of whom were mere children. And out o^ the entire female population of India, only 70,000 were able to read and write. Black as is the picture of heathen misery, it is sad to think that so-called Christians, have made it blacker still. The sublime mission of Christians has been to allevi- ate all this heathen wretchedness, but the dreadful impeachment lies against Christian nations, that they have made them worse. One of the greatest crimes of humanity, and one of the most obstinate obstruc- tions to the spread of the Gospel, has been the selfish and inhuman iniquities of professed Christians in their treatment of the heathen. The very ships that have carried our missionaries and our Bibles, have been heavily freighted with bales of opium and barrels of rum. With one hand we have offered them life and salva- tion, with the other, the deepest damnation. Where we have sent them one pure sample of a Christian in the missionary, we have sent them fifty of our bap- tized heathens in the shape of drunken soldiers and sailors, or swindling traders, people far more wicked than themselves. A Christian total abstainer in Mohammedan coun- tries, is almost certain to call forth the exclamation, " What ! you a Christian, and don't drink ? " They have come to believe that it is a part of the Christian's religion to get drunk. Mr. W. S. Caine, an English M.P., who returned not long ago from Egypt, says : THE GREAT DEAD SEA OF HUMANITY. 95 m )un- pion, hey lan's llish lys: "When we went to Egypt, we were going to establish the civil, moral and Christian influences of our country on the banks of the Nile. What we have done, has been to establish an enormous number of grog shops and houses of ill-fame. "In Cairo, with its population of 400,000, mostly Mohammedan, we found between 400 and 500 public houses opened for the use of the army of occupation. We were thus introducinor drunkenness into an abstain- ing country, for the Mohammedan religion prohibited the use of alcoholic liquors, and the Copts were not yet addicted to the vice. "The capitulations forced upon the Egyptian Govern- ment by the Europeans prevented it from prohibiting the traffic, though the authorities were anxious to do so." Africa, from time immemorial, has been the Christian hunting-ground for slaves. It is only in the present generation, that Christian England and Christian America have prohibited slavery. " One of the causes of the late French -Malagasy war, was the refusal of the Queen of Madagascar to wink at the foreign slave trade. That trade has now been re-opened. Many thousands of the poor natives of Mada- gascar have been carried off, and not one has been known to return. The slaves cost the French about $25 each, and they are sold for six or seven times as much." The British and American rum trade has cursed Africa even more than ever the slave trade did. Rev. James Johnson, native pastor of Lagos, says : •!r r 96 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. II ■'!" ' "Into this small island, Europe exports every year an average of 1,200,000 f^allons of rum. It is the vilest manufacture under the sun. It is so bad, that the lowest European trader on the coast would never drink it himself. Negroes have survived the evils of the slave trade, cruel as they were, but they have no power to withstand the terrible evils of drink." Mr. Joseph Thompson, a distinguished writer and traveller in Africa, says : " For every African who is influenced for good by Christianity, a thousand are driven into deeper degradation by the gin trade. The extent of the influence between a native viliasfe and the European merchant, is only too often gauged by the size of its pyramid of gin bottles." " What is said of Africa might be said with equal truth of Hindostan, of Burmah, of Ceylon, of parts of China to which we have access, of the North Ameri- can Indians, of the aborigines of New Zealand and of many other lands." In a recent addres.s, the Pundita Ramabai, told how the people of her country were ruined by drink from Christian lands. She said the Hindoos judge Christianity by its fruits, and regarding the drink traffic as one of its fruits, reject it on that account. " Why not," she asked, " why not send missionaries to the English parliament to convert its members ? " In the eloquent words of Archdeacon Farrar : " We have girdled the world with a zone of drunkenness. The footsteps of the Aryan races, as they have tra- versed the continents in their careers of commerce or THE GREAT DEAD SEA OF HUMANITY. 07 of conquest, have too often been footsteps dyed in blood. Christians— they who bore that name— have sent to savage races, now the Jesuit and the oppressor now the blood hound and the Inquisitor, now the fire- water and the pestilence, now the flash of the firelock and the fetter of the slave. It is time, it is more than time, that we should show them that our true mis- sion is not to destroy their bodies but to save their souls." 