* NOV 2 1904 * 
 
 BV 2063 .S44 1875 
 
 Seelye, Julius H. 1824-1895 
 
 Christian missions 
 
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
Christian Missions, 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. JULIUS H. SEELYE, 
 
 PROFESSOR IN AMHBRST COLLEGE. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
 Publishers 
 
Copyright. 
 
 DoDD AND Mead. 
 
 1875. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 FIRST LECTURE. 
 The Condition and Wants of the Unchristian 
 World 7 
 
 SECOND LECTURE. 
 Failure of the Ordinary Appliances of Civiliza- 
 tion to improve the World . , .31 
 
 THIRD LECTURE. 
 The Adequacy of the Gospel 59 
 
 FOURTH LECTURE. 
 The Millennarian Theory of Missions . , .94 
 
 FIFTH LECTURE. 
 The True Method of Missionary Operations . .128 
 
 SIXTH LECTURE. 
 Motives for a Higher Consecration to the Mis- 
 sionary Work 155 
 
 SERMON. 
 The Resurrection of Christ the Justification of 
 Missions 173 
 
FIRST LECTURE. 
 
 THE CONDITION AND WANTS OF THE UNCHRIS- 
 TIAN WORLD. 
 
 When I was a student in college, a venerated 
 missionary of the American Board,* distin- 
 guished alike for his wisdom and piety and 
 successful service, visiting Amherst, and relating 
 some results of his thirty years' observations on 
 missionary ground, told us, among other things, 
 that we, having always lived in a Christian land, 
 could have little conception of the vices and the 
 degradation of the heathen. Though I hardly 
 understood the remark at the time, and never 
 felt its force until my own recent observation 
 gave me some opportunity of testing its truth, 
 it no longer excites my wonder ; and I should 
 
 * Rev. Dr. Poor. 
 
8 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 now be surprised to hear it contradicted by any 
 one familiar with the actual condition of the un- 
 christian world. My observations have given 
 me a deeper sense than I ever had before of the 
 darkness which rests upon the world without the 
 knowledge of Christ, and a deeper conviction, 
 also, that this darkness has no power of its own 
 to turn itself into the day. I am sure you will 
 experience the same sentiments, and be prepared 
 for the further considerations to be presented in 
 these lectures, if I can set before you at the 
 outset a clear and correct picture of the deg- 
 radation of life, and corruption of society, wbi^jh 
 i-eign where the sway of the gospel is unknown. 
 My own observations, however, on this point, 
 have been far too limited to warrant even a 
 sketch derived from these ; and, instead of at- 
 tempting this, I shall rather use the drawings 
 and the colors of clear eyes and sound hearts, 
 whose opportunities of learning the truth, and 
 whose disposition to present the truth, no one 
 will question. 
 
THE UNCHRISTIAN WORLD. 
 
 Respecting the Chinese, says an observer of 
 singular accuracy, "With a general regard for 
 outward decency, they are vile and polluted in a 
 shocking degree: their conversation is full of 
 filthy expressions, and their lives of impure 
 acts. . . . Brothels and their inmates occur 
 everywhere, on land and on water. . . . They 
 feel no shame at being detected in a lie, though 
 they have not gone quite so far as not to know 
 when they do lie ; nor do they fear any punish- 
 ment from their gods for it. . . . There is nothing 
 which tries one so much, when living among 
 them, as their disregard of truth. . . . Their 
 proneness to this fault is one of the greatest 
 obstacles to their permanent improvement as a 
 people, while it constantly disheartens those 
 who are making efforts to teach them." * 
 
 In the theory of Chinese ethics, taught con- 
 tinually in their schools, sincerity is described 
 as the way of heaven, and the first of excel- 
 lences. " Never," say the Chinese classics, 
 
 * Dr. S. Wells Williams, Middle Kingdom, vol. ii. p. 96. 
 
10 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 " has there been one possessed of complete sin- 
 cerity who did not move others. Never has 
 there been one who had not sincerity who was 
 able to move others." * " But," says Prof. Kidd, 
 " if this virtue had been chosen as a national 
 characteristic, not only to be set at defiance in 
 practice, but to form the most striking contrast 
 to existing manners, a more appropriate one 
 than sincerity could not have been found. So 
 opposed is the public and private character of 
 the Chinese to genuine sincerity, that an enemy 
 might have selected it as ironically descriptive 
 of their conduct in contrast with their preten- 
 sions. Falsehood, duplicity, insincerity, and 
 obsequious accommodation to favorable circum- 
 stances, are national features remarkably promi- 
 nent." f The same writer declares, that if we 
 judge of the morality of families from the ad- 
 vices of moral writers, and from the records of 
 domestic manners which the Chinese themselves 
 furnish, the appalling conclusion is reached, that 
 
 * Mencius, iv. i, 12. t China, p. 205. 
 
THE UNCHRISTIAN WORLD. II 
 
 almost every vice noticed in the Scripture is 
 practised in detail. 
 
 " Chinese society," says the Abb6 Hue, 
 "has a certain tone of decency and reserve, 
 that may very well impose on those who look 
 only at the surface, and judge merely by the 
 momentary impression; but a very short resi- 
 dence among the Chinese is sufficient to show 
 that their virtue is entirely external ; their 
 public morality is but a mask worn over the 
 corruption of their manners. We will take 
 care not to lift the unclean veil that hides the 
 putrefaction of this ancient Chinese civilization. 
 The leprosy of vice has spread so completely 
 through this sceptical society, that the varnish 
 of modesty with which it is covered is contin- 
 ually falling off, and exposing the hideous 
 wounds which are eating away the vitals of this 
 unbelieving people. Their language is already 
 revoltingly indecent ; and the slang of the worst 
 resorts of licentiousiAess threatens to become the 
 ordinary language of conversation. There are 
 
12 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 some provinces in which the inns on the road 
 have apartments entirely papered with represen- 
 tations of all kinds of shameless debauchery; 
 and these abominable pictures are known among 
 the Chinese by the pretty name of flowers." * 
 
 " Lying among the Burmans," says Malcom, 
 " though strictly forbidden in the sacred books, 
 prevails among all classes. They may be said 
 to be a nation of liars. They never place confi- 
 dence in the word of each other ; and all dealing 
 is done with chicanery and much disputing. 
 Even when detected in a lie, no shame is mani- 
 fested ; and unless put on oath, which a Bur- 
 man greatly dreads, no reliance whatever can be 
 placed on the word of any man." f 
 
 Bishop Heber, whose opportunities of judging 
 of the Hindoos were ample, declares of them, 
 " I have never met with a race of men whose 
 standard of morality is so low, who feel so little 
 apparent shame in being detected in a falsehood, 
 
 * Travels in the Chinese Empire, vol. ii. p. 326. 
 t Travels in South-eastern Asia, vol. i. p. 191. 
 
THE UNCHRISTIAN WORLD. 1 3 
 
 or SO little interest in the sufferings of a neigh- 
 bor not being of their own caste, or family, 
 whose ordinary and familiar conversation is so 
 licentious, or, in the wilder and more lawless 
 districts, who shed blood with so little repug- 
 nance."* Infanticide prevails in India, as it does 
 in China, to an awful extent. One of the 
 earliest English missionaries sent there, Rev. 
 William Ward, gives the testimony of a Hindoo 
 pundit, that the number of children put to 
 death by their mothers in the province of 
 Bengal alone, could not be less than ten thou- 
 sand every month.f Though, since the estab- 
 lishment of the English rule in India, this fright- 
 ful crime has lessened in extent, it is yet far 
 from having disappeared, f 
 
 La Perouse, the French navigator, quite fa- 
 miliar with, and, if report says truly, largely tinc- 
 tured by, Rousseau's picture of the innocence 
 of savage life, thus speaks of the Sandwich- 
 
 * Ward's India, p. 2S6. t Ward's Hindoos, vol. i. p. 292. 
 t Butler's Land of the Vedas, p. 470. 
 
14 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 Islanders before Christian missions reached 
 them: "The most daring rascals of Europe 
 are less hypocritical than these natives. All 
 their caresses were false. Their physiognomy 
 does not express a single sentiment of truth. 
 The one most to be suspected is he who has 
 just received a present, or who appears to be 
 the most earnest in rendering a thousand little 
 services." * In respect of the same people, Mr. 
 J. J. Jarves expresses his convictions, derived 
 from a nearly four-years' residence at these 
 islands, with a diligent study of their history, 
 in these terms : " The Hawaiian character, 
 before it had received any influence from Chris- 
 tianity and civilization, may be thus summed 
 up : from childhood, no natural affections were 
 inculcated. Spared by a parent's hand, a boy 
 lived only to become the victim of a priest, an 
 offering to a blood-loving deity, or to experience 
 a living death from preternatural fears. ... No 
 moral teachings enkindled a love of truth. . . . 
 * Voyages, vol. i. p. 377. 
 
THE UNCHRISTIAN WORLD. 1 5 
 
 Theft, lying, drunkenness, riots, revelling, 
 treachery, revenge, incest, lewdness, infanticide, 
 murder, — these were hi-s earliest and latest 
 teachings." * 
 
 There are certain phases of life often seen 
 among Pagan people, by which a casual observer 
 is led to a very superficial and quite erroneous 
 opinion respecting them. This same writer, in 
 speaking further of the Sandwich-Islanders, 
 declares that " they possessed a power of endur- 
 ance of pain which was wonderful to the more 
 delicately reared white man. A like insensi- 
 bility pervaded their moral system. The native, 
 accustomed to scenes of blood, seeing his 
 neighbors and friends fall about him, took no 
 warning, but enjoyed his animal pleasures with 
 a heartiness which vigorous health alone could 
 give, and a thoughtlessness of the morrow, and 
 carelessness of results, which deceived many 
 into the opinion that they were a happy, cheer* 
 ful, and simple race." f 
 
 * Hist. Sandwich Islands, p. 94. t Ibid., p. 97. 
 
l6 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 " Murder is unknown among the Tajeks," 
 says De Bode, "not because of its heinous 
 nature, but because they have not courage 
 enough to commit it." * " It is not to be in- 
 ferred," says Wilson in his "Western Africa," 
 " that the gentleness and external polish mani- 
 fested by the Mpongwe people is based upon 
 any real moral worth. A great deal of the 
 smoothness and polish which they evince in 
 their intercourse with white men is entirely 
 fictitious. They are sadly addicted to falsehood, 
 insincerity, deception, and dissimulation. In all 
 these respects, they have no rivals." f 
 
 But this condition is not new. That the most 
 abominable vices, that a corruption of society 
 and life exceeding in its actual facts the wild- 
 est range of fancy, have always prevailed in 
 the unchristian world, every student of history 
 knows. This is not simply true among bar- 
 barians, or wild and savage tribes, but appears as 
 distinctly among the most renowned trophies of 
 
 * Bokhara, p. 71. t Ibid., p. 297. 
 
THE UNCHRISTIAN WORLD. 
 
 civilization and culture. Ancient Greece, in its 
 palmiest days, is no more conspicuous for the 
 wealth of its culture than for the wonders of its 
 corruption. Society there was not simply pure 
 on the surface, and polluted beneath ; but it was 
 all pollution, — on the face of it, and through all 
 its depths. If this be thought too strong a 
 statement, it can be abundantly and quite easily 
 justified. The Greek language discloses it. What 
 a host of unclean images are uncovered as one 
 studies the words of this most cultivated tongue ! 
 The Greek classic authors disclose it. How full 
 their revelation of the vices of their time, and 
 how clear the evidence which they furnish, that 
 these vices belonged not simply to the ignorant 
 and the outcast, but also to the most polished 
 circles of their most polished life. " All men," 
 says Aristotle, " desire justice to be done them- 
 selves ; but in their relation to others the ques- 
 tion of justice is unheeded." * Parmenides is the 
 most brilliant name in the Eleatic school of 
 
 PoliL, vii. 2, 8. 
 
1 8 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 philosophy; and for his character and life the 
 Greeks had such an admiration, that a life like 
 Parmenides became a proverb among them. But 
 he is specially mentioned as addicted to a vice 
 too revolting to be named, which every student 
 knows to have been dominant among the Greeks 
 and Romans, as it has been among the Celts and 
 Tartars, and is still among the most prominent 
 Pagan and Mohammedan people, but the exist- 
 ence of which, one in a Christian land finds it 
 well-nigh impossible to believe. 
 
 At Lesbos, — the home of music and poetry, 
 the birthplace of Alcaeus and Sappho and Arion 
 and Terpander, — whose musicians, as a class, 
 were famous above all the Greeks, and whose 
 refinement and intellectual culture are famous 
 still, this vice was so prevalent, that the island 
 itself gave it its name. Not only Parmenides, 
 but Eudoxus, Xenocrates, Aristotle, Polemo, 
 Grantor, and Arcesilaus are specially mentioned 
 among the philosophers as given to this same 
 vice ; and even the names of the youths of whom 
 
THE UNCHRISTIAN WORLD. ig 
 
 they were enamoured are recorded.* The phi- 
 losophers were as a class noted for this vice, and 
 this to such a degree, that Plutarch,! in his 
 treatise on the education of boys, declares that 
 parents wishing their children to be pure would 
 not tolerate their having any acquaintance with 
 philosophers. Zeno, the Stoic, not only prac- 
 tised this impurity, but openly acknowledged 
 and defended it. We have the statement of 
 Sextus Empiricus, that the Cynics and heads 
 of the Stoic school regarded this practice as 
 indifferent to morality, if but that its real and 
 revolting nature was quite apparent, is clear 
 from the excuses and palliations often urged in 
 its behalf, and as often ridiculed by the 
 ancients themselves. We have the testimony 
 of Lucian § and of Cicero, || who also quotes 
 Ennius and Epicurus, to the effect of the 
 gross and carnal nature of this vice. Arno« 
 
 ♦ Dollinger, Gentile and Jew, vol. ii. p 243. 
 t De lib. educ, 15. § Amores, 51. 
 
 t Pyrrh. Hypot., iil 23. |J Tusc, iv. 23- 
 
20 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 bius,* in his awful picture of the nations 
 without Christ, whose Hteral truthfulness one 
 cannot contemplate without a shudder, bears 
 copious witness to the same. That profligacy 
 unbounded reigned openly in the highest circles 
 of Greek and Roman life, is beyond any question. 
 The stories told of Pericles and Lysias and 
 Demosthenes and Socrates, and of Caesar and 
 Augustus and Pompey and Cato and Catiline 
 and Sylla and Crassus and Antony, — told openly 
 and without contradiction by the authors of the 
 time, told often, and without any shame, by the 
 persons themselves, as by Horace and Martial 
 and Catullus, — seem to show all society plunged 
 in a night of unbroken darkness, wherein the 
 wild beasts of unbridled appetites and lusts 
 hunt unhindered their prey. Marriage became 
 a burden, t Children were an incumbrance, and 
 might be destroyed with impunity, either before 
 or after their birth. Abortion by the mothers, 
 or the exposition of newly-born children in an 
 * Adversus Gentes. t Plato, Symp., 192. 
 
THE UNCHRISTIAN WORLD. 
 
 out-of-the-way or unfrequented spot, to allow of 
 the child's perishing, are formally approved and 
 recommended by philosophers like Plato * and 
 Aristotle, f This exposure of children to 
 perish was also formally permitted by law in 
 Athens and Sparta, and is so often mentioned, 
 that it cannot have been of rare occurrence. 
 Divorces became so common in Rome, that 
 Seneca says, " There is not a woman left who 
 is ashamed of being divorced, now that most of 
 the high and distinguished ladies count their 
 years, not by the consular fasti, but by the 
 number of husbands, and are divorced in order 
 to marry, and marry in order to be divorced." J 
 Pity for the poor was so wanting in the Roman 
 mind, that Virgil, § when describing the peace 
 and repose of the wise man, extols him for being 
 exempted from feeling pity for a needy person. 
 The slave in Rome had no personal rights. He 
 was a chattel for whose treatment, even though 
 
 * Republic, v. 460. J De Benefic, iii. 16. 
 
 t Polit., vii. 14, 10. § Geor., ii. 449. 
 
22 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 it was torture or death, there was no one to 
 bring his master to account. Every thing was 
 allowable and privileged as against a slave.* 
 Florus relates the following incident : " At 
 the time in which L. Domitius was praetor in 
 Sicily, a slave killed a wild boar of extraordinary 
 size. The praetor, struck by the dexterity and 
 courage of the man, desired to see him. The 
 poor wretch, highly gratified with the distinction, 
 came to present himself before the praetor, in 
 hopes, no doubt, of praise and reward ; but 
 Domitius, on learning that he had only a javelin 
 to attack and kill the boar, ordered him to be 
 instantly crucified, under the pretext that the 
 law prohibited the use of this weapon, as of all 
 others, to slaves."! After relating the incident, 
 the author naively remarks, " This may appear 
 harsh, nor do I give any opinion on the subject.'' 
 In Greece, slavery was really the corner-stone 
 
 * Dollinger, Gentile and Jew, vol. ii. p. 259. 
 I Epitome de Gestis Romanorum, iii. 19, 20; Gibbon, vol. I 
 p. 48. 
 
THE UNCHRISTIAN WORLD. 
 
 of society. The whole social and political 
 fabric rested on it. Aristotle argues* that 
 slavery is necessary to the very existence of 
 the true household. Every true household must 
 consist of freemen and slaves. The freeman 
 needs his slaves, as the artist needs his tools. 
 The slave is his master's tool, — an animated 
 tool, but still only a tool. There can be but little 
 more love for a slave than for a horse or an ox ; 
 and the thought that any justice could be due 
 a slave never seems to have entered the Greek 
 mind. Plato f regarded it as one of the marks 
 of an educated man that he despised his slaves. 
 When a slave was brought into court to give 
 testimony, he was always put to the torture. 
 Torture accompanied the testimony of the slave, 
 just as the oath accompanied that of freemen ; 
 and the Attic orators — Lysias, Antiphon, Isaeus, 
 Isocrates, Demosthenes, and Lycurgus — have 
 all given their approbation to this procedure. 
 For the owner of a slave to refuse to submit 
 
 * Polit., i. 3 ; Eth. Nic, viii. 13. t Republic, viii. 549. 
 
24 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 his slave to the torture (the slave himself had 
 nothing to say) was considered a confession of 
 the owner's guilt. Not only foreigners, — Ca- 
 rians, Phrygians, Thracians, and Cappadocians, 
 — but Greeks themselves, were held as slaves, 
 and bought and sold by the Greeks. But of what- 
 ever nationality, and whoever he was, fear and 
 lust were the only motives in the life of the 
 Greek slave ; the latter of which was continually 
 leading him into every form of vice, gluttony, 
 drunkenness, and wantonness. I suppose it to 
 be literally true, that no vice, nor crime, nor 
 cruelty can be named which did not show itself 
 at home in the highest circles of the most 
 blooming society of the ancient world. Pliny * 
 expressly calls the Gr-eeks the inventors of 
 every vice. The greediness and craft and lying 
 of the Greeks were a proverb. Distrust of his 
 neighbors grew out of the knowledge every 
 man possessed of his own untrustworthiness. 
 When the power of Rome was extended ovei 
 
 * Hist. Nal., XV. 5. 
 
THE UNCHRISTIAN WORLD. 25 
 
 the world, it carried with it the moral corruption 
 of Rome, and brought back, also, the corruption 
 which it everywhere found. Tacitus* confesses 
 that the Romans had more power over the 
 peoples whom they conquered, by exciting and 
 gratifying their sensual tastes than by their 
 arms. The picture which Paul has given in the 
 first chapter of Romans, of the unchristian 
 world is still and has always been literally true ; 
 ancient or modern, it is the same : " Filled with 
 all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, 
 covetousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, mur- 
 der, debate, deceit, malignity ; whisperers, back- 
 biters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, 
 inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 
 without understanding, covenant-breakers, with- 
 out natural affection, implacable, unmerciful : 
 who knowing the judgment of God, that they 
 which commit such things are worthy of death, 
 not only do the same, but have pleasure in them 
 that do them." There is no abatement to be 
 
 ♦ Hist., iv. 64. 
 
26 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 made from this picture. We can neither dimin- 
 ish the darkness of its colors nor the terrible- 
 ness of its extent. And it is just as true of 
 the heathen world to-day, as in the time of Paul. 
 This condition is not going to better itself. 
 We are often told of tendencies inherent in 
 human nature, which will work out by them- 
 selves the perfection of the human life. We are 
 treated, in our time, to much talk about evolu- 
 tion and development, by which man has grown, 
 first from a lower order of creation to a savage 
 state, and then has risen from the savage, through 
 successive stages, to the highest plane of civil- 
 ized life. But such talk is in flat contradiction 
 to the most palpable facts of history. We find 
 no evidence of an originally savage condition of 
 mankind. The earliest historic records we have 
 of human life upon the earth are records of cities 
 and sciences, and monuments of art and govern- 
 ments, all showing a condition of high individual 
 and social power. The traditions of different 
 nations point back to a primeval period which 
 
THE UNCHRISTIAN WORLD. 
 
 was a golden age of innocence and knowledge. 
 There is good evidence that the Great Pyramid 
 is the oldest work of human hands now exist- 
 ing ; * and this stupendous structure, which forty 
 centuries have left almost unimpaired, shows a 
 skill and science in its builders, which are still 
 the admiration and the wonder of the world. 
 The earliest facts of language, the deep knowl- 
 edge of architecture and astronomy and geome- 
 try and natural philosophy, which incontestably 
 existed in the earliest times of which we have 
 any trace, in Egypt and Chaldaea and India and 
 China, the prominence and the power with which 
 religion controlled the political and social order, 
 and entered into the science and the art of the 
 ancient world, are simply inexplicable, if barba- 
 rism or a savage state were the original condi- 
 tion of the race. 
 
 The history of men thus far shows vastly 
 more instances of decay than of progress. Gov- 
 ernments, arts, languages, literatures, sciences, 
 
 ♦ Smyth, Antiquity of Intellectual Man. 
 
28 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 civilizations, religions, have deteriorated in in- 
 stances unnumbered. Law has grown into des- 
 potism ; liberty has degenerated into license ; 
 public morals have been sunk in public corrup- 
 tion ; and the virtues of men have been sup- 
 planted by their vices on so vast a scale, that 
 whether in respect of the numbers it has con- 
 trolled, or the extent of time and territory which 
 it has covered, a downward tendency in human 
 mature, it must be confessed, is vastly more 
 conspicuous than any inherent tendency to 
 improve. 
 
 This downward tendency, moreover, has never 
 been checked by itself. No nation has ever 
 risen, by its own forces alone, from a lower to 
 a higher state. All upward impulses come first 
 from above. The savage has never civilized 
 himself. " No man," says Herder, " has the 
 birth of his mind, any more than that of his 
 body, through himself alone." And it is w'th 
 masses as it is with individuals : the impulse 
 to rise, and the inspiration to rise, must come 
 
THE UNCHRISTIAN WORLD. 2g 
 
 from without. The Greeks saw this truth, and 
 declared, in their Promethean myth, that the 
 fires which Hghten men in their advancement 
 are stolen from the gods. We can have no 
 accurate reading of history, except as we recog- 
 nize what is actually revealed on every page 
 of history, that human nature possesses no 
 inherent power of progressive improvement. 
 All its exhibitions of inherent power show 
 only a progressive deterioration. Except as 
 one nation receives impressions from another, 
 or is lifted up by some manifestly super- 
 human power, its actual course has been a 
 descent from one degree of degradation and 
 shame to another. No student of history will 
 deny this most obvious fact. " Civilization," 
 says Niebuhr, one of the most sagacious of all 
 historians, "is never indigenous: it is an exotic 
 plant wherever found." 
 