19 m CHAPTER XIV. m THE WORLD'S CONQUEST FOR CHRIST. IT is surely a stupendous work to conquer the world for Christ. But the moral and spiritual forces for the purpose are abundantly ade«]uate to the task. We have the Bible — that oldest, that most redoubtable of warriors. " No fragment of any army ever sur- vived so many battles as the Bible ; no citadel ever withstood so many sieges ; no rocks were ever battered by so many hurricanes ; and yet it stands. While nations, kings, philosophers, systems, institutions, have died away, the Bible survives. It engages now men's deepest thoughts ; is examined by the keenest intell- ects ; stands revered before the highest tribunals ; is more read and sifted and debated, more devoutly loved and vehemently assailed, and more triumphantly de- fended ; more industriously translated and more freely given to the world, than any other book the world ever saw. It survives all changes, itself unchanged ; it moves all minds, yet is moved by none ; it sees all things decay, itself incorruptible ; it sees myriads of other books engulfed in the stream of time, yet it is borne along, and will, till the mystic angel shall plant his foot on sea and on land, and swear by Him that liveth for ever, that time shall be no longer." Ther^ THE WOttLDS CON(^UEST FOR CHRIST. 99 is moral dynamic power in that Book, sufficient to annihilate every other religion in the world. The Christian religion is pre-eminently the religion of humanity. It sounds the depths of the human heart. It solves the most profound and tremendous problems of our spiritual nature. It adjusts with even balance all human relationships. It applies healing balm to all human griefs. It meets the soul etjually in its humblest endeavors, and in its most in 'estic soarings. It is the apprehended philosophy cl the child; it is the limitless field where geniu> can ^nd amplest scope to revel. It is the opening of the m. ntai eye, to see i., . worlds on worlds of truth and beauty; it is th ' opening of the heart, to the thrill ot heavenly purity and joy. It is the religion of all time and place and state, of all ages and generations, of all lands and climes, of all conditions of men, and of all necessities that mankind can ever know. Other religions may possess some partial and transitory elements of adap- tation, but this alone can be the world's cosmopolitan and abiding faith. Its very nature is imperiously de- itructive to all other systems, just as truth is necessarily destructive of falsehood. It glories in its mission, the merciless overthrow of all things false, and mean, and vile, and hurtful, that disgrace and distress the world — the erection on their ruins of all that is true, and beautiful, and good. Such a religion has within it the elements of su- premacy; " it is the power of God unto salvation, unto «very one that believeth." 100 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. Its methods of propagation are as wise and eiSicient as it is itself. The " foolishness of preaching " is simply the wisdom of God. Carnal weapons can never make conquest of the soul. The flashing scime- tar, the clanking chain, the gloomy dungeon, the martyr-fires, are powerless forces with which to sub- due the vast spiritual domain of our immortal nature. It takes a spiritual armament to do that. The under- standing, the conscience, the will, the affections, can only be captured effectively by the power of truth. The preaching of the Gospel is, therefore, the most potent battery with which to attack the evils of the world ; it is " mighty to the pulling down of the strong- holds " of sin. We have the interceding Saviour to count on in this struggle. He, whose love for us led Him all the way from Bethlehem's manger to Calvary's Cross, has not ceased in Heaven to interest Himself in this world's emancipation from evil. He pleads for us still ; and even the feeblest Christian warrior may go forth with joy, assured from Christ's own lips, " Lo, I am with you alway." That soul and Christ, make a majority against the world. The Holy Spirit is also everywher-^ on this battle- field. The contest is peculiarly one between the ever- blessed Spirit of God and the accursed spirit of Satan. The victory is as sure as that truth must ultimately prevail over error, right over wrong, God over the Devil. To effect the world's spiritual conquest God is pleased to use human agency — the labors of Christian The world's conquest for christ. 101 men and women, and the gifts of Christian gold. Plenty of both one and the other could, and ought to be supplied for the purpose. Is there Christian money enough to evangelize the world ? Let us see. We begin with our own country. The total income of the inhabitants of this Dominion can scarcely fall much short of five hundred wMliona of dollars a year. That estimate puts it at a considerably less figure, man for man, than in the United States. The tenth of this would be tifty millions a year — just about what our liquor bill costs us. We strike off a hundred millions for the Roman Catholic element, and a hundred more, as possibly our estimate might be a little too high. Our Christian tenth is still thirty millions of dollars a year. Call it twenty-Jive — ^just half what we pay for liquor, saying nothing of tobacco and fifty other follies we feel quite able to spend lots of money on, without a murmur. Twentv-hve millions a year for Christ! That is about j^ve times as much as we yearly raise for all the Protestant churches, ministers' salaries, Sun- days chools, and all other philanthrophic and chari- table purposes in the entire Dominion. That the total does not greatly exceed five millions annually is pretty clear from the fact that the sum raised by the two strongest Protestant Churches — the Methodist and Presbyterian — is only some three millions and a quarter a year. Twenty-five millions a year would be, at least, a respectable fund of the Lord's money. How it would be expended would be for God's people ■pf^nnsp nHOH h V 102 THE ftlFtS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. MS. " i ■; Bl 1.. themselves to say. They could, if they chose, just double the outlay on the work of God at home. For every dollar now available for evangelizing our own Dominion, and for all sorts of Christian charities, we should then have two — and we need not a cent less. After spending ten millions of dollars a year on our own country, instead of five, we would have fifteen Tnillions left to help to spread the Gospel in foreign lands. With that sum we could send out five hundred missionaries at a cost of two thousand dollars each for equipment and salary. We could build, and maintain for the year, two missionary ships at a cost of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars apiece. We could aid in erect- ing one hundred churches, making a grant to each of five thousand dollars. We could allow half a million dollars each for the establishment of ten Christian col- leges, in some or other of the heathen countries. We could place there likewise forty Christian high schools, and give each one of them fifty thousand dollars. We could afford six thousand dollars each towards the establishing of fifty Christian newspapers, and after all, have one million four hundred thousand dollars left for Bible circulation, to give to the poor, and for other miscellaneous Christian work. All this could be done with one year's missionary contributions from Canada — -and would he done, did the Christians of Canada practice even a fair share of the systematic and gener- ous beneficence required in that Book, they all profess to believe is the voice of the Great Jehovah. Take the two great Anglo-Saxon nations, England THE world's CONQCJEST FOR CHRIST. 103 and America, the two that owe more to evangelical Christianity than any other. Their united income is twelve thousand millions of dollars a year. The tenth of that, would be twelve hundred millions, less by a couple of hundred millions, than these two Christian countries spend every year on drink. Call it a thou- sand millions for the Lord's share. A people who gjave that much to God, He would show them how to spend it to the best advantage. But suppose each nation expended two hundred millions a year on its own Christian work — a sum much more than twice what they expend now — that would leave six hundred millions to be employd in evangelizing the rest of 'the world. Call it Jive hundred. Five hundred millions for Christian missions ! That would be five dollars to help to save the heathen, out of every hundred and twenty dollars the Lord pours into the lap of these people year by year ! Five out of every hun- dred and twenty. Is that too much ? Fourteen out of every hundred and twenty goes for liquor, to say nothing about tobacco, and all sorts of other extrava- gances. What would five hundred millions do to help to save the world ? It would send out to all parts of the world, twenty thousand Christian missionaries at a cost of two thou- sand dollars each. It would aid in the erection of that many churches, and make a grant of five thousand dollars to each. It would establish one hundred Chris* tian colleges at half a million apiece. It would like- wise allow fifty thousand dollars for every one of the it ■■> V \ 104 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. thousand Chiistian high schools that might be started. It would build, equip and maintain fifty missionary ships, at a cost of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars each. It would start twenty thousand Chris- tian day schools, and allow them each two thousand dollars for the year, also one hundred thousand Sab- bath-schools, and help them every one to the extent of three hundred dollars. It would subsidize fifteen hundred Christian newspapers with ten thousand dol- lars apiece. It would help to support ten thousand Christian colporteurs, giving to each five hundred dol- lars, it would flood heathendom with fifty millions of Christian books and publications, averaging fifty cents each. After all that was done, it would leave one hundred mil'ions of dollars to build hospitals for the sick and the poor, and sustain a great variety of Christian charities ; and after all leave between thirty and fortv millions for miscellaneous Christian work not otherwise provided for ! All this would be but a single year's work of only two of the Christian nations of the world. Can these nations look into the face of that generous God, who has given them all they have, and say they cannot do this ? And if they can, and ought, but won't, must they not answer for it at the dreadful bar of God ? England — Christian Eng- land — out of every five thousand dollars the great Giver bestows upon her, generously (?) hands out six dollars and a half for the salvation of the heathen ; and yet no other Christian people give as liberally to Christian missions as that ! THE world's conquest FOR CHRIST. 