 Given, then, this actual state of the unchris- 
 tian world, given, also, this tendency to dete- 
 riorate, and this inability in human nature to 
 
 3* 
 
30 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 better itself, what sort of counteracting impulse 
 is needed ? If we have any advancing civiliza- 
 tion ourselves, which, of all its elements, shall 
 be employed to bring the unchristian nations 
 of the world into the same line of progress ? 
 
SECOND LECTURE. 
 
 FAILURE OF THE ORDINARY APPLIANCES OF 
 CIVILIZATION TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 
 
 To the question at the close of our last lec- 
 ture many answers are actually given ; the first 
 of which in importance, to many minds, points 
 to commerce, and to the ordinary influence of 
 Christian nations, as the all-sufficient agency we 
 need. But does commerce civilize ? Can trade 
 of itself make men pure ? Unless guided and 
 guarded by some other influence than their own, 
 is there any thing in buying or selling to make 
 men better ? Nay, does not the greed of gain 
 grow by its own exercise ? and is there not always 
 danger, even where virtuous impulses hold it in 
 check, that its increase will weaken these and 
 all other restraints, until it shall destroy them ? 
 
 3» 
 
32 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 There is ever the possibility that trade will make 
 honest men dishonest : is there the least likeli- 
 hood that it alone can ever produce the reverse 
 result ? Honesty, one says, is the best policy ; 
 but was ever a community, was ever a man, made 
 honest because it was politic to be so ? More- 
 over, since the world began, the most lucrative 
 commerce, the commerce most tempting for its 
 promise of large and speedy gains, has always 
 been that which has trafficked with the bodies 
 or the souls of men, as is witnessed by the 
 slave-trade, the opium-trade, and the trade in in- 
 toxicating drinks. There is no probability, there- 
 fore, in the nature of the case, that commerce 
 will improve men in their moral stature ; neither, 
 as a matter of fact, do we ever find it doing so. 
 The actual results of commerce have never 
 appeared in the moral improvement of men ; 
 while in unnumbered instances they have worked 
 deterioration and decay. Commerce, to-day, is 
 more widely extended than ever before ; and 
 many fancy, that, through its avenues. Christian 
 
FAILURES TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 33 
 
 missions will find easy access to the nations 
 without Christ. But, instead of this being jus- 
 tified by facts, the exact opposite is true. In- 
 stead of being favorable to missionary success, 
 the actual influence of commerce is one of the 
 strongest hinderances to Christian missions. No 
 missionary whom I have ever found doubts this. 
 No traveller with his eyes open, and willing to 
 see, but will find irresistible evidence of the fact. 
 When missionaries set before the heathen the 
 virtues which Christianity enjoins, and which 
 they affirm it is able to secure, and when rep- 
 resentatives of nominally Christian lands show 
 themselves not only lacking in these virtues, but 
 abundant in all the opposite vices, — as is with 
 sad frequency and prominence the case, — it is 
 easy to see which of these conflicting represen- 
 tations is likely to prevail. 
 
 And if you turn to Christian governments, 
 and expect that these, by their high-toned moral- 
 ity, by their unselfishness and love of justice, 
 are likely, in their dealings with the unchris- 
 
34 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 tian world, to represent attractively the Christian 
 spirit, you will soon learn that these same gov- 
 ernments have not shrunk from the grossest 
 wrongs, and are very ill prepared to be messen- 
 gers of peace and purity. Witness England in 
 the opium-war with China, and the United 
 States in our difficulty with Corea, and the pro- 
 ceedings of England and Holland with the Achi- 
 nese, and the attitude of our government still in 
 reference to the Japanese indemnity ! Witness, 
 also, the support of the English Government, con- 
 tinued up to a very late date, of Pagan customs 
 and worship in India, — a support not simply of 
 permission, but of active contribution, — coupled 
 with the early refusal of permission for Chris- 
 tian missionaries to land or stay there, and the 
 still continued prohibition of all Christian 
 instruction in the schools which the English 
 Government has there established ! Take in the 
 whole attitude of the Christian nations of the 
 world towards the unchristian, as seen in com- 
 merce, or in governmental or national inter- 
 
FAILURES TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 35 
 
 course, and on what ground can you look for the 
 '.mprovement of the world from this source ? 
 
 But will railroads and telegraphs, and the con- 
 veniences of modern life, give us any hope ? Why 
 should they ? Does the use of railroads make 
 men honest here ? Is the management of these 
 great institutions a conspicuous agency of moral 
 reform among ourselves ? We need not depre- 
 ciate the good which these appliances bring ; but 
 it is a very misguided view which finds in them 
 any thing in the least likely to regenerate and 
 purify society. At the best, they are only 
 means whereby other agencies for human im- 
 provement may be facilitated. 
 
 But if commerce, and national intercourse, 
 and labor-saving inventions, and all the mechanic 
 arts of our so-called modern progress, are without 
 avail, there are many who think that the higher 
 arts of civilization, — as seen in modern forms 
 of government, and new institutions of society, 
 and scientific methods of education, — directly 
 transplanted from the civilized to the uncivilized 
 
36 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 world, will carry with them every needed bless- 
 ing; while others, who look upon the gospel as 
 the only ultimate means of salvation, still regard 
 these higher arts of civilization as the needful 
 first step towards the evangelization of the 
 nations. Bishop Warburton, in his "Divine 
 Legation of Moses," * declares that both Romish 
 and Protestant missions had, up to his time, failed 
 of the largest results, because they had attempted 
 to Christianize, without previously civilizing, the 
 heathen. " Christianity," he says,t " plain and 
 simple as it is, and fitted in its nature for what 
 it was designed by its author, requires an intel- 
 lect above that of a mere savage to understand." 
 Bishop Bloomfield J remarks, " The Christian 
 religion may be said to form a kind of science ; 
 for which very reason (and would that some 
 v/ho have a zeal, but not according to knowledge, 
 will bear it in mind ! ) civilization ought ever 
 to precede evangelization." Missionaries them- 
 selves have not been wanting in the same senti- 
 
 ♦ Book ii. sect. v. t Vol. i. p. 398. % Notes, Heb. v. 12. 
 
FAILURES TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 3/ 
 
 ment. Hans Egede, the Danish missionary to 
 Greenland, after his five and twenty years' ex- 
 perience there, declares * that " it is a matter 
 which cannot be questioned, that, if you will make 
 a Christian out of a mere savage and wild man, 
 you must first make him a reasonable man. It 
 would contribute a great deal to forward their 
 conversion, if they could, by degrees, be brought 
 into a settled way of life." Such a notion has 
 been effectually banished from those familiar 
 with later missionary experiences among the 
 Caffres and the Karens, among the New-Zealand- 
 ers and the Hawaiians, among the North Ameri- 
 can Indians and other savage tribes ; but we 
 find it so prominently cropping out still in many 
 quarters, among those more or less ignorant of, 
 even if not indifferent to, the highest missionary 
 success, that it demands a careful examination. 
 
 It should be noted, then, in the first place, that 
 savages do not cease to be savages merely by 
 having the opportunity to become civilized 
 
 * Pp. 211, 212, quoted by Warbuiton, vol. i. p. 433. 
 4 
 
38 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 Civilization is not attractive to the savage. The 
 arts and refinements of civilized life, the bless- 
 ings of law and order, instead of being objects 
 of desire, are, to him, positively repugnant. 
 This, in fact, is what makes him a savage, that 
 he hates the very condition in which the civil- 
 ized man finds his joy. He is conscious of but 
 few wants, and those of the si;nplest sort, which 
 it needs but few efforts to satisfy ; and the gifts 
 of civilization, for which he feels no necessity, 
 offer him, therefore, no advantages which he 
 can appreciate, and can excite in him no efforts 
 to obtain them. It should never be forgotten, 
 that the first impulse to any improvement of a 
 man's outward condition must come from the 
 quickening of some inner inspiration ; and, until 
 the savage has risen to a different intellectual 
 or spiritual life, all the blandishments of civiliza- 
 tion could no more win him to a better state 
 than could all the warmth of the sun woo a 
 desert into a fruitful field. When, in the good 
 intentions of the government, homes were built. 
 
FAILURES TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 39 
 
 and the conveniences of civilized life were 
 freely offered to the Chippewas of Canada, in 
 order to win them to abandon their wandering 
 ways, it was found that the Indians preferred 
 their wigwams; and the comfortable houses 
 which had been provided found no occupants. 
 The Quakers commenced their efforts with the 
 Indians by attempting to civilize them ; but, 
 after many years of costly and painstaking effort 
 in this direction, the committee having it in 
 charge report, " Within the last few years, we 
 have had occasion to review the whole course of 
 proceedings ; and we have come to the conclu- 
 sion, from a deliberate view of the past, that we 
 erred, sorrowfully erred, in the plan which was 
 originally adopted in making civilization the first 
 object ; for we cannot count on a single individ- 
 ual that we have brought to the full adoption of 
 Christianity."* 
 
 * Evidence on the Aborigines, before a Committee of the 
 House of Commons, 1S33-34, p. 187, quoted by Harris; Great 
 Commission, p. 297. 
 
40 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 But what if we could educate the savage? 
 Yet how shall this be done? If you send 
 teachers, and start schools, and furnish the sav- 
 age with all the appliances for the most exten- 
 sive culture, how shall you induce him to employ 
 the means with which you furnish him ? He 
 does not desire knowledge any more than he 
 does the power which knowledge brings. He is 
 as indifferent to his ignorance as he is to what 
 you call the comfort and conveniences of civil- 
 ized life. While he must have knowledge, and 
 some intellectual quickening, in order that he 
 may seek any improvement in his physical or 
 bodily state, there must, also, be something prior 
 to the knowledge, and earlier than the intellect- 
 ual quickening, before he can desire these. A 
 moral and spiritual awakening must precede the 
 intellectual. Men merged in sensualism, argues 
 Plato in the " Sophist," must be improved before 
 they can be instructed. Only as they become 
 morally better can they become intellectually 
 elevated and enlarged. There is here a deep 
 
FAILURES TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 4I 
 
 truth of human nature and of history, which, if 
 well considered, would settle this whole question. 
 Men must be improved in order to be educated. 
 Education follows as surely a moral improve- 
 ment as flowers open to the sunlight ; but educa- 
 tion is as powerless to secure that improvement 
 as is the plant the light and warmth by which it 
 is quickened. As far as we can trace it histori- 
 cally, a nation's intellectual progress has always 
 followed, never preceded, some new moral or 
 spiritual impulse. If we look at nations noted 
 for their achievements of intellect, — Egypt, 
 Greece, India, China, or any of the cultivated 
 nations of the modern world, — we shall find that 
 their culture always grounds itself in their mo- 
 rality or religion. Take, to illustrate this, any of 
 the arts which mark the culture of a people, and 
 trace their origin and history. It might be 
 crudely supposed that architecture arose from the 
 natural necessity man has of furnishing himself 
 a shelter and a dwelling-place. But allowing 
 this natural necessity to exist, and supposing it 
 
42 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 to have found its natural expression, the result 
 has no more resemblance to architecture than 
 have the huts of a Hottentot kraal to the pal- 
 aces of Vienna and Versailles. Man's natural 
 want of a shelter can be supplied, and, if we 
 look simply at numbers, is supplied, by the great 
 majority of men, with as little beauty and as 
 little architectural skill as are found in the 
 habitations of the ant or the beaver. 
 
 But, aside from this, the simple truth is, that 
 the history of architecture does not begin with 
 the history of human homes. The oldest re- 
 mains of architecture are symbols and monu- 
 ments of religious faith. Columns and colon- 
 nades and temples, structures erected for wor- 
 ship, or to symbolize some object or doctrine of 
 religion — these, and not human dwellings, are 
 the earliest indications we ha\^ of the dawn of 
 architecture. Looking now, not in the light of 
 any theory which prejudges the facts, but only 
 at the facts themselves, we are obliged to say 
 that it was not the construction of his dwelling- 
 
FAILURES TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 43 
 
 house which taught man to build his temple, 
 but exactly the other way. 
 
 The same is true with sculpture, painting, 
 poetry, music. It was a religious impulse which 
 gave to all these their first inspiration. The 
 oldest monuments we possess of any of these 
 arts are associated with some religious rite or 
 faith. But, more than this, we must also notice 
 the undoubted fact, that the arts have grown in 
 glory just as the religious sentiment has gained 
 in power. The period of decadence in art is 
 always indicated by a prior decline in religion. 
 There is no high art, and I suspect we may also 
 say, there is never a great genius, uninspired by 
 some sort of a religious sentiment and impulse. 
 It is no question here, whether the religion be 
 false or true, fancied or real : the only point is, 
 that it is religion, and not science nor philosophy, 
 which gives the inspiration to art, and the living 
 soul to genius. 
 
 This truth, that the culture of the sentiments 
 must precede that of thought, and that the 
 
44 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 thoughts of the intellect will be lofty as the 
 sentiments of the heart are profound, is not now 
 seen for the first time. Plato, Aristotle, and 
 Bacon have expressed the same thing. " It was 
 a happy genealogy," says Plato,* " which made 
 Iris, the swift-winged messenger of the gods, by 
 which divine thoughts are communicated to the 
 human soul, the daughter of Thaumas, or Won- 
 der." Aristotle speaks to the same effect when 
 he calls f wonder the primitive philosophic im- 
 pulse ; and Bacon only re-echoes the thought J 
 in his "Admiratio est semen sapientiae." If, 
 therefore, we begin our attempts to improve men 
 through instruction of their intellect, we shall 
 end where wc begin, having only blown a bubble, 
 which bursts as soon as blown. 
 
 But, beyond all this, there is another ground 
 on which the failure of education to do the work 
 we need may be predicted. If you could start 
 with education, and carry it on to any degree, this 
 is not sufficient to remove the corruption with 
 
 * ThesBtus, 155. t Metaph., i. 2. J De. Aug. Sci., i. 
 
FAILURES TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 45 
 
 which men are perishing. No amount of intel- 
 ligence ever saved any people ; and the most 
 costly educational system is consistent with, 
 and is sometimes actually found in, the most 
 corrupt social state. At the very time when 
 Athens was shining with the light of art and 
 philosophy, whose splendors still illumine the. 
 world, the utmost profligacy and debauchery 
 also prevailed, and this not simply with the slave 
 and the outcast, or with the common people, 
 but, as we have already noted, with the very 
 men — the artists and philosophers and schol- 
 ars — who mark their time with their glory. He 
 who supposes that splendid intellect, or high 
 attainments, joined with exalted rank in society, 
 are sufficient to make men pure and blessed, 
 can be easily convinced of his mistake, if will- 
 ing to be convinced. I will not ask him to read 
 the lives of Roman emperors and empresses, of 
 Nero and Caligula, and Commodus and Cara- 
 calla, nor to look at Alcibiades and the social 
 life of Athens in its palmy days ; but let him 
 
46 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 come nearer our own time ; let him peruse the 
 "Confessions of Rousseau," and the French Mem- 
 oirs generally of the last century ; let him see 
 the court ladies of Louis XV. present in their 
 richest ornaments at the tearing- to-pieces of 
 Damiens, and expending their pity upon the 
 noble horses which found it so hard to accom- 
 plish their horrid work ; let him become familiar 
 with the facts illustrative of this point in the 
 French Revolution, turning his attention not 
 simply to the raging of the rabble, — of whose 
 unnumbered atrocities the tearing-out of the 
 heart, and drinking the blood, of the Princess 
 Lamballe, whom they had just slain in the 
 streets, is only an instance, — but especially 
 noting the proceedings of those scholarly and 
 highly-cultivated men and women of their time, 
 of whom one writer * has said, that they " found 
 their highest pleasure in the most abominable 
 sensualities and deeds of murder, and who, 
 together with this, sought always to display 
 
 * Ackerman, Christian Element in Plato, p. 196. 
 
FAILURES TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 47 
 
 their mental cultivation in the most splendid 
 manner in public and social life," — let one with 
 only a cursory reading of history but ponder the 
 facts which he finds, and the need will be clear 
 enough of something more than knowledge, or 
 culture, or refinement of manners, to make men 
 virtuous and pure. 
 
 There is in India a large class of educated 
 Hindus, who have been carefully trained in 
 English schools, whose literary culture would be 
 conspicuous, judged by our own standard, and 
 who have so far broken from their old super- 
 stitions, that they would be almost as much 
 shocked as we ourselves to be now called idol- 
 aters ; but, whether their high education has 
 furnished them any moral improvement, they 
 themselves shall say. In a paper* conducted 
 wholly in the interest of the Brahmo Somaj, 
 and representing as much, if not more than, any 
 other paper in India, the intelligence of the edu- 
 cated Hindus who are not Christian, I read the 
 
 * Indian Mirror, September, 1873. 
 
48 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 following: "The Hindu heretic sees no via 
 media between orthodoxy and irreligion, and 
 plunges head foremost into habits of dissipation, 
 carnality, and dishonesty. Unbelief acts on the 
 lower propensities of the mind, and stimulates 
 them. Where there is no fear of social or reli- 
 gious discipline, the heart naturally runs into 
 vicious excesses. There are many of the 
 young Bengal school who give up Hinduism, 
 then become intemperate, lustful, dishonest, 
 untruthful, and then become rationalists and infi- 
 dels, with a view to justify their sins with false 
 philosophy. Their infidelity and sin act and 
 re-act on each other, and grow simultaneously. 
 Our young countrymen ought to know that 
 rationalism is, in many cases, immorality in a 
 philosophical garb, and scepticism is the fore- 
 runner of a multitude of vices." 
 
 No wise man will decry intellectual culture. 
 Only ignorance despises knowledge. But the 
 knowledge which is not inspired by virtue can 
 give no inspiration to virtue. Unless it strikes 
 
FAILURES TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 49 
 
 its roots in a soil already pure, its blossoms and 
 fruit will be only corrupt and corrupting. A 
 godless education is not an object of wise desire 
 for any people. It has no power to purify, and 
 thus no salvation. It does not draw out the 
 roots of evil, but, rather, strikes them deeper 
 into the soul. It may deck the evil in a garb of 
 beauty, and weave for it garlands of song ; but 
 it is evil none the less: and, by making its mani- 
 festations more attractive, it only enables it, 
 like Satan when robed in his garments of light, 
 the more effectually to deceive. 
 
 But it is said that we can reach the trouble 
 by giving instruction in morality. This attempt 
 has been often made. The argument in its 
 behalf is plausible. Men are immoral : therefore 
 teacii them morality. Set before them their 
 duty, and make this so clear that it cannot be 
 mistaken; and then the weight of obligation will 
 be so strong, that it must be obeyed. But no 
 man does his duty simply because he knows 
 what his duty is. Unless he loves it, no clear* 
 
50 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 ness of knowledge will ever induce his obedi^ 
 ence. Men are not, and certainly it is true in 
 general that they never have been, raised from 
 vice to virtue, from sin to holiness, from moral 
 sickness to moral health, by morality alone. 
 No matter how pure it may be, no preaching of 
 morality has ever sunk deep into society, or 
 shown itself able to have any wide control over 
 the conduct of men. It has never shown itself 
 able to mould society internally and from the 
 centre. You cannot make a man virtuous, 
 simply by teaching him virtue. You cannot be 
 certain that a child will practise the ten com- 
 mandments, simply because he has learned them 
 by heart. The teaching is, of course, well, is 
 not only important, but indispensable. How 
 can men be led to do their duty, unless they are 
 first led to know it ? How shall they believe in 
 Him of whom they have not heard } But, not- 
 withstanding this, all the knowledge which men 
 obtain of the divine commands, and their duty, 
 never has been sufficient to lead them to a true 
 
FAILURES TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 5 I 
 
 obedience. No theory of human nature is deep 
 and thorough which does not recognize the 
 actual foundation for this fact ; and no observa- 
 tion of human conduct is wide or penetrating, 
 which has not seen its frequent exhibitions. 
 
 But can poUtical and social changes do the 
 work ? Shall we preach republicanism, and go 
 with the Declaration of Independence and the 
 doctrine of social equality, to the nations in 
 darkness ? Alas ! unless there be a foundation 
 laid in the purified and prepared character of a 
 people, we could only build the republic upon 
 the sands, to fall with the first flood, bringing 
 only ruin in its fall. Political and social institu- 
 tions cannot be made for any people : they must 
 grow out of the spirit and character and ten- 
 dencies of the people by whom they are adopted. 
 They are not a dress which a nation wears, but 
 a body into which a nation grows through the 
 development of its national life. Political in- 
 stitutions, therefore, for savages who have no 
 national life, are impossible ; and the attempt to 
 
52 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 change the political institutions of a people al- 
 ready having a national history is idle, unless we 
 can first change the life of the people themselves. 
 Free institutions are possible wherever they are 
 enjoyed, because the people have become pre- 
 pared for them by a long and thorough training, 
 — a training which sometimes shows itself in 
 a slow growth of centuries. Freedom is first, 
 and must be seen in a knowledge of law and a 
 reverence for law, in self-control, and a capacity 
 for self-direction, before free institutions can 
 have either permanence or value. Free institu- 
 tions, which are the outgrowth and embodiment 
 of freedom, will both perpetuate and increase 
 the freedom from which they spring ; but, when 
 we attempt to carry them over to a people not 
 yet free, the immediate result is not liberty, but 
 only license : the government we had sought to 
 establish becomes anarchy ; and the anarchy, 
 in its turn, gives place to despotism. 
 
 Social evil has its source, not in society, but in 
 the individual heart, and cannot be remedied by 
 
FAILURES TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 53 
 
 any social changes, but only as the individual 
 heart is reached and renovated. The heart 
 knoweth its own bitterness ; and, however per- 
 fectly we may seek to furnish a society with 
 institutions, if we have done nothing more than 
 this, it is only a surface-work. We have painted 
 or plastered over the ulcer to make it look as 
 though it were healed ; but it is not healed. 
 It burns and rages at the core just as virulently 
 as when its most ghastly and revolting features 
 are before us. Individual selfishness and sen- 
 suality are not altered in the least by all our 
 efforts at social reform. " For from within, out 
 of the heart of man, proceed evil thoughts, 
 adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, cov- 
 etousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, 
 an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness."* 
 Unless, therefore, we can control this inner 
 fountain of corruption, nothing can check or 
 change the quality of its corrupting streams. 
 It is clear enough, as well from all history, as 
 
 * Mark vii. 21, 22. 
 5* 
 
54 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 from human nature itself, that the most potent 
 of all forces in moving men is some sort of 
 religion ; but is religion able to do what every 
 other remedy has failed to accomplish ? Upon 
 this point I venture to re-utter a truth which I 
 have elsewhere expressed in the same terms, * 
 
 There are two kinds of religion, and only two. 
 The one begins with man, and seeks, by human 
 endeavors, after a divine fellowship. It has 
 various forms, — Paganism in all its branches, 
 Mohammedanism, besides various representa- 
 tives in nominal Christian lands ; but the one 
 characteristic in which they are all united is 
 that they seek after God in some way which the 
 human intellect has been able to devise, and by 
 some practices which the human will is able to 
 perform. The God whom they seek may be 
 called the Absolute, or Infinite, or Allah, or 
 Buddha, or Brahm ; he may be dimly appre- 
 hended, or worshipped as altogether unknown ; 
 he may dwell in some high heavens above us, or, 
 
 * Lectures to Educated Hindus, p. 23. 
 
FAILURES TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 55 
 
 as we are sometimes told, in some deep heavens 
 within : but whatsoever he may be called, or 
 whatsoever he may be, the human soul, perhaps 
 by penance, perhaps by prayer, perhaps by calm 
 and rapt contemplation, seeks if haply it might 
 feel after and find him. In this point. Paganism 
 and Pantheism — the rudest systems of untu- 
 tored thought and the refined speculations of 
 acute and cultured minds — meet and agree. 
 The spectacle which these religions furnish is 
 certainly most impressive. Whatever we may 
 say of the forms in which the religious sentiment 
 has been exhibited, no one can smile, none can 
 sneer, at the sentiment itself. 
 
 But what have all these efforts of man to find 
 some religion accomplished .-* Taking them all 
 together, they have never furnished any deathless 
 impulse to society, nor any undying inspiration 
 to the soul. They have made men sometimes 
 calm with a stoical indifference, and sometimes 
 mute with a hopeless despair ; but they have 
 never checked nor changed the tendency of the 
 
56 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 evil they were designed to destroy; while the 
 mysterious instinct, the importunate craving, out 
 of which the religion has its birth, the religion 
 itself is equally unable to stifle or to satisfy. 
 
 The reason why all these natural religions fail 
 is quite clear. Human nature has no power of 
 self-renovation. The heart cannot cleanse itself 
 from its own corruptions. On the contrary, its 
 attempts to cleanse itself only end by making 
 itself more corrupt. The religions with which 
 men have sought a fellowship with God have 
 only widened the chasm which separated from 
 him. The religions have become themselves 
 the ministers of sin. "It was the god who 
 tempted me to it," says a wretch in a play of 
 Plautus, in excuse for his baseness ; and this 
 illustrates what has always been true in Pa- 
 ganism. The examples and incitements of the 
 gods can be claimed in support of any vice or 
 crime, however awful or abominable. Murderers, 
 thieves, adulterers, courtesans, pimps, abusers 
 of themselves with mankind, erect temples and 
 
FAILURES TO IMPROVE THE WORLD. 5/ 
 
 altars, and solicit the aid of the gods in behalf 
 of their base deeds. What ought to be, and 
 what perhaps originally were, the most sacred 
 acts of worship, become, under the influence of 
 Paganism, — as is actually seen in the history of 
 every great Pagan system, present or past, — the 
 most gross and terrible scenes of sensuality 
 and lust and violence. The pervigilium of 
 Venus, the bacchanalia and worship of Hermes 
 the cheat, the orgies rendered in homage of 
 Astarte and Baal and Moloch by the Romans 
 and Greeks and Western Asiatics of the ancient 
 world, are paralleled in Eastern and Southern 
 Asia to-day. Said the Abbe Du Bois, a Ro- 
 man Catholic missionary at Mysore, * " I have 
 never yet beheld a Hindu procession without its 
 presenting me the image of hell." Said a mis- 
 sionary who beheld the festival of Juggernaut,* 
 " Fancy cannot picture, the imagination cannot 
 conceive, the abominations of this worship." 
 The language of another, who was twelve years 
 
 * Arvine's Cyclopaedia in loc. Missions. 
 
58 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 a missionary in India, is,* " The human sacri- 
 fices which Hinduism demands are frightful and 
 appalling. The horrid scenes which have been 
 discovered in this respect are almost beyond 
 credibility." Notwithstanding the establishment 
 of the British Government over India, the abomi- 
 nations of Hindu worship are still sufficient to 
 fill a Christian heart with horror. Quite recently, 
 one of our most esteemed missionaries of South- 
 eastern India assured me of the still continued 
 existence, in the field of his missionary labor, of 
 orgies practised in the temples in the name of 
 the gods, and under the forms of worship, whose 
 abominations could hardly have been exceeded 
 b} the Greek and Roman bacchanalia in their 
 darkest days. There is no power to renovate 
 or to sanctify in any religious system of the 
 unchristian world. 
 
 * Arvine's Cyclopaedia in loc. Missions. 
 
THIRD LECTURE. 
 
 THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 
 
 We come now to the question, whether Chris- 
 tianity contains the remedial agency we need. 
 Every other provision we have seen to fail. 
 Commerce, civilization, education, political insti- 
 tutions, natural morality, and natural religion, 
 when closely scanned, reveal no power to check 
 the downward tendencies of human nature, or 
 lessen the corruption under which the world is 
 perishing. There is only one remedy left ; and, 
 if this shall have no efficacy, we may be hope- 
 less of all good. What, then, does the gospel 
 actually propose to accomplish for the world ? 
 and what is the probability of its success ? 
 
 The gospel does not seek to save society di- 
 rectly, and at the outset. Its first work is with 
 
 59 
 
60 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 the individual heart. It comes to a sinning soul ; 
 and, however benighted or degraded that soul 
 may be, the gospel preaches to it salvation from 
 sin, salvation from the power and the punish- 
 ment of sin. It announces itself, first of all, as 
 a divine gift : " God so loved the world, that 
 he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
 believeth in him should not perish, but have 
 everlasting life." * Here is no purchase on the 
 part of man. No penance, nor prayer, nor sac- 
 rifice, nor rites, nor any deeds which man could 
 do, are allowed to have the least efficacy in 
 
 procuring the blessings which the gospel an- 
 
 * 
 nounces: "Not by works of righteousness 
 
 which we have done, but according to his 
 
 mercy, he saved us." f This is the first and 
 
 continued announcement of the gospel. The 
 
 salvation which it proffers is absolutely of the 
 
 divine procurement, and is absolutely free : " I 
 
 am the good shepherd : the good shepherd giv- 
 
 eth his life for the sheep. . . No man taketh it 
 
 * John iii. i6. t Tit. iii. 5. 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 6 1 
 
 from me ; but I lay it down of myself. I have 
 power to lay it down, and I have power to take 
 it again." * Such a doctrine, we should notice, 
 is quite peculiar. Nothing like it elsewhere 
 appears. All other systems of religion an- 
 nounce the divine favor only as the result of 
 human efforts to obtain it ; and hence the abun- 
 dance of penances and prayers, and deeds of fan- 
 cied self-righteousness, which all these systems 
 enjoin as means to appease and purchase the 
 favors of God. No one of all the unchristian 
 religions of the world offers any divine boon, 
 except in return for a service which must first 
 have been rendered from those by whom the 
 blessing is to be received. 
 
 It is a great mistake, therefore, and shows a 
 wonderfully shallow acquaintance with the whole 
 subject, when men classify Christianity with 
 other systems^ and the Bible with other books, 
 as utterances all, in different forms, of man's 
 religious nature. This is true of Mohammedan- 
 
 * John X. II, i8. 
 
62 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 ism, Buddhism, Brahminism, of the Koran, the 
 Vedas, and so on. These are utterances, some- 
 times pathetic, and often very profound, of man's 
 sense of need and dependence, and also of his 
 striving for that divine fellowship which he feels 
 he needs. But Christianity is an utterance to 
 man of the divine fulness ; and the Bible does 
 not so much declare the human sense of want 
 as it does the divine supply. The difference be- 
 tween the Christian and every other religion is, 
 therefore, infinite, — a difference which, however 
 we may account for it, is yet so great and so 
 clear, that while we may properly classify all 
 other religions as expressing, in different forms, 
 the one human yearning and seeking-after 
 God, Christianity alone possesses the thought, a 
 thought which penetrates it through and through, 
 of a divine yearning and seeking-after man. 
 " The Son of man is come to seek and to save 
 that which was lost." * 
 
 Note now the effect of this announcement 
 
 * Luke xix. lo. 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 63 
 
 upon the individual heart and will to which it 
 comes. Very possibly, unheard-of doctrine as 
 it is, it may sound at first as an idle tale. The 
 sensuous, selfish, unbelieving soul, perhaps, gives 
 it neither credit nor concern. " The god of this 
 world hath blinded the minds of them which 
 believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel 
 of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine 
 unto them." * It is not an easy work to lead an 
 imbruted savage, steeped in superstition, and 
 sunk in the lowest depths of sensuality, or a par- 
 tially civilized Pagan, — sensuous also, and super- 
 stitious, with an added pride and self-conceit in 
 his own attainments, mingled with a contempt for 
 what others possess, — to listen to such a mes- 
 sage as the gospel brings. It requires patience, 
 great energy, and great faith. No wonder that 
 missionary efforts are often unsuccessful, nor 
 that strong resolutions often waver after years 
 of fruitless toil. But let the effort still be con- 
 tinued. Let the message of God's love to man 
 
 * 2 Cor. iv. 10. 
 
64 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 be proclaimed unweariedly, till the strange 
 thought finds some lodgement, and the dark 
 mind begins to see it, and the proud mind 
 begins to feel it ; what sort of a sentiment will 
 then begin to stir the soul ? For the first time 
 then the darkened mind gains some knowledge 
 of its own darkness. The darkness cannot dis- 
 close itself. Sin has no power of self -revelation. 
 Go and tell a man that he is a sinner, and you 
 cannot thus make him see or feel the fact, how- 
 ever evident to yourself or others it may be. 
 The darkness is only disclosed by the light. Sin 
 is only revealed by the power of a holy law. " I 
 was alive without the law once ; but when the 
 commandment came, sin revived, and I died." * 
 We only know ourselves through the knowledge 
 of God, and we only know ourselves as sinful in 
 the presence of his holiness and love. 
 
 Now, let this thought of God's mercy to sin- 
 ners, of God's love to man, once be shown to 
 men who have never known it before, and their 
 
 * Rom. vii. 9. 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 65 
 
 own contrariety to this love, their selfishness 
 and degradation and sin, of which they had been 
 equally ignorant, comes up before them with 
 appalling power. As Isaiah, when the vision of 
 the glory of Jehovah came to him in the temple, 
 saw his own sinfulness in the light of the divine 
 holiness, so will the same vision carry with it 
 everywhere the same revealing power ; and the 
 man who possesses it, whoever or wherever he 
 may be, will exclaim, " Woe is me ! for I am un- 
 done ; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I 
 dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips : 
 for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of 
 hosts." * 
 
 But the power of the revelation does not end 
 here. The knowledge of God, through which 
 alone comes a true self-knowledge, can kindle 
 with a living inspiration the soul to which its 
 first revelation was like a consuming fire. The 
 love which discloses the soul's selfishness can 
 banish the selfishness which it first disclosed, 
 
 * Isa. vi. 5. 
 
^ CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 and bring out in the soul the clear lineaments of 
 its own likeness, — the likeness of love. " We 
 love God because he first loved us." * 
 
 The love of duty, without which no impulse to 
 right conduct is found, cannot be awakened by 
 the duty itself. The duty will not be loved till 
 it is seen to be obedience to a person whom we 
 love. Our personal wills must be penetrated 
 with a sense of loyalty to a personal sovereign 
 whose commands are righteous, and whose law 
 is holy, just, and good, before righteousness and 
 holiness and justice and goodness can be the in- 
 spiration of our life. But this is precisely what 
 the gospel is designed to secure. When its mes- 
 sage comes to one sunk in vice and sin, and 
 demands a renovated life, it bases this demand 
 wholly on an act of God's unmerited grace. 
 The gospel does not require obedience to some 
 abstract conception of duty, as the doing the 
 right for the right's sake, and so on. The obe- 
 dience is demanded for God's sake, for Christ's 
 
 * I John iv. 19. 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 6^ 
 
 sake, because of the love of God. " I beseech 
 you, therefore, by the mercies of God," * is its 
 constant plea. The grand motive which it urges 
 to righteousness is the great gift we have re- 
 ceived from a righteous and loving God. The 
 love of Christ — Christ's love to us — is the con- 
 straining power by which, in the gospel, we are 
 led to live, not unto ourselves, but unto him who 
 died for us, and rose again.f In the law which 
 urges obedience for righteousness' sake, there is 
 a blessing given, but only because it has been 
 bought. It comes only as a return, a payment for 
 the obedience rendered. But the gospel places 
 the other side foremost. It puts the blessing 
 first. Not only before the obedience, but in the 
 midst of our disobedience, the blessings of the 
 gospel come. " For God commendeth his love 
 towards us in that, while we were yet sinners, 
 Christ died for us." % 
 
 Now, this message cannot reach any man, be 
 he savage or civilized, without a kindling inspi- 
 
 * Rom. xii. i. f 2 Cor. v. 14, 15. % Rom. v. 8. 
 
68 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 ration. Let it once be recognized, let it but 
 penetrate the indifference, the doubts, the pre- 
 judices, which wrap themselves around the soul, 
 and however feeble that soul may be, or how- 
 ever sunk in selfishness and sensuality, this 
 message will stir and lift it towards a forgetful- 
 ness of self, and towards righteousness, with an 
 impulse unknown before. " For the law of the 
 Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free 
 from the law of sin and death. For what the 
 law could not do in that it was weak through 
 the flesh, God, sending his own Son, in the 
 likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned 
 sin in the flesh : that the righteousness of the 
 law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after 
 the flesh, but after the Spirit." * 
 
 This is what the gospel, looked at ideally, is 
 fitted to secure. This is its aim, its method ; 
 but what are its actual fruits ? Is it only an 
 ideal scheme .-* or can it accomplish what it 
 proposes ? The appeal is properly made to the 
 
 * Rom. viii. 2, 3. 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 69 
 
 facts of history, and the challenge is as promptly 
 accepted. The gospel has shown itself fitted 
 to regenerate the world, in illustration of which, 
 — since it is well for us to remember the hole 
 whence we were digged, — we may cite, in the 
 first place, the experience nearest to ourselves. 
 Our ancestors, but a few centuries ago, were 
 sunk in all the wretchedness and superstition 
 which we now find in the heathen world. For 
 savage ferocity and brutal degradation, they have 
 hardly been surpassed. The ancient Britons 
 were wild men of the woods, who tattooed them- 
 selves, and wore the skins of wild beasts ; who 
 lived on flesh and milk, without tilling the 
 ground; whose towns were woods, surrounded 
 by a mound of earth and a ditch ; who offered 
 human sacrifices to their gods; who practised 
 polygamy ; and who, if Caesar can be trusted,* 
 possessed among relations a community of wives. 
 The ancient Scots were cannibals, delighting 
 in the taste of human flesh. When they hunted 
 
 * Bell. Gal., v. 14. 
 
70 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 the woods for prey, it is said that they attacked 
 the shepherd, rather than his flock ; and that 
 they curiously selected the most delicate and 
 brawny parts, both of males and females, for 
 their horrid repast.* Even as late as the twelfth 
 century, Henry 11. of England declared to a 
 Greek emperor, who had asked him of the state 
 of Britain, that Wales was then inhabited by a 
 race of naked warriors.f The ancient Saxons 
 indulged in human sacrifices, and selected by 
 lot one-tenth of their captives in war for a 
 bloody offering to their gods. The ancient 
 Gauls hung the skulls of their slain enemies 
 around the necks of their horses, or up in their 
 houses, and used them as drinking-cups in their 
 feasts. In the family life of these wild savages, 
 the husband possessed the right of life or death 
 over his wife and children. All that we possess 
 of peace and order, of home and family life, all 
 the institutions of society most valuable to us, 
 all purity among us of individual hearts, and all 
 
 * Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 567. t Gibbon, vol. iii. p. 629 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. /I 
 
 progress towards a better state, is no original 
 inheritance. It comes from no development of 
 native tendencies, but is a fruit borne by a new 
 life with which these ancient savages became 
 enkindled. 
 
 That this new life was not begotten by the 
 Greek or Roman civilization with which the 
 Britons and Germans and Gauls came in con 
 tact, is clear from what we have already seen of 
 the moral condition of the Greek and Roman 
 world. Though possessing governments and 
 arts, and social institutions, which gave a cer- 
 tain degree of order, and a large degree of 
 elegance, to their outward life, the Greeks and 
 Romans, we have already seen, were sunk in the 
 depths of a selfishness and sensuaHty and lust, 
 from which no renovating impulse could spring. 
 They needed themselves first of all to be re- 
 newed. Neither could the genius for art, for 
 speculation, for law, which penetrated the Greek 
 and Roman world in the palmy days of their 
 civilization, reproduce itself. When Rome, in 
 
72 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 the time of the Caesars, came in contact with 
 the barbarians of Northern and Central Europe, 
 this genius was already expiring. It had done 
 its work. It had borne its fruits. It had ex- 
 hausted itself. It had no power of reproduc- 
 tion. Few pages of history are more instruc- 
 tive to the historical student than the condition 
 of the world just prior to the dawn of the day 
 we now enjoy. For this dawn, there is no har- 
 binger in the existing state of things. The 
 deepening darkness gives no promise of the 
 day. To change the corruptions of society, to 
 renovate individual hearts, to drive out the 
 darkness, and bring in the light and life of a 
 new day, there needs the rising of a new sun 
 with healing in his beams. The beneficent 
 changes which have occurred in Europe, the 
 beneficent influencv'^s which we now enjoy, in 
 distinction from those of our ancestors fifteen 
 centuries ago, I believe no careful student can 
 ascribe to any cause separate from the preach- 
 ing of the gospel of Christ. The most careful 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 73 
 
 and profound students of history do ascribe 
 them to this. That our present condition, with 
 its incalculable blessings, is no development 
 from original forces in our natural endowment, 
 is still further evident from the fact that the 
 power of the gospel is sufficient to produce the 
 same results among people of the most diverse 
 endowment. 
 
 The current scepticism, that Christianity is a 
 Shemitic religion, confined to certain races, to 
 which it properly belongs, while it is only a 
 delusion to suppose that it fits all races, in 
 every stage of their development, is sufficiently 
 answered in the actual facts of the case. Chris- 
 tianity has found its triumphs, and shown its 
 fruits, in every nation and tribe upon the globe ; 
 and its results have been, in every case, the 
 same. Virtue, social order, prosperity, blessed- 
 ness, the elevation and improvement, in all re- 
 spects, of the human life, are the uniform and 
 exclusive inheritance of those who receive the 
 gospel. The North-American Indians, who 
 
74 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 have successfully resisted all other efforts to 
 civilize them, and who are thought by many to 
 be savages so irreclaimable that they must be 
 exterminated before we can have peace on our 
 western borders, have been, in many instances, 
 changed, and have lost their savage state, simply 
 through no other agency than the preaching of 
 the gospel. In 1862 a savage attempt at the 
 extermination of the whites was made by the 
 Pagan Dacotahs, beginning with a general mas- 
 sacre of the settlers who had encroached upon 
 the Indians' hunting-grounds. A fierce war 
 ensued, after which two thousand Indians, hav- 
 ing been captured, were tried by a military com- 
 mission, and three hundred were sentenced to 
 death, of whom the larger part were subse- 
 quently set at liberty through the intervention 
 of President Lincoln. To these miserable cap- 
 tives, Christian missionaries found access ; and 
 the gospel was preached with the most blessed 
 effects. Within three years, more than five hun- 
 dred Dacotahs (a number since largely in- 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 75 
 
 creased) professed their faith in Jesus Christ, — ■ 
 a faith to which the fruits of a regenerated 
 life are still bearing undoubted testimony.* 
 
 At the meeting of the American Board at 
 Minneapolis, in 1873, where, eleven years before, 
 there was an Indian massacre, some of the very 
 men engaged in the massacre were present as 
 Christian believers, — no longer blood-thirsty 
 and cruel, but meek and gentle and loving, 
 with a demeanor and spirit declaring again the 
 oft-told story : " If any man be in Christ, he 
 is a new creature : old things are passed away ; 
 behold, all things are become new." f O jib- 
 ways and Dacotahs, tribes between whom burnt 
 such an enmity, that, in their savage state, no 
 two could ever meet in peace, now sat in Chris- 
 tian fellowship and brotherly love at Christ's 
 communion table; and, as the venerable presi- 
 dent of the Board remarked at the time, what 
 seemed equally wonderful, the people of Minne- 
 
 * Anderson's Lectures on Poreign Missions, p. 221. 
 t 2 Cor. V. 17. 
 
76 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 sota sat with them, all together fellow-members of 
 one Church, and fellow-disciples of one Lord. 
 
 The Annual Report of the American Board for 
 that same year notices * " with great satisfaction 
 the fraternal interest that exists between the Da- 
 cotah churches and the home-mission churches 
 on the border. It gives the native brethren new 
 strength and confidence on the one hand, and it 
 inspires their white brethren with a stronger 
 faith in the power of the gospel." " Whatever 
 may have been the belief of any home-mission- 
 aries in this territory before coming here," 
 writes Rev. Joseph Ward to the " Home Mis- 
 sionary Magazine," "no one of these believes 
 that the Indian is to be exterminated, either by 
 the hand of man, or the judgments of God. 
 We expect they will remain among us, and in- 
 crease, rather than diminish. Neither are we 
 displeased at the prospect ; for, in looking over 
 the ground, we see plainly enough many good 
 influences coming from them, and helping us in 
 *P. 84. 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. // 
 
 our work. Their example as Christian workers 
 is a good one. The love and good works, espe- 
 cially from such a source, provoke to an in- 
 crease of the same among us. The restraining 
 influence of these Christianized Indians on evil 
 white men is very great. Without the work 
 done by these Indian churches, our border popu- 
 lation would have an unlimited field for licen- 
 tiousness and intemperance. Now there is a 
 noticeable restraint, making the work of the 
 home-missionary far easier. The good done 
 in this way is increasing each year, as the 
 work among the Indians is carried farther along, 
 and even beyond the frontier. The sense of 
 security is increased. The Christian Indians 
 are a protection far more effective than any num- 
 ber of troops. No hostile bands could by any 
 possibility get through this cordon of Christian 
 fortresses before the alarm was given. The fact 
 that there is this barrier in the way prevents all 
 attempts ; and so we till our farms, and sleep, 
 without a thought of fear." 
 
y8 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 The Sandwich- Islanders and the South-Sea- 
 Islanders, who, fifty years ago, were savages and 
 cannibals of the wildest, lowest, and most de- 
 graded sort, and who, to the human eye, gave 
 absolutely no hope of improvement, or prospect 
 of any good, have, within less than half a centu- 
 ry, been changed into peaceful and virtuous and 
 industrious people, with homes and schools and 
 laws. This change has been wrought only 
 through the preaching, by Christian missionaries, 
 of the gospel of Christ. So obviously has the 
 work been done by this agency alone, that, so 
 far as I know, no attempt is ever made to claim 
 it for any other. There are those who deprecia- 
 ate the value, and deny the extent, of the changes 
 themselves ; but this number steadily dimin- 
 ishes before the overwhelming proof to the con- 
 trary ; and the great fact of these stupendous 
 changes, and their simple cause, demands the 
 attention and the assent of the world. 
 
 In 1820 the first Christian missionaries landed 
 in the Sandwich Islands ; and in 1870 they 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 79 
 
 made their last report to the society and the 
 churches which had sent them out ; the islands 
 having ceased to be missionary ground, the 
 inhabitants having ceased to be heathen, and 
 having become a Christian people, with self-sus- 
 taining churches and pastors of their own, and 
 having become, also, a new centre of light, 
 whence the beams of the gospel are carried to 
 distant islands still in darkness. The Sand- 
 wich Islands, which fifty years ago knew noth- 
 ing of the gospel, now send out and support 
 thirteen of their own natives as missionaries of 
 the gospel to the Marquesas and Micronesian 
 Islands. " Having myself," says the venerable 
 Dr. Anderson, " traversed all the Sandwich 
 Islands five years ago, I do not hesitate to de- 
 clare the United States to be no more entitled, 
 as a whole, to the epithet of Christian than are 
 those islands." * " At the fiftieth anniversary 
 of the establishment of missions to the Hawaiian 
 Islands, the principal orator was a man who in 
 * Foreign Missions, p. 225, 
 
80 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 infancy had narrowly escaped death by being 
 buried alive by his heathen mother. For an 
 hour he held his audience in rapt attention, as, 
 without a note before him, he rehearsed the tri- 
 umphs of the gospel among his people ; the ora- 
 tor himself, by his range of thought, his finished 
 language, his graceful manner, his lofty Chris- 
 tian sentiment, furnishing, in his own individual 
 development, the finest illustration of his 
 theme." * 
 
 In 1866 the Report of the London Missionary 
 Society contained the following declaration : 
 " Sixty years ago there was not a solitary native 
 Christian in Polynesia : now it would be difficult 
 to find a professed idolater in the islands of 
 Eastern or Central Polynesia, where Christian 
 missionaries have been established. The hideous 
 rites of their forefathers have ceased to be prac- 
 tised. Their heathen legends and war-songs are 
 forgotten. Their cruel and desolating tribal 
 
 * Rev. Dr. N. G. Clark's paper on the Developing Power 
 sf the Gospel 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 8 1 
 
 wars, which were rapidly destroying the popula- 
 tion, appear to be at an end. They are gathered 
 together in peaceful village communities. They 
 live under recognized codes of laws. They are 
 constructing roads, cultivating their fertile lands, 
 and engaging in commerce. On the return of 
 the sabbath, a very large proportion of the popu- 
 lation attend the worship of God ; and, in some 
 instances, more than half the adult population 
 are recognized members of Christian churches. 
 They educate their children, endeavoring to 
 train them for usefulness in after-life. They 
 sustain their native ministers, and send their 
 noblest sons as missionaries to the heathen 
 lands which lie farther west. There may not be 
 the culture, the wealth, the refinement, of the 
 older lands of Christendom (such things are 
 the slow growth of ages) ; but these lands must 
 no longer be regarded as a part of heathendom. 
 In God's faithfulness and mercy, they have been 
 won from the domains of heathendom, and have 
 been added to the domains of Christendom." * 
 
 * Quoted in Anderson's Foreign Missions, p. 227. 
 