105 it at Eng- great it six [then ; Illy to At this rate of giving, how many hundred thousand years would it take to convert the world ? or, rather how short a time may it be, until God's righteous dis- pleasure falls in heavy stripes on these nations, because, while it is in their power to do this good thing, they do it not. But, were the money available would the men be ? There have always been more men to go, than means to send them with. The perplexing problem to-day is not how to find suitable Christian men and women for missionary work, but how to find money to sustain them. If there were not enough, such a liberality as we are advocating, would soon bring a supply, since the promised out-pouring of the Spirit would assuredly come on a people thus bringing their tithes into God's storehouse. Why should not the world's conquest for Christ be at once taken in hand ? This is the age of combined eflfort, of enterprise on the largest scale, of a bold faith that "laughs at impossibilities." Men contrive the boldest schemes, and go on executing them with a resolution that never flinches until the thing is done. That is what is wanted now to save the world. It is surely as worthy a work to cut right into the heart of heathenism with the sword of the Spirit, as to tunnel a mountain, or carry a railroad over its top; to flash the glorious light of Christ into the gloom of Paganism, as to light the world with electricity; to feed the starv- ing millions with the Bread of Life, as to push the lines of commerce into the remotest nooks of the globe >i5 r'1 KM 106 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. Were half the enterprise, and push, and daring, and lavish expenditure so freely bestowed even by Chris- tian men on secular schemes, devoted to the evangeliza- tion of the world, it would be an accomplished fact in a few years. ■| •.' ! . y, and Jhris- reliza- act in CHAPTER XV. ENCOURAGEMENTS. CONSIDERING the extremely limited means em- ployed, the success of modern evangelism at home and abroad, so far from being the least discouraging, is really the most marvellous chapter of progress in human history. Nothing attests more powerfully the innate force of the Christian religion, and nothing could be more signally prophetic of certain triumph to come. The possibility of the speedy conquest of the whole world for Christ is demonstrated by the history of Christian work in the last hundred years. Two centuries and a half ago the Anglo-Saxon race, the race of progress and dominion, the custodians of a pure Christianity, numbered but seven millions. They number one hundred millions to-day, and out of that one hundred millions there are eighty-eight millions of Protestants. In the present century Romanism has increased only fifty per cent.; but Protestantism, and chiefly its evangelical form, has advanced two hundred and iifty per cent. A hundred years ago there was no Bible society, since then, four great Bible societies shew that one hundred and twenty million copies of the Scrip- tures have been published, and that in two hundred and fifty languages. Protestant missionary societies have E?- r v'^ lOS THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. u :L' hi ; increased from seven to one hundred, male missionaries from one hundred and seventy, to three thousand; lady missionaries from scarce any, to two thousand four hundred, besides missionaries' wives; converts from heathenism, from fifty thousand to near three millions; mission schools, from seventy to fourteen thousand. Native missionaries and teachers, from a handful, to twenty-seven thousand, and these are chiefly supported by their own people. One hundred and forty years ago, Jonathan Edwards uttered these words, " I used to be eager to read public news letters, mainly to see if I could not find some news favorable to the interests of religion in the world." But it was little or none he could find. There is scarcely a respectable journal to-day but chronicles and discusses all sorts of religious intelligence. There was no missionary periodical in the United States prior to 1803, and for many years after there was but one. There are now in that country thirty-four, and there are over seventy-fiveexclusiveljmission&ry period- icals in the world. The last fifty years — the Victorian era — has