82 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 In the Fiji Islands, numbering a population 
 of two hundred thousand, the Wesley an mission- 
 aries began their work in 1835. The people were 
 then all cannibals. Now * nearly a hundred and 
 forty thousand regularly attend church on the 
 sabbath. There are 25,468 church-members in 
 full communion, and 4,450 on probation. There 
 are 946 native preachers. There are 1,282 day 
 schools, attended by 45,792 children. The 
 barbarities, the crimes, the vices, of their heath- 
 enism, have changed to an equal degree. " An 
 English naval officer, speaking lately of a reli- 
 gious service he attended on one of these islands, 
 says, ' I was very much impressed by the scene 
 before me. Only fifteen years before, every man 
 I saw was a cannibal. Close to me sat the old 
 chief, Bible in hand, and spectacles on forehead, 
 who was, twenty years back, one of the most san- 
 guinary and ferocious of this terrible land ; and 
 within twenty yards of me was the site of the 
 fatal oven, with the tree still standing, covered 
 
 * Wesleyan Miss. Rep., 1874. 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 83 
 
 with the notches that marked each new vic- 
 tim.'"* 
 
 If we find difficulties in estimating the full 
 magnitude of this change, we need only to pass 
 to islands still farther to the south-west, where 
 Christian missions have not yet penetrated, 
 where the natives still devour one another, and 
 the darkness of unbroken heathenism still waits 
 for the light of the gospel to drive it away. 
 
 Christian missions began in Madagascar in 
 1820. The then reigning king welcomed them ; 
 but upon his death, eight years after, his Pagan 
 queen, who succeeded him, began a bitter oppo- 
 sition to them and their work, which grew to the 
 most ferocious persecution. Every missionary 
 was driven out of the land, and the attempt made 
 to put every Christian convert to death. Bar- 
 barities and tortures, the like of which modern 
 history does not elsewhere reveal, were employed 
 in the work of extermination. The native Chris- 
 tians were fined and imprisoned, and loaded with 
 
 * Dr. Anderson, p. 229. 
 
84 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 chains, and sold into slavery. They were poi- 
 soned and stoned and speared to death. They 
 were hanged and burned at the stake, and cruci- 
 fied, and pitched over lofty precipices ; but the 
 blood of the martyrs here, as in Tertullian's 
 time, was the seed of the church. Through all 
 the fiery storm, the word of God grew mightily, 
 and prevailed. Though hardly fifty native 
 Christians were found in the island when the 
 persecution began, and though it is estimated 
 that over two thousand suffered martyrdom for 
 their faith during its continuance, yet at its close, 
 twenty-five years afterv/ards, five thousand 
 Christian disciples were found ready, if need be, 
 to seal with their life their faith in their Lord. 
 Since 1 86 1, when the fierce queen died, and the 
 persecution ceased, the missionaries have re- 
 turned ; Christian preaching has not only been 
 permitted, but is welcomed, by the government ; 
 and there are now more than twenty five hundred 
 native preachers of .the gospel, and forty thou- 
 sand communicants in Christian churches, in 
 Madagascar. 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 85 
 
 To all these might be added copious instances 
 from Sierra Leone, from the Zulus and Caifres 
 and Karens, from the Sonthals and other abo- 
 riginal tribes of India, to show the actual power 
 of the gospel to elevate and transform the lowest 
 and most degraded of human kind. Before our 
 own eyes at the present day, if we only will but 
 see, there is actually taking place such a trans- 
 formation in the character and condition of wild 
 and savage men, by the preaching of the gospel 
 alone, which justifies its claim to be the all- 
 sufficient remedy for human sin and woe. What 
 neither commerce, nor the arts of civilization, 
 nor education, nor the teaching of morality, nor 
 systems of natural religion, singly or combined, 
 have been able to accomplish, the gospel alone 
 is showing itself sufficient to secure ; and com- 
 merce and arts and education and virtue follow 
 in its train, as the day from the rising of the 
 sun. It does not increase our sense of the can- 
 dor or the clear knowledge of those, who, in the 
 face of facts like these, can doubt the power of 
 
 8 
 
86 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 the gospel, or ignore the blessings of Christian 
 missions. 
 
 But it may be said, that the results thus far 
 noted have been wrought upon savages ; and it 
 does not yet appear that the gospel is equally 
 adapted to improve the condition of the more 
 advanced and partially-civilized, though still 
 Pagan, nations of the globe. If it be granted 
 that cannibals and savages can be brought to a 
 state of peace and social order by the gospel, is 
 it equally true that no other agency is necessary 
 to reach those who already occupy a plane of 
 considerable culture, with commerce and arts 
 and laws already possessed, but who are still 
 idolaters, and still sunk in the sensuality and 
 moral corruption of the heathen .? Has the gos- 
 pel any thing like such power with the Japanese 
 and Chinese and Hindus, as it has shown over 
 Nortl: American Indians and the savage island- 
 ers of the Pacific, and the wild and degraded 
 denizens of Africa and Madagascar } 
 
 The earliest triumphs of the gospel were not 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 87 
 
 over barbarians. Christianity was brought face 
 to face, at the outset, with Greek and Roman 
 civilization and culture. It achieved its first 
 victories in the high places of refinement, in 
 cities and schools. Those who did not at first 
 receive it were those who did not live in cities, 
 who were outside the circles of culture, the 
 rude dwellers on the heath and in hamlets, 
 whom our words "heathen" and "pagan" origi- 
 nally and literally described. It is true these 
 victories were not won without a struggle ; but 
 they were won. Christianity fearlessly entered 
 upon the struggle, and fought it out until the 
 learning and art and culture and civilization, 
 which were all arrayed in hostility to it, were 
 subdued, and henceforth made to minister to its 
 progress. There is no reason to expect any dif- 
 ferent results at the present day ; neither are 
 the results different. The civilization of the 
 Japanese, the Chinese, and the Hindus, is far 
 mferior to that of the Greek and Roman world ; 
 but Christianity is actually showing itself as 
 
88 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 able to change and control the one, as it was the 
 other. " I believe," said Lord Lawrence, vice- 
 roy of India, " notwithstanding all that the Eng- 
 lish people have done to benefit that country, 
 the missionaries have done more than all other 
 agencies combined." Says Sir Bartle Fr^re, gov- 
 ernor of Bombay, " I speak simply as to matters 
 of experience and observation, and not of 
 opinion, just as a Roman prefect might have 
 reported to Trajan or the Antonines ; and I 
 assure you, that, whatever you may be told to 
 the contrary, the teaching of Christianity among 
 a hundred and sixty millions of civilized, indus- 
 trious Hindus and Mohammedans in India, 
 is effecting changes, moral, social, and political, 
 which, for extent and rapidity of effect, are far 
 more extraordinary than any thing you or your 
 fathers have witnessed in modern Europe." 
 Says Sir Donald McLeod, lieutenant-governor 
 of the Punjaub, '* In many places an impression 
 prevails, that the missions have not produced 
 results adequate to the efforts which have been 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 89 
 
 made; but I trust enough has been said to 
 prove that there is no real foundation for this 
 impression, and those who hold such opinions 
 know but little of the reality." 
 
 In the closing week of 1872, a missionary 
 conference was held at Allahabad, India, com- 
 posed of one hundred and thirty-six members, 
 — Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, 
 Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Re- 
 formed, from America, England, Scotland, Ire- 
 land, Germany, Norway, and India, — in which 
 the present condition and prospects of mission- 
 ary work in India were carefully considered. I 
 was told by a member of the conference, that, 
 when the reports from the different societies 
 and missions were brought in, a sentiment of 
 surprise was blended with the thanksgiving at 
 the results wrought. No one seems to have 
 been prepared for the exhibition of the grand 
 extent and power of missionary work in India. 
 In 1862 there were 138,731 native Christians 
 in the whole of India. In 1872 there were 
 
90 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 224,161, an increase of over eighty-five thou- 
 sand in ten years, or at the rate of sixty-one 
 per cent. This is not only a larger absolute 
 gain, but larger, also, proportionally, showing a 
 more rapid growth in missionary operations 
 and their results, during the last ten years, than 
 at any similar period before. While the largest 
 portion of this increase is from persons of low 
 caste, and from the aboriginal tribes, one-fourth 
 of it, or more than twenty thousand of the con- 
 verts during the last ten years, are from pure 
 Hindus of high caste. 
 
 Besides these direct results, every thoughtful 
 observer agrees that the influence of Christian 
 missions has indisputably changed the opinions 
 and conduct of the natives of India, both edu- 
 cated and uneducated, to a degree most remarka- 
 ble, and which gives promise of consequences 
 equally grand and benign. Rev. M. A. Sher- 
 ring of Benares, in a carefully-prepared paper 
 read before the Allahabad Conference, full of 
 accurate information of the present state and 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 9 1 
 
 prospects of missionary work in India, declares 
 that "there are great processes of change and 
 reformation, which are secretly undermining the 
 vast fabric of Hindu superstition, and which 
 alone, were there no others, and were there 
 not a single Hindu yet converted to the Chris- 
 tian faith, would stamp the great humanizing 
 work in which the missionaries are engaged, 
 as one of the most noble and beneficent the 
 world ever saw." * 
 
 It is only a very few years since China was 
 opened to the preaching of the gospel ; but 
 Christian missions have been established in 
 forty walled cities, and three hundred and sixty 
 villages ; over four hundred native preachers 
 have been raised up; and while, in 1868, there 
 were four thousand Chinese members of Chris- 
 tian churches, this number has grov/n, in 1873, 
 to eight thousand, a rate of increase which the 
 latest intelligence from China gives promise of 
 still further augmenting. 
 
 * Proceedings of the Allahabad Conference, p. 4S0. 
 
92 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 In Japan the commencement of missions has 
 been still more recent, but their progress has 
 not been slow ; and no one can note the interest 
 of the Japanese in the gospel, and the changed 
 condition and life of those who have found in it 
 the way of salvation, without the strongest ex- 
 pectation, that it will not only be preached 
 through the whole empire, but that it will be 
 found there, as everywhere, glad tidings of great 
 joy. 
 
 The gospel has not died out, nor lost aught 
 of its power. Through the eighteen Christian 
 centuries in which it has been preached, it 
 has not grown old, nor weak, nor weary. It 
 is working to-day, in Christian and unchristian 
 lands, with as much vigor, and with as mighty 
 results, as in the great days of its first proc- 
 lamation. The triumphs actually achieved in 
 our own time by the Christian Church are 
 equal to any the Church has ever achieved. 
 Christianity places herself side by side with 
 all other agencies for the salvation of the 
 
THE ADEQUACY OF THE GOSPEL. 93 
 
 world, and calmly challenges a comparison of 
 their success with her own. By the light of 
 the actual results, it becomes clear that the 
 gospel of Jesus Christ " is the power of God 
 unto salvation ; unto the Jew hrst, ana also unto 
 the Greek."* 
 
 ♦ Rom. L id 
 
FOURTH LECTURE. 
 
 THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. 
 
 Just at this point a difficulty arises, which 
 some minds feel to be grave. If we can answer 
 all the objections to missions which an unbe- 
 liever can urge, and sufficiently demonstrate the 
 power of the gospel and the glory of the gospel, 
 in contrast with all other agencies, for the good 
 of man, which it is in our power to use, there 
 are still many profound Christian believers who 
 doubt the expediency and the efficiency of mis- 
 sions, on the ground that these are man's work, 
 while the work of the world's conversion must 
 be wholly divine. They argue from prophecy 
 that as the stone which smote the image, and 
 became a great mountain, and filled the whole 
 earth, was cut out of the mountain without hands, 
 
 94 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. 95 
 
 SO the kingdom which shall break in pieces and 
 consume all other kingdoms, and shall never be 
 destroyed, but shall stand forever, must be one 
 which the God of heaven alone must set up. * 
 The Church which hopes to bring about the 
 victory of her Lord's kingdom upon earth by 
 her own endeavors will not only fail of such a 
 consummation, which is beyond all her powers, 
 but assuredly loses thus her own strength and 
 salvation. " For thus saith the Lord God, the 
 Holy One of Israel : In returning and rest shall 
 ye be saved ; in quietness and confidence shall 
 be your strength."! We are pointed to prophe- 
 cies which seem to assure us that it is the suf- 
 fering Church which is to reign. It is the eye 
 that has watched, and the soul that has waited, 
 for the coming of the Lord, which shall see 
 " death swallowed up in victory," and which 
 shall exclaim, " Lo, this is our God ; we have 
 waited for him, and he will save us : this is the 
 Lord ; we have waited for him, we will be glad 
 and rejoice in his salvation." J 
 
 * T^r.n. ii. t Tsn xw. t ;. t Ts.i. vxv. 9, 
 
96 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 Therefore, it is argued, "Our strength is to 
 sit still." We are not to work, but to wait for 
 the Lord's coming. All our work is worthless. 
 His advent alone can bring the wished-for good. 
 This will be in his own good time, which we 
 cannot hasten ; and it will be with the glory of 
 his all-sufficient power, which none of our 
 efforts can increase. He will come with the 
 power of a conqueror, and the terribleness of a 
 destroyer, bringing vengeance and recompense 
 to his enemies. The nations are to be dashed to 
 pieces by him, like a potter's vessel. " He shall 
 break them with a rod of iron." * "A fire shall 
 devour before him, and it shall be very tempest- 
 uous round about him." f " And the loftiness 
 of man shall be bowed down, and the haughti- 
 ness of men shall be made low ; and the Lord 
 alone shall be exalted in that day. And they 
 shal. go into the holes of the rocks, and into the 
 caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord, and for 
 the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to 
 * Ps. ii. 9. t Vs. 1. 3. 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. 97 
 
 shake terribly the earth." " Strengthen ye the 
 weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say 
 to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, 
 fear not ; behold, your God will come with ven- 
 geance, even God with a recompense, he will 
 come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind 
 shall be opened, and the of ears the deaf shall 
 be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as 
 an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing ; 
 for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and 
 streams in the desert. . . . Then shall the ran- 
 somed of the Lord return, and come to Zion 
 with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: 
 they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow 
 and sighing shall flee away." * 
 
 All this is interpreted to mean, that we are not 
 to hope for the conversion of the world from any 
 increase of our present means of evangelizing 
 the nations, nor, indeed, from any exercise of 
 human means at all, but only " by a stupendous 
 display of divine wrath upon all the apostate 
 
 * Isa. XXXV. 
 
98 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 and ungodly." * " The kingdom and Universal 
 Church are to be established, not by gradual con- 
 version or by conversion more or less rapid under 
 this dispensation, but by the personal advent of 
 our Lord himself and all the remarkable events 
 ihat accompany it." f "The rectifying that 
 comes at last is not by mercy, but by judgment ; 
 not by the sowing of grace, but by the sickle of 
 vengeance ; not by an extension of the gospel, 
 the labors of ministers, or any gracious instru- 
 mentahty now at work, but by the angels of God, 
 who are to accompany the Son of man at his 
 second advent. It will consist not in re-sowine:. 
 but in reaping, the field." J 
 
 Of course, from all this it follows that mis- 
 cionary movements are a mistake, and ought to 
 be abandoned. And this ground is actually and 
 soberly taken. Recall your missionaries Give 
 up all these human agencies. " Ti.is is n y v!f4* 
 
 * Elem. of Prcph. Ii\te.- , p. .12C 
 
 t O^nhT'i? l-Vcii.-Uiv-nu'ai A.vVcni, p. -^i^ , 
 
 t McNfilv's :^rkst np^^n Vu ISr^e, p. .76^ 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. 99 
 
 dispensation for converting the world. Nothing 
 permanent will be done till the King come him- 
 self." " To encourage the hope that the gospel, 
 as now proclaimed in the world, will be the 
 instrument of final success, is simply to feed 
 the Church upon unauthorized speculations." 
 "The world is not growing better, but worse, 
 under all human efforts. The darkness around 
 us is not being pierced by the light, but is grow- 
 ing more dense and appalling ; and this state of 
 things will continue on to the end. The king- 
 dom of Christ is to be firmly established only 
 at his second coming. The coming of the Lord 
 in all his glory, and the setting-up of his 
 kingdom, are to be contemporaneous. When 
 the comparatively small number of the elect 
 shall have been gathered in under this dispensa- 
 tion, then is the sign to appear in the heavens ; 
 and the power of Christ in a new moral system 
 is to complete what his grace has failed to 
 accomplish in this." 
 
 This, if I understand it, is a fair statement of 
 
100 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 the millennarian theory of missions and the con- 
 version of the world ; and I have given it this 
 full representation, because of the prominence 
 with which, in certain quarters, it is now held. 
 So startling a position, so gravely taken by such 
 careful students and devout believers of the 
 Bible, needs our close attention. Do the sacred 
 Scriptures warrant any such conclusion ? Are 
 we, on a fair interpretation of the Bible, to stop 
 short in our missionary enterprise, and confess 
 our mistake ? or do the Scriptures urge us for- 
 ward in the work of preaching the gospel to the 
 nations ^ and do they encourage the hope of the 
 world's conversion in this way .'* 
 
 This much is clear at the outset, and is every- 
 where admitted to be the teaching of Scripture, 
 — the present corruption and alienation of men 
 from God is to cease ; the opposition to God's 
 sovereignty now existing is in some way to 
 be overcome; the world is to be converted. 
 " All the ends of the world shall remember and 
 turn unto the Lord ; and all the kindreds of the 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. lOI 
 
 nations shall worship before thee." * '' For the 
 earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the 
 glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." f 
 " For from the rising of the sun even unto the 
 going down of the same, my name shall be great 
 among the Gentiles ; and in every place incense 
 shall be offered unto my name, and a pure offer- 
 ing : for my name shall be great among the 
 heathen, saith the Lord of hosts." $ These are 
 too clear to be mistaken ; but the question still 
 returns, By whom, and in what way, shall this 
 great change be wrought ? 
 
 It is certainly clear from the Scriptures that 
 the efficient agent in the work is God himself. 
 The individual heart, we are clearly taught, is 
 renewed only by a divine power. It is to God 
 that the prayer is to be offered. Create in me 
 a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within 
 me.§ It is God alone who can say, I will give 
 unto them a new heart. || 
 
 * Ps. xxii. 27. J Mai. i. 11. 
 
 t Hab. ii. 14. § Ps. li. 10. 
 
 11 Ezek. xxxvi. 26. q« 
 
102 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 " As many as received him, to them gave he 
 power to become the sons of God, even to them 
 that beheve on his name ; which were born, not 
 of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the 
 will of man, but of God."* "For we are his 
 workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good 
 works, which God hath before ordained that we 
 should walk in them." f " So then it is not of 
 him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but 
 of God that showeth mercy." f " Not by works 
 of righteousness which we have done, but 
 according to his mercy he saved us, by the 
 washing of regeneration, and renewing of the 
 Holy Ghost." § " Who then is Paul, and who is 
 ApoUos, but ministers by whom ye believed, 
 even as the Lord gave to every man } I have 
 planted, Apollos watered ; but God gave the 
 increase." || 
 
 The heart is the chaos formless and void 
 until the Spirit of God broodeth upon it ; and 
 
 * John i. 12, 13. t Eph. ii. 10. } Rom. ix. 16. 
 § Tit. iii. 5. II I Cor. iii. 5, 6. 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. IO3 
 
 darkness is upon the face of its depths until 
 God saith, Let there be light. But as the cor- 
 ruption of society is only the outgrowth and the 
 exhibition of the corruption of the heart, and as 
 all social changes only represent, and are pro- 
 duced by, changes in individual character, so the 
 conversion of the world is only the conversion 
 of individual souls ; and the efficient agent in it, 
 therefore, must be God alone. But the Bible 
 does not leave us to a mere inference of this 
 sort. It abounds in direct statements which 
 declare the same. " Thy people shall be willing 
 in the day of thy power." * " And I will break 
 the bow and the sword and the battle out of the 
 earth, and will make them to lie down safely." t 
 *' Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift 
 up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my 
 standard to the people." J "I the Lord will 
 hasten it in his time."§ *' And I will set my 
 glory among the heathen, and all the heathen 
 shall see my judgment that I have executed, 
 
 * Ps. ex. 3. t Hos. ii. 18. X Isa. xHx. 22. § Isa. Ix. 22. 
 
104 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 and my hand that I have laid upon them." * 
 " Moreover I will make a covenant of peace 
 with them ; and I will place them, and multiply 
 them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of 
 them forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be 
 with them : yea, I will be their God, and they 
 shall be my people." f 
 
 The force of these teachings is admitted on 
 all hands. Those who deny the peculiar inter- 
 pretation which the millennarian doctrine puts 
 upon such passages affirm as confidently as the 
 millennarians themselves, that, all through the 
 Bible, a divine power is seen to be necessary, 
 and is declared to be the efficient agency in the 
 conversion of souls, or the conversion of the 
 world. But in what way is this power put 
 forth } Does it accompany the preaching of the 
 gospel } and is that the power of God unto sal- 
 vation.? Or is it, as the millennarians claim, 
 through dire providences, through mighty con- 
 vulsions of nature, through disasters, and devas- 
 
 * Ezek. xxxix. 21. t Ezek. xxxvii. 26, 27. 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. 10$ 
 
 tations of the nations, by fire, by famine, by 
 pestilence, by the sword, that the kingdom and 
 the greatness of the kingdom, under the whole 
 heaven, shall be given to the people of the saints 
 of the most high God ? 
 
 It is doubtless true, that prophecy abounds 
 in predictions of dire events, which, as terrible 
 judgments of Jehovah, precede and accompany 
 the final triumph of the Church. It is also 
 true, that these events are powerful auxiliaries 
 in the advancement of God's kingdom. " For 
 when thy judgments are in the earth," says 
 Isaiah, " the inhabitants of the world will learn 
 righteousness." * But it is equally true, that 
 events prodigiously vast and terrible, in which 
 a divine hand has been conspicuous, and which 
 have mightily aided the progress of the Church, 
 are occurring in our days, as they have occurred 
 all through the Christian history ; and it is pos- 
 sible, at least, that, among the great and terri- 
 ble events which the Scriptures declare shall 
 
 * Isa. xxvi. 9. 
 
I06 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 precede and prepare the way for the triumph of 
 God's kingdom, some of these may be included. 
 But a few years ago, there was brought to a 
 close a gigantic rebellion in China ; and, during 
 the twenty years of its continuance, a careful 
 writer in ^'Fraser's Magazine " * estimates that it 
 caused the death of two hundred millions of 
 human beings ! The destruction of the Jews, 
 the overthrow of the Western Roman empire, 
 the rise of Mohammedanism and the extension 
 of its power, the religious wars connected with 
 the Reformation, the French Revolution, the 
 conflict of Germany with France, and our own 
 conflict with the slave-power, are events worthy 
 of the most appalling descriptions of judgment 
 and devastation which prophecy contains. They 
 are events, too, which, like the things which hap- 
 pened unto Paul, — things which seemed at first 
 only dire, — "have fallen out rather unto the fur- 
 therance of the gospel." f There may be darker 
 and more terrible occurrences in the future than 
 
 * November, 1S70. t Phil. i. 12. 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. IO7 
 
 have yet taken place, and these may prepare 
 the way for more conspicuous triumphs of the 
 gospel than we have yet seen ; we may, perhaps, 
 look for a nation to be born in a day, and the 
 birth may be through a travail whose throes 
 shall convulse the world : but what reason have 
 we to expect that these events of the future, 
 if of grander degree, shall differ in kind from 
 those of the past, when, all along through the 
 history of the Church, it has been the pillar of 
 cloud and of fire in which the Leader of his 
 people has gone before, and guided them unto 
 the inheritance which he has promised and 
 provided ? Through blood and terror, through 
 darkness and sorrow, the Church has gained her 
 victories, and enlarged the reign of peace and 
 hope and light and joy. But, while this is true, 
 we must remember that it is only the power of 
 the truth which has first precipitated the con- 
 flict ; and it is only by the manifestation of the 
 same power, that the results of the conflict are 
 the good we desire. " Think not that I am 
 
I08 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 come to send peace on earth : I came not to 
 send peace, but a sword. For I am come to 
 set a man at variance against his father, and the 
 daughter against her mother, and the daughter- 
 in-law against her mother-in-law. And a man's 
 foes shall be they of his own household." * 
 
 It is the preaching of Christ's gospel, the 
 gospel which proclaims peace, which brings out 
 the opposition which exists, and brings on 
 the struggle which is to be waged between the 
 Church and the world : and it is only by the 
 preaching of the same gospel that this opposi- 
 tion is finally quelled, and the enemy of the 
 truth becomes changed to a friend ; as it is the 
 rising of the sun which calls forth the mists of 
 the morning from the marshes and fens where 
 the night has engendered them, and the upward 
 progress and continued shining of the same sun 
 which dissipates them again. This is the way 
 in which the conversion of the world has taken 
 place in the degree to which it has thus far pro- 
 
 * Matt. X. 34-36. 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. ICQ 
 
 gressed. Why should we expect any different 
 procedure in the future ? Indeed, the prophe- 
 cies which seem to relate more particularly to 
 the final and complete triumph of the Church 
 are clearly susceptible of an interpretation which 
 makes that triumph in the end to hinge, as it 
 has done from the beginning, on the power of 
 God's word, with the added power of his Spirit. 
 Of Him who in righteousness doth judge and 
 make war, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, and 
 who is clothed with a vesture dipped in blood, 
 whom the armies which were in heaven followed, 
 and against whom the beast, and the kings of 
 the earth, and their armies, were gathered to- 
 gether to make war, it is said that " His name is 
 called The Word of God." * " And out of his 
 mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he 
 should smite the nations ; and he shall rule them 
 with a rod of iron ; and he treadeth the wine- 
 press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty 
 God. . . . And the beast was taken, and with 
 
 * Rev. xix. 
 
no CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 him the false prophet that wrought miracles 
 before him, with which he deceived them that 
 had received the mark of the beast, and them 
 that worshipped his image. . . . And the rem- 
 nant were slain with the sword of him that sat 
 upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of 
 his mouth."* This sword — elsewhere f called 
 the sword of the Spirit, the sword forged and 
 furnished by the Spirit — is expressly termed 
 the spoken word of God, J which is quick and 
 powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword. 
 He who speaks this word, out of whose mouth 
 this sword proceedeth, is the Logos, or Word, 
 which was in the beginning with God, and 
 which was God. Other prophetic utterances 
 are in striking accord with this. He by whose 
 coming " the wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, 
 and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and 
 the calf and the young lion and the fatling to- 
 gether, and a little child shall lead them," "shall 
 smite the earth with the rod of his mouth ; and 
 
 * Rev. xix. t Eph. vi. 17. | /3^/za. 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. I I I 
 
 with the breath of his lips shall he slay the 
 wicked." * Again : it is said that ** that Wicked 
 one whom the Lord shall destroy with the 
 brightness of his coming/' " he shall consume 
 with the spirit of his mouth." f In the glorious 
 Person whom John saw in the midst of the seven 
 golden candlesticks, whose countenance was as 
 the sun shineth in his strength, and who had in 
 his right hand seven stars, the one mark, which, 
 from its repetition, seems to have been most 
 conspicuous was, that " out of his mouth went a 
 sharp two-edged sword." | " To the angel of the 
 church in Pergamos write : These things saith he 
 who hath the sharp sword with two edges. . . . 
 Repent ; or else I will come unto thee quickly, 
 and will fight against them with the sword of 
 my mouth." § We need to be most humble and 
 reverent in our interpretation of the grand sym- 
 bols of prophecy, — symbols so grand, that they 
 often dwarf to insignificance all our interpreta- 
 tions of them ; but what other meaning seems 
 
 * Isa. xi. t 2 Thess. ii. 8. J Rev. i. 16. § Ibid. ii. 12, 16. 
 
112 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 SO befitting the majestic imagery here before us, 
 as that which also accords with what we have 
 seen to be true ever since Christ gave his last 
 commission to his disciples, and which points us 
 to the preaching of the gospel, with the power 
 of the Holy Ghost, as the means through which 
 the nations are to be subdued ? 
 
 These two agencies fitly go together, and are 
 continually associated in the Bible and in the 
 history of the Church. To the dry bones which 
 lay in the valley of vision, the prophet was 
 commanded to prophesy, and proclaim the word 
 of the Lord ; and then, as the flesh came upon 
 them, but without the breath of life, he was 
 commanded to prophesy again : " Thus saith the 
 Lord God ; Come from the four winds, O breath, 
 and breathe upon these slain, that they may live. 
 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the 
 breath came into them, and they lived, and stood 
 up upon their feet, an exceeding great army." * 
 Though this figure is expressly referred to the 
 
 * Ezek. xxxvii. 9, 10. 
 
THE MILLENNARTAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. II3 
 
 house of Israel, as typifying their restoration 
 and salvation, the promise is elsewhere dis- 
 tinctly made : " I will pour out my Spirit upon 
 all flesh ; " * and the fulfilment of this promise 
 is claimed by Peter, when, upon the day of Pen- 
 tecost, the disciples were filled with the Holy 
 Ghost, and began to preach with such power, 
 through the demonstration of the Spirit, that 
 there were added to them that same day three 
 thousand souls. The preaching of the gospel is 
 through human agency; but the Divine Spirit 
 accompanies it, and makes it efficacious. The 
 preaching of the gospel is the preaching of 
 God's word ; and thus there is in it a divine ele- 
 ment and power, even though uttered by human 
 lips. The divine agency is all conspicuous in 
 the work. Except the Lord build the house, 
 they labor in vain that build it. Except the 
 Lord keep the city, the watchman laboreth in 
 vain. God is the efficient author of regener- 
 ation, the author and finisher of our faith; 
 
 * Joel ii. 28. 
 
 10* 
 
114 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 not a step can be taken in the world's conver- 
 sion without him. The praise of it, and the 
 glory, are altogether his. But, in that organic 
 fellowship of the saints which his kingdom is to 
 actualize among men, human hearts are knit 
 together in love and sympathy by being co- 
 workers together with him. He associates their 
 agency with his own : *' Go ye into all the world, 
 and preach my gospel to every creature. " And, 
 " Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of 
 the world." The association of this commission 
 with this promise teaches us what the history 
 of the Church has continually illustrated, that 
 Christ's presence in and with his disciples ac- 
 companies their preaching of his gospel. He is 
 with and in them as a living inspiration in their 
 obedience to his command. Their obedience 
 merits nothing. The obedience, indeed, follows, 
 and neither precedes nor procures, the inspira- 
 tion. But in that mysterious fellowship of the 
 Christian disciple with his Lord, wherein we 
 are united to him as the branches are united 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIOxNS. II5 
 
 to the vine, though it is the life of the vine 
 which gives all their vigor and growth to the 
 branches, yet the vigor and growth of the 
 branches draw more and more from the life- 
 sustaining power of the vine ; and the fulness 
 which they receive from it, therefore, is propor- 
 tioned to the fulness with which they respond 
 to its quickening influence. Every obedience 
 of the disciple is from some prior inspiration 
 of his Lord ; but every obedience draws in 
 some fresh inspiration, which is to him a closer 
 fellowship, and which furnishes him for some 
 higher service. The work which we do in God's 
 kingdom, he requires of us not so much for his 
 sake as for ours. It is not he who needs it, but 
 ourselves. We do not grow, we cannot live, save 
 in obedience to him. The river of the water of 
 pur life, clear as crystal, proceedeth only from 
 his throne.* His commandments are benedic- 
 tions ; and obedience to them is the enlargement 
 of our capacity, and the opening of deeper 
 
 * Rev. xxii. i. 
 
Il6 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 channels through which his blessings can flow 
 upon us, and therefore they are enjoined. The 
 works of holy love to which his love incites us 
 mark steps of progress in the spiritual life ; but 
 the solemn truth is clear, alike from the Chris- 
 tian experience and from the Bible, that failure 
 in these works marks not a stationary stage, but 
 steps of retrogression. " Faith, if it hath not 
 works, is dead, being alone. . . For as the body 
 without the spirit is dead, so faith without works 
 is dead also." * The Church gains strength, 
 enlargement, purity, only as she does her Lord's 
 will, only as she associates herself with him in 
 the great work of seeking and saving the lost 
 for which he came. It is not simply, therefore, 
 a question for the Church, whether missions are 
 a hopeful means for the salvation of the world, 
 her own salvation is intimately involved in the 
 missionary cause. Fancying that she is the 
 elect, with no mission to work for the extension 
 of his kingdom, but only to wait till he shalj 
 
 * James ii. 17, 26. 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. 11/ 
 
 appear, she has reason to look well to her own 
 state, lest she herself become a reprobate and a 
 castaway. 
 
 When the proposition was before the Massa- 
 chusetts Senate to incorporate the American 
 Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, 
 and the objection was made, that we had so little 
 religion at home, that we could not afford to 
 send any abroad ; it was replied, that religion 
 was a commodity of which the more we exported, 
 the more we had left behind. The answer was 
 a sound one : it has already been justified by 
 the facts. Those branches of the Church which 
 are strongest at home are those which are most 
 efficient in carrying the gospel abroad. The 
 increase of grace to ourselves comes from the 
 diffusion of that which we possess. " There is 
 that scattereth, and yet increaseth ; and there is 
 that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tend- 
 eth to poverty."* The light ceaseth to be 
 light when it ceaseth to shine. "Ye are the 
 
 * Prov. xi. 24. 
 
Il8 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 light of the world. . . . Neither do men light 
 a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a 
 candlestick ; and it giveth light unto all that are 
 in the house." * 
 
 The failure of the Church in many parts of 
 the Christian world to engage in the work of 
 evangelizing the nations has resulted in spiritual 
 apathy and loss of power. Indifference within 
 the Church to the conversion of the world begets 
 infidelity outside, and overwhelms the Church 
 with reproaches which she has no means to 
 repel. The Church cannot stand still as long as 
 there is any progress for her to make ; and she 
 may never stay at home till her home embraces 
 the world. Some years since, a home mission- 
 ary in Oregon wrote to the East, " Our purpose 
 is, to begin to think and feel and act for the 
 world, and then we shall be aroused to act for 
 our country and for ourselves. He who works 
 well in the gospel must work on the world plan 
 of the gospel." The truth of this view is seen 
 
 * Matt. V. 14, 15. 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. II9 
 
 from the whole experience of the Church ever 
 since she began to offer the prayer of the 
 Psalmist, " God be merciful unto us, and bless 
 us, . . . that thy way may be known upon earth, 
 and thy saving health among all nations." * 
 
 The work of missions is worth to the Church 
 not only all that it has cost, but infinitely more. 
 And, in saying this, I do not forget what it has 
 cost. I remember the sainted ones of whom 
 the world was not worthy, whose lives have been 
 consumed in this sacred cause. I remember 
 their sacrifices, the burdens and toils to which 
 they have submitted, constrained by their love 
 of Christ and their zeal for his kingdom. But 
 when I think of the energy and patience and 
 faith, the self-forgetfulness and self-devotion, 
 which the Church has shown in her missionary 
 work, precious as is the offering, I cannot but 
 feel that the Church is inexpressibly richer for 
 the grace which has permitted her to render it. 
 How her faith has been strengthened in the 
 
 * Ps. Ixvii. I, 2. 
 
120 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 process ! How her love for Christ, and for souls 
 whom Christ has loved, has thereby deepened, 
 and grown more absorbing ! How Christian 
 hearts have thus been knit together, revealing, 
 as in no other way, the oneness of the members 
 of Christ's body with each other and with their 
 ever-living Head! What new views of the 
 glory of Christ, and the all-sufficiency of his 
 atonement, and the power of his renewing 
 grace, have thus been beheld by the Church, and 
 disclosed to the world ! What an irrefutable 
 answer to all infidelity, what a triumphant affir- 
 mation of her divine origin and claims, does the 
 Church possess in these annals of the patience 
 and the faith of her saints ! " He that goeth 
 forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall 
 di ubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing 
 his sheaves with him." * The Church is richer, 
 incalculably richer, by all her sacrifices. The 
 true economy of Christian labor is its widest 
 possible diffusion. 
 
 * Ps. cxxvi. 6. 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. 121 
 
 The missionary spirit is the normal develop- 
 ment of the Christian life. As it grows, the 
 Church grows in purity and power and all 
 Christian efficiency. That the work of missions 
 does not diminish the work of the Christian 
 laborer at home, but that this is rendered easier 
 and far more efficient through the mighty reflex 
 influence which comes from the Christian labor- 
 ers abroad, our own churches have too clear 
 evidence to doubt. Not only do the great be- 
 nevolent societies through whose agency Amer- 
 ican Christians are working with such success 
 — the Sunday School Union, the Tract Society, 
 the Education Society, the Bible Society, the 
 Seaman's Friend Society, the Home Missionary 
 Society — follow promptly, in the order of time, 
 the organization of the American Board of 
 Commissioners for Foreign Missions ; but the 
 impulse to the foreign missionary work was 
 really the source of all these other enterprises. 
 And that unprecedented enlargement of the 
 Church which the present century has disclosed 
 
122 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 within our own borders — by which, notwith- 
 standing our great foreign immigration, and our 
 acquisition of Texas and California and New 
 Mexico, the membership of our Protestant evan- 
 gehcal churches has increased since 1800 two and 
 a half times faster than the population — is most 
 interestingly connected with this growing mis- 
 sionary spirit, which has been continually stimu- 
 lating our activity at home, and continually 
 receiving from this activity a fresh increase for 
 itself in return. 
 
 That the evangelization of the nations is not 
 a hopeless undertaking, as our millennarian 
 brethren claim, nor one which the Church is not 
 competent to accomplish speedily, is quite clear 
 from the present condition and recent history of 
 missions. The history of moderns missions 
 does not yet reach three-fourths of a century. 
 In 1790 only two Protestant missionary societies 
 were in existence, — the Society of the Mora- 
 vians, and that for the Propagation of the Gospel 
 in Foreign Parts, neither of which dates farther 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. 123 
 
 back than earlier in that century. William 
 Carey, a Baptist clergyman, born at Nottingham, 
 Eng., 176:, is properly termed the pioneer of 
 modern missions. But when he first proposed, 
 at a ministers' meeting of which he was a 
 member, as a topic of discussion, the duty of 
 Christians to attempt the spread of the gospel 
 among heathen nations, the venerable Dr. 
 Ryland, presiding officer of the meeting, re- 
 ceived the proposition with astonishment and 
 indignation. *' Young man, sit down," said he. 
 " When God pleases to convert the heathen, he 
 will do it without your aid or mine." There 
 was only one minister in London, the venerable 
 John Newton, from whom Carey found the 
 least sympathy. When, in 1796, two overtures 
 in behalf of foreign missions were laid before 
 the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, 
 the scheme was denounced as "highly dangerous 
 to the good order of society," and was rejected 
 mainly on the ground " that it was improper and 
 absurd to propagate the gospel abroad, while 
 
124 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 there remained a single individual at home 
 without the means of religious knowledge." 
 
 When those earnest Christian students in 
 Williams College, into whose hearts there was 
 breathed a new sense of duty in behalf of the 
 world's conversion, formed themselves into a 
 society, whose object they declared to be " to 
 effect in the persons of its members a mission 
 or missions to the heathen," so strongly was 
 public opinion opposed to such an undertaking, 
 that lest they should be thought rashly impru- 
 dent, and so should injure the cause they wished 
 to promote, they adopted as Article Four of 
 their organization, that "the existence of this 
 society shall be kept secret." Having before us 
 such displays of missionary activity and zeal as 
 characterize the present time, with thirty-three 
 Protestant societies in Europe, and fifteen in 
 A-merica, sending out more than eighteen hun- 
 dred foreign missionaries, sustaining fourteen 
 thousand Christian laborers in foreign fields, all 
 told, and contributing to their support more than 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. 12$ 
 
 five million dollars per year, the whole Christian 
 Church thrilled and kindled to so large a degree 
 with the purpose to evangelize the world, we 
 find it difficult, almost impossible, to imagine 
 the indifference and the opposition to the cause 
 of missions only seventy years ago. There are 
 now, in different parts of the world, more than 
 fifteen hundred Bible societies, all of which have 
 been organized since 1804, all having for their 
 sole aim to put these glad tidings of great joy 
 in the languages and the hands of all people. 
 These societies have issued, within the last 
 seventy years, more than a hundred and thirty- 
 five million copies of the Sacred Word, in lan- 
 guages spoken by the vast majority of mankind. 
 Two of these societies alone — the British and 
 Foreign and the American Bible Society — are 
 printing now and circulating, on an average, over 
 ten thousand copies of the Scriptures per day, 
 or three millions a year, in various tongues, — all 
 this, besides the multitudes of copies published 
 b}! private firms and other agencies. Never, not 
 
126 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 even in apostolic times, has the Church exercised 
 any thing like such zeal and energy for the con- 
 version of the world as now ; and never has there 
 been an approach to such efficiency of results as 
 the present century reveals. 
 
 There were, probably, not twenty versions of 
 the Scriptures, all told, at the end of the first 
 thousand years of the Christian era : now there 
 are two hundred and seventy-four. I have re- 
 cently read in " The Indian Evangelical Review " * 
 an estimate by which it appears, that, at the end 
 of the first Christian century, there were not half 
 as many Christians on the globe as are found 
 to-day in India from less than a hundred years 
 of missionary effort. In Madagascar alone, a 
 nation of five milHons of people, there has been 
 wrought, in the last fifty years, as complete a 
 revolution as was found in the Roman empire 
 down to the time of Constantine. Missionary 
 efforts have never been so numerous or so 
 earnest, and their numerical successes never so 
 
 * Vol. i. No. 2, p. 140. 
 
THE MILLENNARIAN THEORY OF MISSIONS. 1 2/ 
 
 great, as at the present time. While we must 
 not take to ourselves any self-gratulation for 
 this ; while it behooves the Church to be hum- 
 ble, and to recognize the source of all this 
 movement, as found alone in the quickening in- 
 spiration of her Lord, — it does become her to 
 welcome with gratitude the fruits of this inspi- 
 ration, and find in it, also, new zeal for larger 
 efforts, and new hope for grander success. The 
 Church, therefore, which withdraws from mis- 
 sionary operations, and waits for some millennial 
 advent of her Lord, is one whose eyes are 
 holden, like the disciples on the way to Emmaus, 
 not knowing that the Lord is verily risen, has 
 already come, and is even now walking by their 
 side. Oh for the opened eye to behold him, and 
 the kindling inspiration which the knowledge of 
 his presence gives ! 
 
FIFTH LECTURE. 
 
 THE TRUE METHOD OF MISSIONARY OPERATIONS. 
 
 But if it be true that Christian influences 
 are the only, and, at the same time, the all-suf- 
 ficient means for the world's conversion, there 
 may still be a question as to the best method of 
 employing these. There is a broad distinction 
 between the Romish and the Protestant method 
 of carrying Christianity to the nations, and also 
 an important difference in the actual procedure 
 among Protestants themselves. Protestantism 
 teaches that the soul, only by a living faith in 
 Christ, becomes a member of the Church ; while 
 the doctrine of Romanism always has been that 
 the Church is first, and that union with it pre- 
 cedes, and is in order to, any union with Christ. 
 Hence the Romish method of missions is to 
 128 
 
MISSIONARY METHODS. 1 29 
 
 convey Christianity to the heathen world by 
 estabhshing there the forms and ordinances of 
 the Romish Church. It is not by the preaching 
 of Christ and the cross, but by baptism and 
 penance and priestly rites, that Romanism 
 expects to save the world. It carries with it, 
 to a new field, precisely the same agencies 
 which it maintains where it has been longest 
 known. As Cardinal Wiseman has said, " We 
 give not the word of God indiscriminately to all, 
 because God himself has not so given it. We 
 do not permit the indiscriminate and undirected 
 use of the Bible, because God has not given to 
 his Church the instinct to do so ; " * as Pope 
 Gregory VII. declared, that "it is pleasing to 
 Almighty God that his sacred worship should 
 be performed in an unknown tongue, in order 
 that the whole world, and especially the most 
 simple, may not be able to understand it ; " f 
 and as this has been the view of Rome all 
 llong, — we should not expect the Bible and 
 
 * Bib. Sac, April, 1S60, art. v. t Ibid. 
 
I30 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 spiritual agencies to be foremost in Romish mis- 
 sions. As Romanism always seeks to maintain 
 itself by formal observances, by authority, by 
 physical or secular power, we are not surprised 
 to find that it was a maxim of Francis Xavier, 
 "that missionaries without muskets do never 
 make converts to any purpose;" the truth of 
 which maxim, another missionary Jesuit tells 
 us, " is confirmed by universal experience ; for 
 neither in the Brazils, Peru, Mexico, Florida, the 
 Philippines, or Molucca, have any conversions 
 been made without the help of the secular 
 powers."* Processions, much pageantry, the 
 representation of symbols, appeals to the eye 
 rather than to the ear, and especially the ad- 
 ministration of baptism, are, besides the secular 
 power, the chief agencies employed in Romish 
 missions. " I have made Christians," f was 
 Xavier's favorite expression when he had bap- 
 tized infants, or taught adults to repeat the pre- 
 scribed formularies. To baptize infants, where- 
 
 * Venn's I ife of Xavier, p. 528. t Venn, p. 38. 
 
MISSIONARY METHODS. I3I 
 
 ever it could be done, and to regard, as was 
 Xavier's custom, all under fourteen years of age 
 as infants, and fit subjects for the rite; to pur- 
 chase the opportunity for baptism by bribes, or 
 to force it by terror or physical power, "driv- 
 ing them to baptism," in the words of one Jesuit 
 writer, " as beasts are driven to the water," * — 
 is the Romish method of saving souls. 
 
 The annals of the Society for the Propaga- 
 tion of the Faith report baptisms by the hun- 
 dred thousand in a single year, of children of 
 Pagans in danger of death. " By means of four 
 pounds given to our baptizcrs," writes the apos- 
 tolic vicar from China, " we can regenerate three 
 or four hundred children, more or less, two-thirds 
 of whom go almost immediately to heaven. 
 Urge, therefore, the rich to open their purses. 
 Tell all who desire to draw large interest for 
 their capital, to send their money to Su-tchuen, 
 where twenty sous produce annually two treas- 
 ures by effecting the redemption of two souls. 
 