wit- nessed by far the most rapid portion of this progress- Within that period, the ten missionary organizations of the United Kingdom have grown to sixty -five, and the twenty-seven of evangelical Christendom to be one hundred and eighty-five. "Besides these results, there are others not so easily tabulated, such as the education of hundreds of thou- sands of children and youth; the wider general influ- L ' ENCOURAGEMENTS, 109 manes isand; usand nverts three urteen Erom a se are iwards public 1 some in the There jonicles There States fas but r, and period- ,s wit- Dgress- ations e, and be one easily thou- influ- ence of Christian teaching and example by mission- aries and their converts; the elevation of the lowest races to the comforts of civilization; the establishment of peaceful government among savages who were given to cannibalism and war; the spread of commerce and industry, the creation of written languages, the abolition of cruel rites and religious crimes, and the institution of many reforms among those who remain heathen." Whatever nations and churches have done in promoting religion at home, the foreign missiimary work of the century has been chiefly accomplished by private enterprise. These great results have been achieved, for the most part, by a handful of heroes, sustained by very little more than their unquenchable Christian ardor, uncon- querable faith in God, and the sympathy and help of a few lofty-souled Christians like themselves. Con- sidering the smallness of their number, the often exces- sive smallness of their support, the inconceivable diffi- culties they had to surmount, the success of these mis- sionaries is simply unparalleled. The history of their labors exceeds in fascination any romance that ever was written, and its moral splendor is a legacy to mankind, as illustrious as it is imperishable. Everything invites, encourages, commands us to victory. Past failures but emphasize the value of pre- sent faithfulness. There can be no defeat except through faultiness of our own. Christians have failed, but Christianity never has. mr^ 110 THE GIFTS OF THE UOYAL FAMILY. It can still work miracles, miracles of moral and spirit- ual healinf(. It can heal the leprosy of sin, cast out the devils of lust, and raise the spiritually dead. It is the world's only hope, but it is a hope for the world absolutely "sure and steadfast." The outlook for Christ's cause is most hopeful. Never was Evangelical Christianity so widespread and powerful as it is to-day ; never before has it taken such deep root in the intelligence and love of man- kind. Never before did the world see such a host of chil- dren taught, and taught so well, in the Sabbath schools. Never has the righteous indignation of the nations waxed so warm against the liquor traffic, and never was the gathering storm so portentous of iU coming destruction. Never was mankind so intolerant of the abominations of sin, and so impatient for their aboli- tion. Never was the Press, that omnipotent power for good or evil, so largely enlisted on virtue's side. On the continent of Europe there are many hopeful signs. The Sabbath is being more respected. There is an increased attendance in the Protestant churches In Germany, the increase of students at the Theolo- gical colleges, not a bad gauge of the spiritual life of the churches, has run up from thirteen hundred and ninety-four in 1881-2, to two thousand three hundred and twenty-two in 1885-6 ; an increase in four years of over eighty-three per cent. In France, the McAll Mission and others are in- structive samples of what the Gospel can do there. spirit- st out • or the Dpeful. ftd and taken : man- )f chil- jcbools. nations never coming of the aboli- er for lopeful There lurches 'heolo- life of id and mdred years ire in- ^re. ENCOURAGEMENTS. Ill Poor, distracted Ireland ! Who knows but that out of even the political seethings of this Home Rule ques- tion there may come to the surface the thing least expected, but the best solution of their difficulties — namely an opening for a free Bible and a pure Gospel, what the Irish Romanist has never had. God has often done as wonderful things as that. In Italy, only a short time ago, reading the Bible was a crime punishable with imprisonment. Now there are Protestant churches within sight of the Vatican. Even bigoted Spain has its multiplying Protestant pastors and Protestant congregations. In Turkey the old Macedonian cry, the first European call to the great apostle of the Gentiles, is still heard, " Come over and help us." Autocratic Russia is not without many a hopeful symptom of coming evangelistic triumphs. In the colonies of Britain a host of new nationalities are springing up, full of elastic and vigorous life. Every one of them a citadel of expanding Christian power, and a prophecy of a brighter Christian era soon to dawn. The exclusiveness of heathen nations is largely gone, and open doors await the Christian missionary in most countries all over the world. The prejudices of heathen superstition are fast being replaced