 * Missionary World, p. Si. 
 
132 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 It was not our salaried baptizers alone that con- 
 ferred baptism upon 94,131 children of Pagans 
 who were in danger of death ; but we unceas- 
 ingly exhort the pious and intelligent faithful 
 to go to the relief of children in the neighbor- 
 hood who are threatened v/ith being lost. It is 
 these gratuitous auxiliaries that annually swell 
 so high the total number of little Chinese bap- 
 tized in danger of death." * 
 
 The results of such a method of missionary 
 operations may be stated in the language of the 
 Romish missionaries themselves. In one of 
 Xavier's letters to a brother missionary in Trav- 
 ancore, he writes, " If you will, in imagination, 
 search through India, you will find that few will 
 reach heaven, either of whites or blacks, except 
 those who depart this life under fourteen years 
 of age, with their baptismal innocence still upon 
 them." t The Abbe Du Bois, himself a Romish 
 missionary in Mysore, declares that Xavier, 
 " being disheartened by the invincible obstacles 
 
 * Missionary World, p. 81. f Life, p. 156. 
 
MISSIONARY METHODS. I33 
 
 he everywhere met in his apostolic caieer, and 
 by the apparent impossibility of making real 
 converts, left India in disgust/' * Another 
 Roman-Catholic writer, describing the work of 
 Romish missions in the Philippine Islands, says 
 that " little, if any thing, has been done for the 
 prosperity and development of the country, or 
 for the intellectual and moral advancement of 
 the people ; " and that "there, apparently, as in 
 the other earlier dependencies of Spain, the 
 Roman-Catholic ritual has become mingled in 
 the most extraordinary manner with ceremonies 
 borrowed from Paganism." f 
 
 Another Jesuit missionary declares, of the 
 converts in the field with which he was conver- 
 sant, " that they had scarcely any thing belong- 
 ing to Christianity, besides the bare name of 
 Christians ; that they only minded the name they 
 received in baptism, and, not long after, forgot 
 that too." X The testimony of Protestant ob- 
 
 * Anderson, For. Miss., p. 27S. t Venn, p. 316. 
 t Miss. World, p. 82. 
 12 
 
134 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 servers is to the same effect. The secretary of 
 the London Missionary Society, whose oppor- 
 tunities for judging were most ample, de- 
 clares of the Romish converts in Southern 
 \ndia, that, " except as to name, they were ex- 
 actly and in every respect the same heathen 
 Pariahs as they were before." * While the 
 Roman-Catholic mission in the kingdom of 
 Kongo had full sway for two centuries under 
 Portuguese protection, yet, when that protection 
 ceased, the mission perished, and left, according 
 to the statement of Wilson in his "Western 
 Africa," "the unfortunate inhabitants of that 
 country in as deep ignorance and superstition as, 
 and perhaps in greater poverty and degradation 
 than, they would have been if Roman Catholi- 
 cism had never been proclaimed among them."f 
 During the hundred and forty years in which 
 Romish missions were tolerated in China, five 
 hundred missionaries were sent from Europe to 
 China. But says Dr. Wells Williams, a man of 
 
 * Miss, in S. India, p. 34. t p. 329. 
 
MISSIONARY METHODS. 1 35 
 
 singular clearness in his judgment, and accuracy 
 of statement, " What salutary effect has this 
 large body of Christians wrought in the vast 
 population of China ? None, absolutely none, 
 that attract attention. While many of their 
 converts exhibited the greatest constancy in 
 their profession, suffering persecution, torture, 
 imprisonment, banishment, and death, rather 
 than deny their faith, the mass of the Romish 
 converts in China can hardly be considered to 
 have been much better than baptized Pagans." * 
 Very little hope of good can therefore be based 
 upon the success of Romish missions. They 
 have had the grandest opportunity ; they have 
 had means of money, and men without stint ; 
 they have been conducted with an energy and 
 ceal, and often with a self-devotion, to which the 
 ribute of our admiration should not hz wanting : 
 jut as they have not wrought with t hat Chris- 
 tian power which produces purity of heart ; as 
 their baptismal regenerations, so lavishly con- 
 
 * Middle Kingdom, vol. ii. p. 324. 
 
136 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 ferred, have not been followed by newness of 
 life, — we must believe that the extension of 
 Christianity is something other than the spread 
 of the peculiarities and practices of the Romish 
 Church, and that the conversion of the world 
 to Christ demands quite another method of 
 missionary operations than theirs. 
 
 The method of Protestant missions is a very 
 different one, and grows out of the cardinal 
 doctrine of Protestantism itself. This is not, 
 as too often stated, a protest against Romish 
 authority. In so far as it is a protest, it is a 
 protest against the Romish doctrine of salvation. 
 In the Romish doctrine, salvation is always 
 made dependent upon external forms and 
 priestly mediation: it is to be sought by pen- 
 ances and rites, by bodily mortification, by 
 works which men can do, rather than by the 
 grace which God alone can give. But the great 
 thought of the Reformation was, that our own 
 works cannot justify us before God ; that the 
 righteousness by which we can stand approved in 
 
MISSIONARY METHODS. 1 3/ 
 
 his sight is not in us, but in Christ ; that faith in 
 the crucified Christ can alone give us forgiveness 
 of sins, and the indwelHng of the Holy Ghost ; 
 in a word, that salvation is not wrought by man, 
 ourselves, or others, but is a free gift, through the 
 all-perfect work of the divine Redeemer. This, 
 from the time of the Reformation, has been the 
 essential element of Protestantism, and is still 
 the one point wherein its distinction from the 
 Papacy is most clearly to be noted. Tl" Roman- 
 ist still, as of old, maintains that the Church is 
 the necessary means for faith ; that only by the 
 Church can the soul come to Christ ; while Prot- 
 estantism now, as ever, declares that the soul 
 can only be a member of Christ's body as it 
 partakes of his life and spirit ; that it can only 
 come to the Church as it has first come to him. 
 In a word. Protestantism makes religion a per- 
 sonal concern of the individual subject, while 
 Romanism sinks the individual in the body of 
 the Church. 
 
 This radical difference of doctrine illustrates 
 
 13* 
 
138 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 exactly the difference between Protestant and 
 Romish missions. Protestant missions do not 
 begin by imposing the forms, and administering 
 the ordinances, of the Church ; but they seek the 
 conversion and new Ufe of individual souls. 
 They take the Bible; they preach the gospel; 
 they attempt to give the knowledge of salvation 
 through Jesus Christ alone. If there were any 
 doubt about the propriety of this method, such 
 doubts must disappear, and the method can be 
 seen to have its sufficient justification, in the 
 actual results of Protestant missions, as already 
 seen in these lectures. 
 
 But on the Protestant ground there is an 
 important question, upon which a wide difference 
 of opinion and method actually exists among 
 Protestant missionaries and Protestant friends 
 of missions. There is no difference of view 
 among evangelical Protestants as to the grand 
 aim of missions, and the comprehensive means 
 in accomplishing it. That the conversion of the 
 world is the end sought, and the preaching of 
 
.MISSIONARY METHODS. 1 39 
 
 the gospel the means thereto, all agree. But shall 
 we take the gospel at the outset, and proclaim 
 it to the heathen just as soon as we can utter it } 
 or shall we, rather, seek to prepare them for its 
 reception by a prior course of instruction in 
 other things .-* Shall we educate them in order 
 to Christianize them } or shall we seek to Chris- 
 tianize them first, leaving education to follow as 
 it may } This is a different question from the one 
 we have already discussed respecting education. 
 We have seen that education as such has no 
 purifying power. An increase of intelligence is 
 not necessarily accompanied by an increase of 
 virtue. The grosser and more revolting forms 
 of vice may disappear from view in a more 
 refined and cultured society, while still the 
 selfishness and sensuality of the soul remain 
 unchecked, and even become more intensely 
 dominant. But may not education in the hands 
 of the missionary, education accompanied by 
 Christian teaching, be the means of reaching 
 those to whom the missionary might have no 
 
140 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 Other way of access ? When we go to the 
 heathen who have attained a certain degree of 
 civiHzation, as the Japanese, the Chinese, and 
 the Hindus, and who might thus be attracted 
 by opportunities for education when direct 
 Christian influence would be repulsive, should 
 we not set up schools, whose pupils, brought 
 thus under our instruction in letters and science, 
 we might be able also to instruct in divine 
 things ? The question is a difficult one ; and 
 directly opposite answers are given it by Prot- 
 estant missionaries, accompanied by correspond- 
 ingly divergent methods in Protestant missions. 
 
 It is admitted, on all hands, that the apostolic 
 method was that of direct evangelization. The 
 apostles did not plant schools. They preached 
 the gospel, and planted churches, and, so far as 
 we can learn, they left all questions of educa- 
 tion to adjust themselves as the new spirit 
 which followed their labors would direct. 
 
 But though there is no question that they 
 began and continued and finished their mission 
 
MISSIONARY METHODS. I4I 
 
 in directly proclaiming Christ, not finding any 
 educational or other work a necessary prelimi- 
 nary to the preaching of the gospel, it is said 
 that "the apostles were men raised up at a 
 special time, and for a special service ; and it 
 does not follow, that, because twelve or fourteen 
 of Christ's first disciples were chosen from the 
 rest for a special service, therefore all his work- 
 ing disciples in after-ages should do exactly as 
 they did." * " There are many aids in the hands 
 of the modern missionary which were not in ex- 
 istence at the time of the apostles : we may not 
 argue, therefore, too closely from apostolic pro- 
 cedure." I give the position just as it is taken ; 
 but, after all, it must be regarded as a very 
 striking fact, that Paul, writing to the Corinthi- 
 ans what the spirit of inspiration must have 
 directed also for the instruction of the whole 
 Church in all after-time, should say, "And I, 
 brethren, when I came to you, came not with 
 excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring 
 
 * Allahabad Conference, p. 114 : Mr. Miller's paper. 
 
142 CIiraSTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 unto you the testimony of God. For I de- 
 termined not to know any thing among you, save 
 Jesus Christ, and him crucified. . . . And my 
 speech and my preaching was not with enticing 
 words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration 
 of the Spirit and of power : that your faith 
 should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in 
 the power of God." * 
 
 The wisdom of men, the enticing words of 
 man's wisdom, would seem, from the whole tenor 
 of this passage, and that which precedes it, to 
 mean persuasions addressed to the intellect in 
 the effort thus to reach and renovate the inner 
 life. It might be urged, with considerable force, 
 that this would fairly include efforts of what- 
 ever sort, to educate men, as a preliminary step 
 to their conversion, and, if this be so, Paul not 
 only renounced such efforts in his own pro- 
 cedure, but sets them before us as something 
 which others should equally eschew. 
 
 The more carefully we look at Paul's method 
 
 * I Cor. ii. I, 2, 4, 5. 
 
MISSIONARY METHODS. I43 
 
 of preaching the gospel to the heathen, the more 
 clearly shall we see how profoundly it was 
 adapted, not only to the wants of his time, but 
 of all time. Paul did not discard education, nor 
 consider the culture or the speculations of the 
 intellect as of no concern ; but he took up these 
 afterwards. He began with the preaching of 
 Christ. Until the heathen could know him, he 
 determined not to know any thing among them, 
 save Jesus Christ and him crucified ; that their 
 faith might not stand in the wisdom of men, but 
 in the power of God. But, when this was accom- 
 plished, he was ready for all such speculations 
 as the great truths he was proclaiming might 
 require. "Howbeit we speak wisdom among 
 them that are perfect, which none of the princes 
 of this world knew." Historically we can say, 
 that education has always followed the preaching 
 of the gospel. The Church has always been the 
 mother of learning. The inspiration of the new 
 life, once enkindled in the soul, quickens the 
 whole man to a new development. The ncv; 
 
144 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 development will, in every case, follow the 
 inspiration of the new life ; but if we seek the 
 development first, whether we succeed in gaining 
 it in this way, or not, we do not thereby make 
 progress towards the inspiration. 
 
 If we are wise, we shall never ignore the great 
 fact that men are not lifted from a lower to a 
 higher plane of life through processes of the 
 understanding, or through any enlightenment or 
 enlargement of the intellectual powers. Men 
 are not perhaps in any thing, certainly in the 
 comprehensive conduct of their life, governed 
 by their understandings. I do not now try 
 to explain the fact : I only state it as within 
 the sight of all. The controlling motives in 
 human conduct do not spring from the intel- 
 lectual side of human nature. We do not love 
 as a process of inference, nor hate as a logical 
 deduction. That which is all clear to the intel- 
 lect may be any thing but cogent to the heart 
 and to the will. 
 
 The only motive which can move a will is 
 
MISSIONARY METHODS. I45 
 
 either a will itself, or something into which a 
 will enters. It is not a thought, but only a sen- 
 timent, a deed, or a person, by which we become 
 truly inspired. It is not the intellect, but the 
 heart and the will, through which and by which 
 we are controlled. It is not the precepts of life, 
 but life itself, by which alone we are begotten, 
 and born unto life. 
 
 Now, there are two ways in which living 
 power, personal power, the power of a will, may 
 enter a soul, and give it life : the one is when 
 God's will works upon us ; and the other, when 
 o^ir wills work upon one another. God's will 
 ii>ay directly penetrate ours, enabling us to will 
 and to do of his good pleasure ; and our own 
 wills, thus inspired, may be the torch to kindle 
 other wills with the same inspiration. It is in 
 only one of these two ways that a human soul 
 can be truly inspired; and, without a true inspira- 
 tion, no amount of instruction, whether in duty 
 or life, or any thing else, will change a single 
 moral propensity. 
 
 «3 
 
146 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 Can, therefore, schools, or colleges, or educa- 
 tional influences of any sort, whether in Chris- 
 tian or unchristian lands, operate as an agency 
 for the improvement of human character, save 
 as they bring directly before the mind, first, last, 
 and midst and without end, the personal will of 
 God as expressed and made mighty in the liv- 
 ing Christ and the living Christian ? If mission 
 schools, therefore, are properly to be started 
 among the heathen, they should not be under- 
 taken as a preparation, but as a place, for the 
 preaching of the gospel. If required as a pre- 
 paratory step to something better, it is not to 
 be denied that they may easily become prepara- 
 tory steps to something worse. If the mis- 
 sionary spends his time in teaching the ignorant 
 to read, this acquisition may enable them to 
 read the Bible, and good books, it is true ; but 
 it is equally true that it may furnish them 
 acquaintance, also, with books of another and 
 a contrary nature. And if only the intellect has 
 become enlightened, and the heart still remains 
 
MISSIONARY METHODS. I47 
 
 unchanged in its corruption, will they not be 
 just as likely, to say the least, to read the bad 
 as the good ? and thus may not their intellec- 
 tual quickening, if this is all that has been done, 
 prove a curse, instead of a blessing ? There is 
 abundant ground for such an inquiry. In 
 " The Indian Evangelical Review," in an article 
 upon Education in Bengal, I find the following : 
 " When educated, what do the people read } 
 The issue of books and pamphlets is increasing 
 yearly at an enormous rate ; but very few of even 
 the best vernacular books are free from obscen- 
 ity. The great mass of novels, dramas, and 
 poetical works now published in Bengal, is dis- 
 tressingly corrupt and filthy. Immoral books 
 and pamphlets are obtained easily by the pupils 
 in the schools and colleges, and circulate freely 
 among them. Book-hawkers find admission to 
 the families of the respectable classes, and 
 supply the females with the filthiest trash. 
 And, as the reading power of the country 
 is increased, this vile stream, if allowed to flow 
 
148 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 on unchecked, will deposit its contaminating 
 filth over a wider surface. Of a certainty, this 
 matter demands the profound attention of the 
 educators of the people." * 
 
 Schools where converts are instructed, and 
 thus trained for usefulness, are, of course, well, 
 and may demand the missionary's careful atten- 
 tion ; but is it a wise expenditure of missionary 
 energy to educate heathen minds in a way 
 which, in the language of a speaker at the Alla- 
 habad Conference, " sets them the more against 
 us, and gives them a club to break our heads " } f 
 This is a danger, surely, to be guarded against ; 
 and is it not one always to be apprehended, 
 when we use any other weapon in the great 
 conflict of the Church and the world than the 
 sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God } 
 I would speak with diffidence upon this point ; 
 for I know there are accomplished educators at 
 home, and very successful missionaries abroad, 
 who affirm a different opinion : but I cannot 
 
 * Number for October, 1873, P- 164. t Proceedings, p. 121. 
 
MISSIONARY METHODS. I49 
 
 shut out the conviction, that while a Christian 
 influence, wherever effective, will lead to educa- 
 tion, yet education itself, not only does not Chris- 
 tianize, but may have a result which is positively 
 unchristian. It is true that converts are often 
 gathered from mission schools ; but I think no 
 one would doubt that this is always the result 
 of the Christian teaching which those schools 
 enjoy ; and I must believe, that, if the efforts 
 employed in teaching letters and science to un- 
 converted Pagans had been wholly expended in 
 the teaching of Christ, still larger results would 
 have been seen. If we should go to the heathen 
 as Paul did, determined not to know any thing 
 among them save Jesus Christ, and him cruci- 
 fied, attempting no schools for the unconverted, 
 but establishing these only to train those who 
 have become Christ's disciples for the new 
 work, in the new relations of life unto which 
 they are called, speaking wisdom among them 
 that are perfect, I cannot but believe that the 
 number would be immeasurably increased of 
 13* 
 
150 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 those whose faith should stand, not in the wis- 
 dom of men, but in the power of God. This I 
 believe, because of the great truth, which we 
 cannot too largely consider, that the preaching 
 of the gospel is in reality not the proclamation 
 of a doctrine, but the holding-up of a life. The 
 gospel is not a theory, but a history. Its truths 
 are historical facts, and therefore cannot be ex- 
 pressed in abstract statements which the under- 
 standing or the imagination can exhaust. They 
 reach the will, and have a power to constrain 
 conduct, and mould character, because they 
 reveal God's will in his act, in his personal work 
 for man's recovery. 
 
 The gospel is a revelation of what God has 
 done. It is not, therefore, simply a thought, 
 which could never inspire us, but it is a senti- 
 ment, a deed, a living person, with which we are 
 brought face to face in the gospel. The his- 
 torical Christ, who lived and died and rose 
 again, and who ever lives in his disciples, repro- 
 ducing himself in every Christian life, wherever 
 
MISSIONARY METHODS. I5I 
 
 found, and who makes his people thus the in- 
 struments for the inspiration of other souls, he 
 is the wisdom of God, and the power of God, to 
 every one that believeth. When belief is fixed, 
 then we may translate this deed into a doctrine, 
 this personal history into a form upon which the 
 understanding can expatiate ; but this procedure 
 of the understanding has value only as it pro- 
 ceeds from faith. Faith is its source, but not 
 its end. Faith begets all sound speculations of 
 the intellect respecting the historical facts of the 
 gospel ; faith inspires the process whereby the 
 deeds of Christ are translated into the doctrines 
 of the Church ; but faith itself is not begotten 
 in this way. Faith is the gift of God : it is the 
 work of God's Spirit alone ; and it is the divine 
 history, the divine deeds, it is God in Christ, 
 and Christ in the believer, through which the 
 Spirit works ; for said the Lord himself, " When 
 he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide 
 you into all truth : for he shall not speak of 
 himself ... he shall glorify me : for he shall 
 
152 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 receive of mine, and shall show it unto 
 you." * 
 
 This ought to be no strange doctrine to us. 
 The great theme of the early preachers of the 
 gospel was not simply Christ's doctrine, but 
 Christ himself. They did not preach about 
 him so much as they preached him. They 
 ceased not, it is expressly said, to teach and to 
 preach Jesus Christ. Whatever signs the Jews 
 required, whatever wisdom the Greeks sought 
 after, the apostles preached unto them all alike 
 " Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling- 
 block, and unto the Greeks foolishness ; but unto 
 them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, 
 Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of 
 God."t " Some indeed," says Paul, " preach Christ 
 even of envy and strife ; and some also of good 
 will. . . . But what then ? notwithstanding, every 
 way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is 
 preached ; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will 
 rejoice." J This is " the mystery which hath 
 
 * John xvi. 13, 14. t I Cor. i. 23, 24. } Phil. i. 15, 18. 
 
MISSIONARY METHODS. 1 53 
 
 been hid from ages and from generations, but 
 now is made manifest to his saints : to whom God 
 would make known what is the riches of the 
 glory of this mystery among the Gentiles ; which 
 is Christ ir. you, the hope of glory : whom we 
 preach, warning every man, and teaching every 
 man in all wisdom ; that we may present every 
 man perfect in Christ Jesus." * The meaning of 
 all this is not obscure. The historical Christ, 
 the crucified and risen and ever-living Christ, 
 was the one theme of the apostles' preaching. 
 But if their example be not thought sufficiently 
 instructive, if we fancy that God has taught us 
 more, and has put better methods in our 
 thoughts than the apostles in the early days of 
 the preaching of the gospel were able to discern, 
 yet the great truth remains, that it is personal 
 power alone by which persons are moved ; and 
 the human will, whether ignorant or enlightened, 
 needs more than the precepts of life, needs life 
 itself, to kindle it into life. In Christian or un- 
 
 * Col. i. 2(>-28. 
 
154 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 christian lands, therefore, the teaching of schools 
 is alone valuable when applied to cultivate the 
 understanding of those whose wills are already 
 converted, or when penetrated through and 
 through with the preaching of Christ, and him 
 crucified, to those still dead in sin. 
 
SIXTH LECTURE. 
 
 MOTIVES FOR A HIGHER CONSECRATION TO THE 
 MISSIONARY WORK. 
 
 The considerations thus far presented are 
 not sufficient to inspire the Church with the 
 high missionary zeal to which she is sum- 
 moned. The wants of the world are clear; 
 the failure of commerce, arts, institutions, 
 education, to supply these wants, is unmis- 
 takable ; the actual success, as well as the 
 ideal character, of the gospel, puts its adaptation 
 for the great work beyond a doubt ; yet the 
 world will be left to perish, while men will 
 be still seeking to save it by hopeless and help- 
 less devices of their own, and the Church will 
 sink into apathy, or rouse herself only to feeble 
 endeavors, until some more potent motive than 
 
 155 
 
156 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 these shall give her inspiration. Whence shall 
 this motive come ? How shall the Church re- 
 ceive the unclouded face and the quickening 
 energy which shall enable her to look forth as 
 the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, 
 and terrible as an army with banners ? Of 
 course, there is but one comprehensive answer 
 to this inquiry. The Church can arise and shine, 
 her light having come, only as the glory of her 
 Lord shall have risen upon her. He is her life, 
 and she will have energy, endurance, and holy 
 zeal in her great work, only as he gives her his 
 strength and inspiration. But the practical 
 question returns, How shall this be ? Can the 
 Church herself do aught to gain this endow- 
 ment } Must she lie still, and wait for the com- 
 ing of her Lord, expecting no help till he shall 
 bring it, and making no efforts till she shall re- 
 ceive his quickening energy } or can she hasten 
 his advent by any endeavors of her own ? But 
 the Lord is already in the midst of his Church ; 
 and this waiting for his coming only shows that 
 
A HIGHER CONSECRATION. 157 
 
 our eyes are holden, so that we do not see his 
 actual presence. " Lo, I am with you alway, even 
 unto the end of the world," * is the farewell 
 assurance with which he accompanies his last 
 command to his disciples : " Go ye into all the 
 world, and preach the gospel to every creature." 
 " Know ye not your own selves," says Paul to 
 the Corinthians, "how that Jesus Christ is in 
 you, except ye be reprobates ? " f The Church is 
 his body, in which he dwells, and of which he is 
 the head : " For we are members of his body, of 
 his flesh, and of his bones." J " And he is the 
 head of the body, the church." § He is the life, 
 as well as the hope of glory, of all his people. 
 By and by his people are to be with him accord- 
 ing to his own prayer : " Father, I will that they 
 also whom thou hast given me be with me where 
 I am." II But now his words are, " If a man love 
 me, he will keep my words ; and my Father will 
 love him, and we will come unto him, and make 
 our abode with him." ^ 
 
 * Matt, xxviii. 20. J Eph. v. 30. I| John xvii. 24. 
 t 2 Cor. xiii. 5. § Col. i. 18. 1 John xiv. 23. 
 