by juster views of the Christian religion, and confidence in its faithful propagators. Baboo Mookeijee, Secretary of the British Indian Association, & native qlub pf influence, said recently : 112 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. " However we may differ with the Christian mission- aries in reliffion, I speak the minds of this Society, and ji^enerally of those of the people, when I say that as re- gards their learning, purity of morals and disinterested- ness of intention to 'promote our weal, no doubt is en- tertained throughout the land, nay, they are held by us in the highest esteem." A Brahmin, who requested permission to make some remarks at the dedication of a Christian reading-room, which had been opened at Madnapilly, compared the Christian missionaries to a mango-tree, which, however beaten and wounded, still goes on year by year yielding its wholesome fruit. " Now, what makes him do all this for us ?" he asked. " It is his Bible. The Bible — there is nothing to com- pare with it in all our sacred books for goodness, and purity, and holiness, and love, and for motives of action. Of one thing I am convinced, do what we will, oppose it as we may, it is the Christians' Bible that will, sooner or later, work the regeneration of this land." In a recent proclamation, the Government of China declares to the vast millions of that wonderful empire that, " Christian missionaries seek only to make bad men good. That they are to be protected throughout the empire, and in the villages to be looked upon as guests. That the motives of any Chinaman embrac- ing Christianity are never to be enquired into ; that he does not thereby cease to be a Chinaman, and that all are to continue to live together in peace." Japan is Qot unfittingly called the England of the East. It is EKCOURAOEMENTa. US sloughing off its effete heathenism, and assimilating Western civilization and Western Christianity, with a rapidity absolutely astonishing. Africa — that con- tinent of mystery — is j'ielding up its secrets kept since the earliest periods of time. Never before was there such hope that the glorious light of Christ shall flame into its deepest recesses. Never before have the cruel wrongs of its children stirred such deep and wide- spread execration in human hearts. The slumbering nations of Mexico and South America are awakening to the joy of t > u Christian liberty, and begin to hail the advent of the Gospel of the Son of God. Madagascar has in the present generation cast aside its idols, and starts out on its national career with an intelligence, patriotism, and love of true civilization, and true religion, which the widespread influence of God's Word alone can beget. Fiji rejoices the Islands of the Pacific with a signal instance of Gospel- power in transforming embruted cannibals into Christian citi- zens ; while those thousands of Isles of the Sea are fast being turned into blessed Gospel beacon-lights to illumine the world. Even converted heathens are learning the lesson of Christian liberality. " Raiatea in the Southern Pacific, was regarded as the very climax of heathen darkness and degradation. The gospel banner wait unfurled, and king and people are now civilized and Christianized. In May, 1882, a new church was dedicated which cost $8,760, every eant of which was paid at the dedication.** It is stated that the contributions of some of the Japanese 16 !f?P 114 THE GIFTS OF THE ROYAL FAMILY. ill i'k m churches will average a sum per member equal to twenty dollars. That grand specimen of a true apos- tolic bishop — Bishop Taylor — has demonstrated for years, that Christian converts anywhere can be taught to give, and that quite as easily as most Christians learn at home. Christ's cause progresses even more rapidly in heathen lands than in those countries that send them the missionaries. " The annual increase in mis- sion converts averages about six or eight per cent, while the increase to the members of the churches in England does not average one per cent." The facilities for spreading the Gospel are now far greater than ever. "When Queen Victoria came to the throne, it may be said that railroads were not. The few that existed were ' innocent * indeed, and scarcely of appreciable value. Cheap postage was scarcely, if at all, seriously discussed. The steam engine was still in its infancy, and to cross the Atlan- tic by such means had been demonstrated, as it was thought, an absolute impossibility. Telegraphs and telephones were undreamt of. John O'Groat's house «vas then farther from London than the Rockies are to-day." All our modern progress is but casting up the high- way for the easier passage of the Gospel. There are none of the improvements in the mechanical arts, no advance in true science, philosophy and literature, no discovery in any region of investigation, mental or material, but can in some way be utilized in helping to evangelize the world. ENCOURAGEMENTS. 115 qual to le apos- ited for i taught ,ns learn rapidly lat send ) in mia- )er cent, churches now far came to