158 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 No efforts of the Church, therefore, are need- 
 ed to secure that nearness, that indwelling pres- 
 ence, of her Lord, which is already her posses- 
 sion, and which, if it only could be recognized, 
 would be an inspiration of superhuman power. 
 What the Church needs is, not to wait for some 
 greater strength, but to be conscious of the 
 great endowment which she already has. She 
 needs herself to penetrate more deeply the deep 
 meaning of Scripture respecting that fellowship 
 already subsisting between herself and her Lord, 
 wherein she, being joined unto him, is one spirit 
 with him. She needs to ponder till she feels 
 the force of his own words, '' I am the vine, ye 
 are the branches ; " * — one life, we must remem- 
 ber, being in the vine, and the same life perme- 
 ating the branches ; — "I am the bread of life : 
 he that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, 
 dwelleth in me, and I in him ; " f " Henceforth I 
 call you not servants ; for the servant knoweth 
 not what his lord doeth : but I have called you 
 
 * John XV. 5. t John vi. 56. 
 
A HIGHER CONSECRATION. 1 59 
 
 friends ; for all things that I have heard of my 
 Father, I have made known unto you." * These 
 friends of Christ, redeemed and renewed, thus 
 endowed with the knowledge of the Father, 
 should also apprehend the meaning of those 
 words which the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, 
 whom he sent from the Father, and who testi- 
 fied of him, addresses to his disciples : " And 
 ye are complete in him, who is the head of all 
 principality and power : in whom, also, ye are 
 circumcised with the circumcision made without 
 hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the 
 flesh by the circumcision of Christ : buried with 
 him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with 
 him through the faith of the operation of God, 
 who hath raised him from the dead. And you, 
 being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision 
 of your flesh, hath he quickened together with 
 him, having forgiven you all trespasses." f It 
 is this blessed and glorious knowledge, it is the 
 becoming conscious of what is already their un« 
 
 * John XV. 15. t Col. ii. 10-13. 
 
l6o CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 conscious possession, which shall enable Christ's 
 people, as they have therefore received Christ 
 Jesus the Lord, so to walk in him, " rooted and 
 built up in him, and stablished in the faith as 
 they have been taugh*-, abounding therein with 
 thanksgiving." * 
 
 The difference between a man and a brute — 
 the broad gulf sepai^ting the two, which no 
 development nor evolution can ever bridge — is 
 in the knowledge of God, which the man is 
 never without, and which t\-e brute never pos- 
 sesses. It belongs to the inalienaWc substance 
 of the human soul that it knows God. "To 
 know God, and to possess reason," says Jacobi, 
 "are one and the same thing; just a^ not to 
 know God, and be a brute, are ovic and ihe same 
 thing." f And the difference betroen a Christian 
 and other men is in the knowledge of God in 
 Christ, — a knowledge which is as free as it is 
 full and all-sufficient, and which all men JT'ight 
 possess, but to which the Christian alon^ has 
 
 * Col. ii. 7. t Von den gottlichen Dingen. 
 
A HIGHER CONSECRATION. l6l 
 
 actually attained. " If our gospel be hid, it is 
 hid to them that are lost : in whom the god of 
 this world hath blinded the minds of them which 
 believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel 
 of Christ, who is the image of God, should 
 shine into them. . . . For God, who commanded 
 the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined 
 in our hearts, to give the light of the knowl- 
 edge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus 
 Christ." t In Hke manner, the difference be- 
 tween the Church all glowing in her devo- 
 tion, full of zeal and holy energy in the work 
 of her Lord, and the Church listless and luke- 
 warm, whom the faithful and true witness will 
 spew out of his mouth, is in the clear and vital 
 realization that the all-glorious One, like unto the 
 Son of man, whom John saw in the midst of the 
 seven golden candlesticks, was no unreal vision 
 or transient appearance, but the glorious and 
 abiding truth of Him whose eyes were as a 
 flame of fire, and whose countenance was as the 
 
 t 2 Cor. iv. 3-6. 
 
1 62 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 sun shineth in his strength, and who is still in 
 the midst of his Church, Jesus Christ, the 
 same yesterday, to-day, and forever. 
 
 This increasing consciousness in the Chris- 
 tian, of the presence and the will of Christ, is 
 the index of the increasing growth of spiritual 
 life ; but spiritual life, like all other life, does 
 not reveal its ov/n processes of growth. We 
 can only see the results, and infer from these 
 v/hat the processes are. Carvallo, the Portu- 
 guese botanist, is said to have attempted, by 
 carefully examining with his microscope a 
 rapidly-growing plant, to see the actual pro- 
 cedure of its growth ; but the process was far 
 too subtle for his eyes, with all the aid his 
 glasses could give. The steady enlargement, 
 the actually accomplished result, was all that he 
 could see. The kingdom of God is " as if a 
 man should cast seed into the ground, and 
 should sleep, and rise night and day, and the 
 seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not 
 how." * 
 
 * Mark iv. 27. 
 
A HIGHER CONSECRATION. 163 
 
 But while we cannot tell, by looking within, 
 how the consciousness of the divine fellowship 
 takes possession of us, how the sense of the 
 indwelling Christ, working out his own plans in 
 and through us for the triumph of his kingdom, 
 becomes a fire of holy zeal, consuming all our 
 apathy, and kindling us to the ardor of an all 
 absorbing devotion to him, we do know that this 
 blessed result is assured by looking away from 
 ourselves unto him, till " we all, with open face 
 beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, 
 are changed into the same image from glory to 
 glory." * 
 
 The first thing needful, therefore, in order 
 that the Church may have a larger sense of the 
 magnitude of Christ's own mission, and of his 
 power to accompHsh all his purpose, and thus, 
 through her fellowship with him, a larger sense, 
 also, of her own mission and her own power, is 
 that she look unto him. This she must do, if 
 she be truly his Church. It is her response to 
 
 * 2 Cor. iii. 18. 
 
164 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 his invitation: "Look unto me, and be ye 
 saved," through which her life as his Church 
 becomes enkindled ; and it is only by her 
 continually looking unto him that the living 
 fire upon her altars can be kept alive. 
 
 But, passing from such general considerations, 
 there are two particulars towards which this con- 
 templation of Christ, this vision of him, which 
 is to transfuse us with his spirit, till it shall 
 transform us into his likeness, will be most 
 appropriately displayed. The first is the all- 
 sufficiency of his atoning sacrifice. In order that 
 we may find in his spirit the undying inspira- 
 tion, the all-conquering motive, to seek the 
 world's conversion, we need to keep before us 
 the great truth, that, in his death, the full provis- 
 ion for the world's salvation has been actually 
 made. That his atonement has a universal 
 efficacy, that he suffered and died as the Re- 
 deemer of the whole human race, we should see, 
 without a doubt, to be the clear doctrine of the 
 Bible. 
 
A HIGHER CONSECRATION. 1 65 
 
 " He died for all." * " God was in Christ, rec- 
 onciling the world unto himself." f " Who gave 
 himself a ransom for all." J " And he is the propi- 
 tiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also 
 for the sins of the whole world." § " Therefore, 
 as by the offence of one, judgment came upon 
 all men to condemnation ; even so by the right- 
 eousness of one, the free gift came upon all men 
 unto justification of life." || That these state- 
 ments are to be taken in the largest sense, that 
 the all-sufficiency of Christ's atonement em- 
 braces even those who never receive it, and are 
 consequently lost, is not only clear from the very 
 idea of the atonement itself, — the atonement 
 being impossible without a divine sacrifice, 
 and a divine sacrifice which has not a divine 
 all-sufficiency being inconceivable, — but is put 
 beyond all proper doubt by 2 Pet. ii. i, where 
 the false teachers who bring in damnable here- 
 sies, and bring upon themselves swift destruc- 
 
 * 2 Cor. V. 15. J I Tim. ii. 6. 1| Rom. v. i8. 
 
 t Ibid., V. 19. § I John ii. 2. 
 
l66 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 tion, are said to deny the Lord who bought, i.e., 
 redeemed, even them. The difficulties which 
 some see in this doctrine, as though it impHed a 
 fruitless work on the part of God, are certainly 
 no greater than belong to the doctrine concern- 
 ing the Holy Ghost, whose influences, however 
 adequate in themselves, yet fail to renew many 
 hearts upon which they are exerted, and are not 
 so great as belong to the doctrine which denies 
 the universal adequacy of the work of Christ or 
 of the Holy Ghost. We accept it, therefore, as 
 the truth of Scripture, that, while the living God 
 is the Saviour specially of those who believe, his 
 salvation so truly concerns, and is so adequate 
 to save, even those who do not believe it, that, in 
 a true sense, we may call him, as the Bible does, 
 " the Saviour of all men." * 
 
 But if we accept this fully, if we realize its 
 large significance, what becomes of any apa- 
 thy of ours respecting the world's conversion ? 
 I do not ask what becomes of it on the ground 
 
 * I Tim. iv. lo. 
 
A HIGHER CONSECRATION. 1 6/ 
 
 of our s}mpathy with man, but what on the 
 ground of our sympathy with Christ. That the 
 world is perishing without Christ, we clearly 
 see ; that it can be saved through him, and only 
 through him, is all apparent : but this is not the 
 great motive which urges us to efforts for the 
 world's conversion. Sympathy with the world 
 in its wretchedness and woe is a feeble and 
 flickering fire, which expires in its own burning. 
 Man is not, can not be, the savior of man ; and 
 the evidence is all-abounding that he would not 
 if he could be. Not the love of man, but the 
 love of Christ, and not our love to Christ, but 
 Christ's love to us, is the constraining motive of 
 the Christian. *' Because we thus judge, that, if 
 one died for all, then were all dead " (or, rather, 
 then all died, — died in respect to their own 
 strength and sufficiency), "and that he died for 
 all, that they which live " (they which live in the 
 new life which he imparts) " should henceforth 
 not live unto themselves, but unto him which 
 died for them, and rose again." * Brethren, let 
 
 * 2 Cor. V. 14, 15. 
 
l6$ CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 this same mind be in you which was also in 
 Christ Jesus. Did he die for the world ? Is the 
 provision in his death adequate for the salvation 
 of all men ? Then, where is the heart united to 
 him, quickened by his life, which is not also in- 
 spired by his love for souls for whom he died ? 
 The wants of the world, the wretchedness and 
 woes of men, unable of themselves to move us, 
 become now the fuel to feed the fire which he 
 has enkindled ; and, while we love God only be- 
 cause he first loved us, we learn also to know, 
 out of our full experience, " that he who loveth 
 God will love his brother also." * Here, then, 
 we must come for our inspiration. The cross 
 of Christ must move us towards the conversion 
 of the world, if we are ever moved. And it 
 will move us, it cannot help moving us, if we 
 are only by its side. If forgiveness of sin have 
 an}" meaning to us, if there be to us any pre- 
 ciousness in the blood of Christ, we must tell it 
 for Christ's sake to all around ; and our eager- 
 
 * I John iv. 21. 
 
A HIGHER CONSECRATION. 1 69 
 
 ness in proclaiming it will be just in proportion 
 to the power with which we have felt its appli- 
 cation. It was in view of his cross, it was in 
 reference to the death he should die, that the 
 Son of man exclaimed, " Now is the judgment 
 of this world : now shall the prince of this world 
 be cast out." * And it is in the vision of the same 
 cross, overshadowing and absorbing us, that we, 
 crucified with Christ, have such a fellowship 
 with him, that it is no longer we who live, but 
 Christ who liveth in us, f — we taking up his 
 purposes, and entering into his self-forgetting 
 sacrifice to save men, while he dwells within us, 
 and endows us with his strength for the final 
 victory. 
 
 But there is another motive still. The dying 
 Redeemer is the risen Lord, who commands his 
 disciples to go into all the world, and preach his 
 gospel to every creature. These are his last 
 words, which should not, however, be regarded 
 altogether in the light of a command : they 
 
 * John xii. 31. t Gal. ii. 20. 
 
 15 
 
I/O CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 are a benediction as well. The uplifted hands 
 with which the risen Lord blessed his disciples 
 as he was parted from them, and a cloud re- 
 ceived him out of their sight,* are no more a 
 token of grace than are these most blessed 
 words ; for in them He who must now reign 
 till he hath put all enemies under his feet f 
 associates his disciples with himself in his tri- 
 umph. His great work becomes thus also 
 theirs. They become thus ambassadors for 
 Christ, by whom God beseeches men,J workers 
 together with him, that men may receive not 
 the grace of God in vain, § ministers of the 
 new testament, || and laborers together with God.^ 
 But what a dignity is this ! What an exaltation 
 of privilege ! What an incitement to all energy 
 of endeavor in this association of the redeemed 
 disciples with their risen Lord ! As the igno- 
 rance and doubts and gloom and vacillation of 
 the early disciples were exchanged for clear 
 
 * Luke XXI V. 50 ; Acts i. 9- J 2 Cor. v. 20. || 2 Cor. iii. 6. 
 t I Cor. XV. 25. § Ibid., vi. i. ^ i Cor. iii. 9. 
 
A HIGHER CONSECRATION. I7I 
 
 assurance, and joyful hope, and unswerving 
 devotion to their crucified Master, by his 
 resurrection from the dead, the same revelation 
 of himself to us — a revelation which, by the gift 
 of the Spirit and the subsequent history of the 
 Church, is to the soul that deeply ponders it 
 more clear and full than was possible to the dis- 
 ciples who only discerned the bodily presence of 
 their Lord — will banish all our uncertainty and 
 apathy, and quicken our faith and hope and love 
 with a devotion to Christ which will not waver, 
 and a joy in his fellowship which cannot be 
 quelled. 
 
 Here, then, is our motive, the grand and 
 ever-inspiring motive, — our dying and risen and 
 all victorious Saviour. Not the wants of men, 
 but the work of Christ, not the wretchedness of 
 the world, but the will of the world's Redeemer, 
 who is our Lord, whose will, regnant over ours, 
 makes us willing in the day of its power, — this 
 is our undying inspiration, v/hereby our words 
 become the echo, and our works the fulfilment, 
 
1/2 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 of his exulting cry : " And I, if I be lifted 
 up from the earth, will draw all men unto 
 me." * 
 
 * John xii. 32. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST THE JUSTIFICA- 
 TION OF MISSIONS. 
 
 ** And was raised again for our justification." — Rom. iv. 25. 
 
 The resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ 
 from the dead is undoubtedly set forth in the 
 New Testament as a Uteral truth. It is equally 
 clear, that the New-Testament writers, whether 
 deceived or not themselves, had no intention of 
 deceiving others. They tell what they thought, 
 at least, was the truth about their Lord. That 
 he died upon the cross, was buried, and rose 
 again the third day, and appeared to many, the 
 same Jesus which was crucified, is now admitted 
 — alike by the most intelligent enemies of the 
 gospel, as well as by its friends — to have been 
 the belief of his original disciples. The most 
 
 15* «73 
 
1/4 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 noted, and perhaps the ablest, of recent writers 
 against the Christian faith — Strauss, in his 
 " New Life of Jesus " — fully allows '' that the 
 disciples firmly believed that Jesus had arisen." * 
 He declares it to be " quite evident, that the 
 origin of the Christian Church was by faith in 
 the miraculous resurrection of the Messiah ; and 
 that the disciples received an impression which 
 lay at the bottom of their future ministry, that 
 he was a conqueror over death and the grave, 
 and was the Prince of life." f The supposi- 
 tion that the disciples fabricated the story, and 
 sought to impose it upon the credulity of men, 
 themselves knowing it to be false, may, there- 
 fore, be dismissed, as no longer needing a reply. 
 But, if the disciples believed what they said, 
 how could they have been mistaken.? The evi- 
 dence which wrought this belief was of a sort 
 easily tested. It lay in the sphere of their 
 most common and most undoubted capacity of 
 judging. It did not follow their preconceived 
 * Vol. i. p. 399. t Ibid., p. 412. 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 1/5 
 
 potions ; for the first announcement that Christ 
 had arisen seemed to them an idle tale, and 
 they believed it not.* It was not begotten of 
 their desires or hopes ; for they were utterly 
 cast down by the crucifixion, and their only 
 dreams of the Messiah had been of an earthly 
 and temporal prince and kingdom, f Their 
 belief was not sudden, nor did it grow rapidly, 
 rhey sifted all the evidence, which they finally 
 accepted, only because they found it irresistible. 
 During a period of forty days from the cruci- 
 fixion, Jesus is reported to have appeared to 
 them, and to others who knew him well, at 
 times so numerous, and under circumstances so 
 various, that all doubts among them, though 
 they were strong, and seemed likely to be per- 
 sistent, were destroyed. He appeared unto the 
 eleven as they sat at meat, and upbraided them 
 with their unbelief and hardness of heart, be- 
 cause they believed not them which had seen 
 him after he was risen. J In the midst of their 
 * Luke xxiv. ii. t Luke xxiv. 21. J Mark xvi. 14. 
 
176 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 terror and affright at an event so amazing, he re- 
 assured them by the most palpable proof of his 
 living and bodily presence with them. " Behold 
 my hands and my feet," he said, "that it is I 
 myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath 
 not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And, 
 when he had thus spoken, he showed them his 
 hands and his feet." * To the doubting Thomas 
 he said, " Reach hither thy finger, and behold 
 my hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and 
 thrust it into my side : and be not faithless, but 
 believing."! He is said to have shown "him- 
 self alive after his passion by many infallible 
 proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speak- 
 ing of the things pertaining to the kingdom of 
 God." J The apostles became convinced of the 
 great truth slowly; and they all became con- 
 vinced of it in the same degree of undoubting 
 confidence. No one of them, though persecuted, 
 and at length martyred for his faith, ever after- 
 wards doubted that his crucified Lord, in very 
 
 * Luke xxiv. 39, 40. t John xx. 27. J Acts i. 3. 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 1/7 
 
 deed and truth, had risen from the dead. More- 
 over, others believed the same thing. Paul, writ- 
 ing to the Corinthian church, some twenty-five 
 years afterwards, refers to five hundred witnesses 
 by whom the living Lord was seen at once, the 
 greater part of whom, he says, remain unto this 
 present, and are therefore vouchers for the fact. 
 Now this belief, thus honestly and confidently 
 held, and by such large numbers of those most 
 competent to judge respecting it, is unaccountable 
 on any other supposition than that it was justi- 
 fied by the truth. To suppose that Jesus did 
 not die, but only swooned upon the cross, and 
 that he was laid in the tomb in a state of uncon- 
 sciousness, from which he afterwards revived, 
 and then came forth and re-appeared to his disci- 
 ples in his natural life, rouses far more difficult 
 questions than it answers, and, though once 
 gravely put forth, is now ridiculed even by those 
 who disbelieve in a miraculous resurrection. 
 For how could he come fort h ? and what became 
 of him afterwards .'* and how could such a per- 
 
1/8 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 son, weak as he must have been, have given his 
 disciples their undoubting conviction that he 
 was the conqueror of death ? To suppose that 
 any one should have succeeded, even should 
 any one have attempted, to personate to the dis- 
 ciples their Master and Friend, whom they had 
 known and loved and companied with so inti- 
 mately and so long, would be an improbability 
 more wonderful by far than the literal truth of 
 the story which they relate. Such a deception 
 would require a miracle. It is just as improba- 
 ble that all the disciples could have come to 
 believe, by a sort of hallucination, through 
 nervous excitement, in some unreal vision of 
 Christ's appearance.* Such a vision might 
 come to a single person. Individuals are liable 
 to hallucinations, which carry with them all the 
 force of reality ; but this is never the case with a 
 class possessing such different temperaments as 
 the apostles, and having naturally such different 
 ways of looking at any thing. Physiology puts 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 1 79 
 
 its inexorable bar in the way of a theory which 
 attempts to account for the same conviction in 
 the sanguine Peter, and the choleric Paul, and 
 the melancholic John, through nervous excite- 
 ment. Nervous excitement in men so different, 
 if we could conceive it to be able to delude them 
 all with subjective states which had no reality, 
 would have, not the same, but very different, 
 manifestations. The apostles, however, had all 
 of them the same belief, that Jesus rose from 
 the dead. They all believed that they had seen 
 him, and talked with him, and touched him again 
 and again, after they had seen him crucified, and 
 dead and buried. Instead of being formed out 
 of their subjective states, this belief, as we have 
 seen, contradicted all their prejudices. Still 
 further, if they were all so ready to be imposed 
 upon by fancied visions, how was it that they 
 held the first announcement of the resurrection 
 by the women to be an idle tale ? or how could 
 Mary believe that the risen Saviour was the gar- 
 dener, or, again, that the gardener was the risen 
 
l80 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 Saviour? or how could the two who walked 
 with him to Emmaus take an unknown man to 
 be him, or talk so long with him, and still think 
 him a stranger? or how could the assembled 
 disciples have trembled before him, instead of 
 rejoicing at his appearance ? or how could they 
 have needed to be convinced of the reality of 
 his resurrection, by his partaking of their meal, 
 and showing them the marks of his wounds ? * 
 No, no. There are no traces of delusion, any 
 more than of dishonesty, in this narrative. The 
 accounts given us are sober statements by sober 
 and trustworthy men. If ever there was clear 
 and credible testimony to a literal fact, we have 
 it here. 
 
 But there are many men unwilling, and per- 
 haps unable, to weigh considerately the argu- 
 ment for the truth of Christ's resurrection, 
 having the preconceived opinion that it cannot 
 be true, because of the miracle which it involves. 
 It is one of the curious phases of modern 
 
 * Lange, Life of Christ, vol. v. p. 120. 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. l8l 
 
 opinion, that men who are foremost in their 
 demand for actual facts, and in their defence of 
 the Baconian method, — which requires that all 
 prejudices be removed, and the actual facts of 
 observation be accepted, whatever they may be, 
 — should also, when the fact of a miracle is in 
 question, be equally forward to deny it, because 
 a certain theory of Nature, which they have come 
 to entertain, makes a miracle impossible. Now, 
 such a theory not only contradicts the true 
 method of scientific inquiry, but it contradicts 
 itself, as can be seen by any one whose eyes are 
 clear. For to say that a miracle is impossible, 
 because contrary to the facts of my experience, 
 is absurd, unless the facts of my experience em- 
 brace all the possible facts of any experience ; 
 to claim which would be a greater absurdity 
 still. Again : to say that no such fact as a 
 miracle can be, because certain other facts, 
 which I have learned from this source and that, 
 and which I am pleased to call "the order oi 
 Nature," forbid it, leads one to ask for a more 
 
 i6 
 
1 82 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 precise designation of this order of Nature, and 
 for the proof that it actually exists. This proof 
 must either rest within, or must reach beyond, 
 the field of our experience ; that is, it must be a 
 proof to which our experience actually testifies, 
 or one respecting which our experience has no 
 witness whatever. But our experience, at the 
 farthest, only testifies to that which is, and never 
 reaches to that which can be. If my experience 
 contain nothing miraculous, I may, of course, 
 deny the existence of a miracle so far as my 
 experience reaches ; and if my judgments rest 
 only on what I have experienced, that is, if they 
 be only inferences from what I actually see, I 
 am not entitled to make any affirmations re- 
 specting what lies beyond ; and that a miracle 
 has not taken place in another experience than 
 my own, is quite out of my province to say. 
 The moment I make such a sweeping assertion 
 as to affirm or deny any thing universal, I must 
 leave the ground of my experience, which is 
 necessarily partial and limited, a' ad take my 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 1 83 
 
 Stand on a basis back of experience, and reach- 
 ing beyond it. But such a groundwork lies also 
 back of Nature, and inevitably leads the thought 
 into the living presence of the supernatural. 
 Our natural science is fond of its generaliza- 
 tions ; but no generalization is possible without 
 the supernatural. It is an unmeaning babble 
 to talk of comprehensive laws, unless there be a 
 comprehending Reason and Will, whose ideas 
 and plans these laws express. The current 
 notion, in some quarters, that we can gain, or 
 have, perchance, got, such universal conclusions, 
 that Nature can be shut in upon itself, and God 
 shut out, is exactly the absurdity of supposing 
 that we see when we have closed our eyes, and 
 turned the very light of all our seeing into 
 darkness. Every process of the human mind 
 bears witness to the divine Mind. Every 
 thought we can have of Nature, when profoundly 
 questioned, is seen to rest upon the knowledge, 
 undoubting and universal, that Nature has its 
 living Author, its spiritual Creator. But cannot 
 
184 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 he who has made Nature also unmake it if he 
 will, or order in it whatever changes he may 
 please ? And if men who did not like to retain 
 God in their thoughts, professing themselves to 
 be wise, became fools, because that, when they 
 knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither 
 were thankful, but became vain in their imagina- 
 tions, and their foolish hearts were darkened, 
 what is to hinder him, if his love impels it, from 
 making such changes in Nature as shall more 
 conspicuously manifest himself, and more glori- 
 ously carry forward the eternal purpose for 
 which he hath created all things by Jesus 
 Christ ? Such changes are miracles. They are 
 not contradictions to Nature ; but they are the 
 carrying of Nature upward to a higher plane, 
 and onward to grander results than Nature in its 
 unhindered action alone could reach. They are 
 not to be considered as violations of the order 
 of Nature : rather are they the cropping-out in 
 Nature of the higher order of the supernatural, 
 without which the so-called order of Nature 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 1 85 
 
 would be but an empty chaos. They are rifts 
 in the clouds of the earth's atmosphere, through 
 which the glories of the heavens, which make 
 the clouds resplendent and the earth radiant, 
 can shine. They are not the new development 
 of some old force which had been in Nature from 
 the beginning ; but they are a new creation, 
 by which new forces, henceforth to work on 
 in harmony with the old, are added to these. 
 Surely such changes are possible for God to 
 make. Surely He who hath created once can 
 do it also again. Surely, if the inspiration of 
 genius may sometimes Ught up the human face 
 with a glow which shows the glory of the soul 
 beyond all ordinary thoughts ; if the light of 
 love may sometimes lend a lustre to the eye, 
 through which there shines a look of beauty 
 before unknown, — much more may the aspect 
 of the things which are made, in which the 
 eternal power and Godhead of their Maker 
 have, from the creation of the world, been 
 clearly seen, take on some altogether new 
 16* 
 
1 86 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 expression, and become radiant with a glory all 
 undiscovered before, when he would reveal 
 through them, also, his forgiving and renewing 
 love. Surely all this is possible ; and miracles, 
 instead of being irrational and inconceivable, 
 are the very beauty of reason, and the very light 
 of our thoughts respecting Nature, when they 
 are correctly apprehended. Creation itself is 
 a miracle. The most recent science, in pro- 
 found mathematical demonstrations respecting 
 the mechanical theory of heat, has shown, on 
 scientific grounds alone, the need of some 
 higher power than Nature, in order to its 
 origination ; and therefore miracles cannot be 
 impossible at any stage of Nature's continuance. 
 The only proper attitude towards this ques- 
 tion, and the only truly scientific method, is to 
 inquire whether such occurrences have actually 
 taken place, — an inquiry whose answer is only 
 to be gained through a careful sifting of the evi- 
 dence which declares them If we find wonders 
 reported, which turn out to be no miracles, but 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 18/ 
 
 only delusions of witchcraft or magic, these no 
 more militate against the reality of miracles than 
 does an abundance of counterfeits against the 
 reality of genuine coin. If we find some mira- 
 cles reported for which the evidence fails, this no 
 more precludes our finding others of undoubted 
 verity than do false statements in other matters 
 prevent us from learning any thing true. Let 
 the quality of the reported miracle and its evi- 
 dence be sifted to the utmost ; and, while we 
 reject nothing from preconceived scepticism, let 
 nothing be taken in credulous superstition. Let 
 the eye be open and clear, and the heart recep- 
 tive, and responsive only to the truth ; and, if 
 miracles are proved by sufficient testimony to 
 have taken place, the wise man will accept 
 them, and follow their conclusions, whatever 
 they may be. 
 
 Setting aside then, as we should, all our prej li- 
 dices and narrow notions, and looking for the 
 true fact alone, with a single willingness to 
 receive it, the evidence for the resurrection of 
 
I 88 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 Christ becomes overwhelming. It has been 
 so from the first. It convinced the apostles, 
 though prejudiced against it, and receiving it 
 very slowly ; and they maintained their faith 
 through ignominy and persecution, and in the 
 face of death itself. It convinced the people to 
 whom it was first preached, and who had every 
 opportunity to test its truth. The proof is clear 
 beyond all doubt, that the resurrection of Christ 
 was believed in Jerusalem itself, by thousands 
 who had probably seen and certainly knew of 
 his crucifixion, and who were led to believe that 
 he had risen from the dead, by the irresistible 
 evidence with which the fact was attested. It 
 has convinced candid and thoughtful men in all 
 subsequent time, wherever the evidence has 
 been examined, and no prejudices have been 
 allowed to weaken its force. There is no his- 
 torical fact whose literal truth is more 
 thoroughly established than this. 
 
 The place which this truth holds in the 
 scheme of Christian doctrine is very clear. The 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 1 89 
 
 resurrection of Christ was a divine seal set upon 
 his work. It was the divine confirmation of all 
 his words. He was declared to be the Son of 
 God with power, according to the spirit of holi- 
 ness, by the resurrection from the dead. The 
 declaration of his Messiahship is accomplished 
 in his resurrection. " The promise which was 
 made unto the fathers," says Paul, that is, the 
 promise of the Messiah, " God hath fulfilled unto 
 us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus 
 again ; as it is also written in the second psalm, 
 Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten 
 thee." In his incarnation and life upon the 
 earth, there is the manifested presence of God, 
 condescending to dwell with man. In his mira- 
 cles, in his teachings, in his sufferings, and in 
 his death, the divine power and wisdom and 
 righteousness and love shine all gloriously. In 
 them all, there stands revealed Immanucl, God 
 with us, cheering and strengthening us by his 
 sympathy and manifold bounty, but humbling 
 us also, as he makes manifest our defilement by 
 
IQO CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 the revelation of his purity and condescension 
 and self-forgetting love. But in his resurrection 
 we come to know the grace of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who, though he was rich, became poor, 
 that we, through his poverty, might become rich. 
 It is not simply God dwelling with man, but 
 man lifted to an eternal fellowship with God, 
 which we here behold. In his life, even to his 
 death, there is a constant conflict waged for us 
 against foes aiming at our destruction, and 
 whose destroying fury we had no means to 
 restrain ; but whether the conflict is of any 
 avail for us, whether he is victorious or van- 
 quished at its close, who can tell ?, The dark- 
 ened sun, and quaking earth, and rending rocks, 
 tell the terrors of the struggle and its awful im- 
 port ; but, when he dies upon the cross, who, 
 afterwards, can speak of life or salvation ? Can 
 he save others, when himself he cannot save .'* 
 But when it was not possible for him to be 
 holden of death, when he rises from the dead, 
 death having no more dominion over him, we 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 19I 
 
 rise with him, also victorious over death ; and 
 the behever in Jesus makes the triumphant 
 challenge, Who is he that condemneth, since 
 Christ who has died is rather risen again, who is 
 even at the right hand of God, who also maketh 
 intercession for us ? " O death, where is thy 
 sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? Thanks 
 be to God, which giveth us the victory through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 In his death, the chastisement of our peace 
 was upon him; but without his resurrection who 
 could ever know that with his stripes we are 
 healed ? He died for sinners, whose curse he 
 bore ; he rose again for sinners, whose justifi- 
 cation he has now become. In his crucifixion, 
 He, in whom was no sin, was made sin for us ; 
 but through his resurrection, we, in whom is no 
 righteousness, find righteousness in him. For 
 "we believe on Him that raised up Jesus our 
 Lord from the dead, who was delivered for our 
 offences, and was raised again for our justifi- 
 cation" 
 
192 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 The ascendency which this truth was able 
 to gain over the lives of the apostles illustrates 
 the impulse which it ever gives to Christian 
 activity in the preaching of the gospel of Christ. 
 When Christ was apprehended, they were terror- 
 stricken ; and they all forsook him, and fled. 
 When he was put to death, they were appalled. 
 But there never was a bolder set of men than 
 these same timid disciples, after they began to 
 preach the resurrection of their Master. All 
 their timidity and irresolution disappear. Their 
 dismay gives place to a joyous exultation. 
 Scorn, hatred, persecution, martyrdom, have no 
 terrors for them now. These men, who seemed 
 settling down into the night of an unbroken 
 despondency, now stand out in the noontide of 
 all courage and hope and endurance, ready to 
 face any difficulty, and flinch at no dangers. 
 This great change was wrought in them wholly 
 by the belief that Jesus, their Lord, was risen 
 from the dead. This belief all absorbs them. 
 They can talk and think of nothing else. They 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. I93 
 
 begin to preach ; and their one topic is Jesus 
 and his resurrection. He died, and he rose 
 again, they everywhere proclaim. All their 
 views of Christ and his doctrine take tone from 
 this belief. Their narrow notion of the Messiah, 
 who was to restore again the kingdom to Israel, 
 drops off like the hull from the germinating 
 seed ; while, with a living power, the doctrine 
 grows to an all-comprehending vision of the 
 Redeemer and Saviour of mankind, in whom we 
 have redemption through his blood, even the 
 forgiveness of sins. The mourner in Geth- 
 semane, and the martyr upon Calvary, by his 
 resurrection, rises before them, no longer a suf- 
 ferer or a victim, but as the Lord of life, who 
 hath tasted death for every man, and who, for 
 the suffering of death, is crowned with glory 
 and honor. They gain their hope of eternal 
 life through his resurrection. " Blessed be the 
 God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," they 
 say, "which according to his abundant mercy 
 hath begotten us again unto a lively hope, by 
 
 «7 
 
194 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 the resurrection of jesus Christ from the dead." 
 They rest every thing upon this great truth. 
 " If Christ be not risen," they say, " then is our 
 preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." 
 
 He zvas raised agai?t for our justification. 
 The resurrection of Christ, my brethren, has a 
 further influence upon us than simply to secure 
 our personal acceptance with God. We have 
 seen, that, to the apostles, it became a living 
 inspiration to the highest activity in the preach- 
 ing of the gospel of their Lord. If truly appre- 
 hended, it will become the same to us. It was 
 the risen Lord who gave the great commission 
 to his disciples : " Go ye into all the world, and 
 preach the gospel unto every creature ; " and 
 the perpetual justification and inspiration for 
 this grand work is, that Jesus died, and rose 
 again. It is the risen and ever-living Lord 
 who is with his disciples alway, " even unto the 
 end of the world," giving them all power to 
 preach repentance and remission of sins, through 
 his name, among all nations. 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 1 95 
 
 All the meditation we can give upon the cru- 
 cifixion of Christ furnishes food for the spiritual 
 life. We need not cease to contemplate the 
 cross. "We should think often of Gcthsemane 
 and Calvary, the bloody sweat, and bitter 
 shame, and cruel death ; and should grow in 
 penitence and humbleness and love, when we 
 remember why it is that He who was so rich 
 became so poor. But it is not the highest type 
 of the Christian experience that lingers always 
 at the cross. He who was delivered for our 
 offences was raised again for our justification. 
 The open sepulchre that he has left ; the 
 preaching of the angels, that he has risen from 
 the dead ; and the showing of himself to his 
 disciples, whom he constituted the witnesses of 
 his resurrection, and commissioned to declare 
 it to his Church, — this is the cheering truth by 
 which we gain the answer of a good conscience 
 towards God, and become able to walk in new- 
 ness of life, knowing, that, if we were planted 
 together in the likeness of his death, w^e shall 
 be also in the likeness of his resurrection. 
 
196 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 In like manner, we are in no danger of hold 
 ing up too prominently before the world the 
 atoning sacrifice and death of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ. The banner of the Captain of our sal- 
 vation is the banner of the cross ; but He who 
 leads the hosts of his elect in their triumphant 
 progress, and who gives them all their strength 
 for the struggle and the victory, is the risen 
 Saviour, the Lord, their righteousness ; no lon- 
 ger in his humiliation, but now glorified, with all 
 power given unto him in heaven and in earth, 
 and who is with his disciples as they fulfil his 
 great commission, alway, " even unto the end of 
 the world." The resurrection of Christ, which 
 turned the sorrows of his first disciples into joy, 
 is the perpetual witness of his all-victorious 
 power. Though, when we look upon the world, 
 its sin and wretchedness are so dark and terri- 
 ble and wide reaching, that there seems no room 
 for hope, and thoughtful and loving souls, 
 brooding over tlie ills around them, give up aU 
 for lost ; yet when the vision of the victorious 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. I97 
 
 Redeemer rises upon us, and we see the com 
 pleteness of his conquest over sin and death and 
 the grave, the greatness of his purpose, and the 
 glory of his power to save, shine all resplendent ; 
 and the sorrow which abideth for a night gives 
 place to the joy which cometh in the morning. 
 The light which shines from his sepulchre 
 drives away the darkness which hung around 
 his cross, while the cross becomes luminous 
 with a glory which can irradiate the world. 
 
 When we see his resurrection, we learn, also, 
 how it is that his crucifixion becomes the crisis 
 of the world's history, that his cross becomes 
 his throne, before which and by which the 
 prince of this world is cast out ; and with 
 believing hope we hear and echo his exulting 
 cry, " And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
 will draw all men unto me." 
 
 This gospel of the resurrection of our Lord 
 needs to be preached everywhere ; not only as 
 an encouragement and inspiration to the activi- 
 ty of his Church, but as a corrective to all the 
 17* 
 
198 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 false views of the world regarding him. The 
 literal truth of his resurrection as an historical 
 fact, which courts every scrutiny, and defies all 
 criticism, has a power, when clearly set forth, to 
 remove all scepticism of the intellect ; and, from 
 the day of Pentecost till now, its preaching has 
 been accompanied by that power of the Holy 
 Ghost which can overcome the deeper scepti- 
 cism of the will. While the gospel, when cor- 
 rectly apprehended, commends itself to every 
 man's conscience in the sight of God ; while 
 every Christian truth, when clearly stated, will 
 be seen to carry its own witness within itself to 
 the truth, so deeply do God's ways correspond 
 in the human soul, made in God's likeness, 
 to its own original insight of him, — yet the 
 power of sin is so subtle, and the will has such 
 sophistries of its own, wherewith to entangle 
 and hoodwink the intellect, that we need contin- 
 ually to appeal, in attestation of the doctrine, to 
 outward facts which the senses can apprehend ; 
 as Leverrier and Adams needed the actual dis- 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, I99 
 
 covery of the new planet in order to prove the 
 value of their calculations to others, if not also 
 to confirm them to themselves. 
 
 Moreover, a clear view of the resurrection of 
 Christ, as an historical truth, is necessary to a 
 clear knowledge of redemption. The fall of 
 man is an historical fact. Sin has entered the 
 human race, and penetrated its whole history 
 with death. Redemption from sin, if ever 
 accomplished, must be just as actual a fact of 
 history as is sin itself. He who is to redeem 
 us from sin must actually stand in our place, 
 and be wounded for our transgressions, and be 
 bruised for our iniquities ; and the chastisement 
 of our peace must be upon him, before we 
 can be healed. All we, like sheep, have gone 
 astray, and there must be laid upon him the 
 iniquity of us all, before it can be lifted from 
 ourselves. He who is to deliver us from the 
 power of death must break that power through 
 his own victorious deliverance ; and He who is 
 to be our eternal life must show himself to us 
 
200 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 the Prince of life, through his actual triumph 
 over death and the grave. However ideally 
 perfect a system of salvation might be conceived 
 to be, unless it should find expression in such 
 actual facts as these, it must be powerless to 
 save. It is thus that philosophy must ever 
 prove itself inadequate for salvation, and that 
 any education or culture, however extended, will 
 always lack power to purify or give life to the 
 world. 
 
 Man, as a personal sinner, needs a personal 
 Saviour. No thought, no system of doctrine, 
 no enlightenment of the intellect, will ever break 
 the bondage of the will to sin. We only get 
 liberty and life through love ; but no description 
 of love ever inspires us with love, any more than 
 we can find warmth from all our knowledge of 
 the sunlight. The warm ray alone can warm 
 us : the loving deed alone can give us love. 
 The glory of the risen Saviour can melt all the 
 stubbornness of the frozen heart; and the power 
 of his life in his conquest of death, if everywhere 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 201 
 
 preached, would give light and life to all the 
 world. 
 
 " If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching 
 vain, and your faith is also vain. . . . But now 
 is Christ risen from the dead, and become the 
 first-fruits of them that slept . . . and he must 
 reign till he hath put all enemies under his 
 feet." 
 
 Oh, my brethren, what a kindling impulse to 
 all missionary efforts have we here! What 
 courage, what fortitude, what high hopes, what 
 wide-reaching plans, what earnest and increas- 
 ing endeavor, what an undying impulse to evan- 
 gelize the world, does the resurrection of our 
 Lord incite in his Church ! Who that has any 
 living view of this great truth, who that has 
 felt its power in his own forgiveness and 
 renewal and eternal life, can be slow of effort, 
 or of weak desire, in preaching the gospel of a 
 risen Saviour unto every creature ? We are not 
 ashamed of this gospel of Christ ; " for it is the 
 power of God unto salvation to every one that be- 
 
202 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 lieveth." We have no tame apologies begotten 
 of timid belief, as we point perishing men to a 
 dying and risen Saviour. We have no abate- 
 ment to make from the supernatural and mirac- 
 ulous claims of this gospel to the intellectual 
 assent of a scornful and sceptical world. To 
 all the forms of unbelief rife in Christian lands, 
 we proclaim a gospel with sufficient proof, which 
 is cogent both to convince the understanding, 
 and to convert the heart. Here is a truth, also, 
 which, clearly preached, can dispel the error 
 with which the unrenewed heart deceives itself 
 v/hen it seeks its salvation through meritorious 
 works of its own. He who beholds the all- 
 sufficient work of the risen Redeemer can feel 
 the need of nothing more, and must feel the 
 fruitlessness of any thing less. Who can go 
 about to establish his own righteousness, that 
 has once discerned and submitted to this right- 
 eousness of God ? Here, also, is a truth which, 
 from its first proclamation, has ever shown itself 
 mighty to the pulling-down of the strongholds 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 2O3 
 
 of superstition in unchristian lands. The cold 
 and blind and arbitrary will, without justice and 
 without love, which the followers of the false 
 prophet declare to be the only God ; the vague 
 and impersonal essence, empty of thought, and 
 unmoved by feeling, into whose limitless and 
 unconscious void the Brahmin hopes to be 
 absorbed; the helpless and hopeless presence 
 through whose repeated incarnations the Buddh- 
 ist is taught that existence is only a curse, and 
 that annihilation is the only salvation ; the ruder 
 and cruder forms of untutored faith, where people 
 of appalling wretchedness and degradation find 
 objects of worship which take on the shape of 
 their own defilement ; all systems of false reli- 
 gion, which, nevertheless, in their way, may be 
 seeking the Lord, if haply they might feel after 
 and find him, — can only be banished from the 
 world, can only lose their hold upon the mind, 
 by the truth of a living and loving divine Lord, 
 who — having taken upon himself their nature, 
 and manifested himself by divine works and 
 
204 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 words, as God actually present with men, and 
 having taught men by his life the glory of the 
 divine purity and sympathy and condescending 
 grace — ^^ showed them, also, by his death, the 
 wonders of a divine sacrifice for sin, and then 
 made manifest by his resurrection from the 
 dead that there needs no other sacrifice. The 
 entrance of this truth giveth light: it giveth 
 understanding unto the simple. Before its 
 coming, the shadows flee, as the night before the 
 morning. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the darkness which still 
 rests upon the world, the news of the great sal- 
 vation is steadily extending. Within the last 
 fifty years, fliere have been opened, outside of 
 nominal Christendom, more than four thousand 
 centres of Christian influence, from which the 
 light of the gospel shines. Dark places of the 
 earth, which were full of the habitations of 
 cruelty, have become homes of light and peace 
 and joy, through the saving power of that godli- 
 ness which hath the promise of the life that 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 205 
 
 now is, as well as of that which is to come. 
 The weight of the world's conversion rests upon 
 the Church, and inspires a missionary zeal, and 
 leads to efforts more abundant and more fruitful 
 at the present day than ever before. But it is 
 not upon this that we base our hope of the 
 world's conversion. " Some trust in chariots, and 
 some in horses; but we will remember the name 
 of the Lord our God." The promise of God 
 made unto the fathers, and which he fulfilled in 
 that he raised up Christ from the dead, is our 
 sure reliance. We trust that promise. We 
 know in whom we have believed, and are sure 
 that he is able to keep what is committed to 
 his hands. His resurrection, by which he is 
 declared to be the Son of God with power, 
 proves that the kingdoms of this world shall 
 become the kingdom of our Lord and of his 
 Christ, and that he shall reign for ever and ever. 
 " Yea, all kings shall fall down before him, all 
 nations shall serve him." 
 
 In the great work of seeking to hasten this 
 
206 CHRISTIAN MISSIONS. 
 
 blessed consummation, we bow before our risen 
 and ascended Redeemer, exclaiming, Hitherto 
 hath the Lord helped us, and henceforth our 
 trust shall be only in him. May he pour upon 
 us his blessed Spirit, that we may know more of 
 him and the power of his resurrection ! We 
 acknowledge our dependence upon his right arm, 
 which hath gotten for itself the victory. We 
 abandon all reliance upon devices or achieve- 
 ments of our own ; but with increasing hope 
 in him, through the increasing faith which he 
 permits us to cherish in his victorious power, 
 we joyfully go forward as workers together with 
 him, and call upon all the world to receive his 
 great salvation. We need not speak of duty 
 here, but of life and joy, and blessed com- 
 munion with our Lord in his glorious work. 
 His language to his disciples is, "Henceforth 
 I call you not servants ; for the servant knoweth 
 not what his lord doeth : but I have called you 
 friends ; for all things that I have heard of my 
 Father I have made known unto vo\i." We 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST. 20/ 
 
 know what his purpose is, and that nothing 
 shall swerve him from its full accomplishment. 
 All power is given unto him in heaven and in 
 earth ; and his purpose cannot fail. He is the 
 Saviour of sinners, and the life of the world ; for 
 he "was delivered for our offences, and was 
 raised again for our justification." All hail the 
 power of Jesus' name ! We catch the echo, and 
 send it round the world. All hail, we cry, to 
 this dying but deathless Prince ! " Lift up your 
 heads, O ye gates ; and be ye lift up, ye ever- 
 lasting doors ; and the King of glory shall come 
 in." Let every knee bow to him, and every 
 tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the 
 glory of God the Father. 
 
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