one-tenth of whom are ordained. Liberally estimating the number of the total force, now at work for Christ abroad, at sixty-five thousand, this still gives but one laborer for about every twenty-five thousand souls. Surely it would be a small thing for the Church of Christ ..om such a host to supply at least one missionary for every fifty thousand of the unevangelized.

We are not of those who idolize Science or worship Mammon. Much so-called "enlightened civilization" has, like that of the Cainites, the stamp of Satan upon it, and our boasted human progress often feeds an immoderate self-confidence and godless pride. Yet it must not be forgotten that a high state of civilization has its great advantages. Discoveries and inventions seem to have now reached their golden age, multiplying so fast, and penetrating so far into the realm of the hitherto unknown, that the most astonishing novelties in this realm. no longer startle; they are the wonders of a day, and then sink to the level of the commonplace. No man can forecast the immediate future in the matter of discovery and invention; ten years may bring achievements now deemed impossible.

But, in proportion as opportunity enlarges, responsibility multiplies. Whatever God has given the race, it is the part of the Church of God to utilize for the work which He has given to the Church. Every year should now be crowded with achievements that in the apostolic age would have occupied a lifetime. That first mission tour of Paul and Barnabas, covering about a thousand miles to and fro, consumed from two to eight years, and yet in but one place do they seem to have made any considerable stay.

In the review of the last century, the amazing advance made in every direction is perhaps the one and dominant impression. In fact, it is difficult to put in words the advantage accruing from all these modern facilities. Time is practically lengthened by every device that shortens distance and quickens the pace of mankind, for the period needful to accomplish a given result is proportionately less. He who learns to do in a day what once took a week has practically seven days in one. Strength is practically increased with every device. that enables us with less exertion to effect equally large results. He who by machinery can do the work of a hundred men is practically become a giant, with his lifting or moving energy a hundred fold multiplied. Life is practically made not only longer but broader by every discovery or invention that makes possible the multiplication of man's achievements and the widening of the range of his activities and sympathies. In these days a time-saving, strength-saving, and moneysaving apparatus forms part of the very mechanism of society, and puts at our disposal boundless resources of opportunity for crowding life with service. If, therefore, it be true that we live in deeds rather than days or years, and if life is to be measured, not by the swing of

the pendulum or by the tick of the clock, but by the capacity for action and advance, for attainment and achievement, every man or woman of fifty has already outlived the thousand years of Adam.

To all spiritual-minded disciples it is obvious that a higher type of piety is the one pressing need, in order that we may meet all these new opportunities and responsibilities which crowd upon us. A new reformation is needful, not doctrinal only, but, above all, ethical, spiritual, practical. The world and the Church demand more Christlike Christians. Worldliness dims the vision of the unseen, relaxes the grasp of faith and of hope upon the verities of God's Word of promise, and chills the very heart of love. Selfishness is not only the dearth of all true godliness, but the death of all true benevolence.

The standard of holy living which God has set up is no longer the practical model adopted, or even accepted, by the average disciple, for the most melancholy feature of all this declension is when the Scriptural pattern is virtually disallowed as no longer fitted to, or binding upon, disciples of our day. Attention has been often called to the contrast between our Lord's injunctions in respect to self-denial and cross bearing, as in Matt. xvi: 21-26, and the current types of Christian character and conduct; but we are told that this teaching was for the apostolic age, and is not appropriate for the time now present; that such principles make monks and nuns, recluses and ascetics; that we are in the world and must not be sour and gloomy separatists like the Pharisees; that to win men, we must mingle with men; and that our esthetic tastes were given us to indulge, not to crucify. And so the modern wine-drinking, card-playing, theater-going, horseracing, self-pleasing disciple, however extravagant in dress, in house appointments, and in the whole style of expenditure, feels emboldened to cultivate luxury on principle, and takes ease on the soft couch of selfish pleasure with a conscience void of offense. The Bible, it is said, is not "a book for the times" in all these austere views of life. Self-denial is considered as having had its day; or, while it may be in vogue for heroic missionaries, it is out of date in Christian lands. We are taught that it is not only lawful but commendable to hoard great wealth and leave great fortunes to one's heirs. Houses full of expensive furniture and garniture are not thought of as "the things that make a deathbed terrible," even when those who are luxuriously living can apathetically see millions dying of spiritual famine. Surely the Lord Jehovah must have abdicated His judgment-seat, or reversed His judicial decisions, or else there is a day of destiny ahead, when the modern "disciple" is going to be put to shame!

There is no reason why the evangelization of this world should not be attempted and accomplished in our generation. If Ahasuerus could twice send out a proclamation to every subject in his vast king

dom, extending over five million square miles, and do it inside of a year, even with the slow "posts" of his day, what may not fifty million Protestants do, scattered from the rising to the setting sun, and from pole to pole, with the Bible translated into more than four hundred tongues; with steamships and railways that can carry us at from twenty to sixty miles an hour, and with all the new facilities for the work that make this the unique era of history!

A new century has now opened before us, and the end of the age is therefore drawing near. The earth is depopulated and repopulated thrice in a hundred years, and every second marks a birth and a death. Darkness and death are abroad, and we have the Light of Life; a world-famine, and we have the Bread of Life. God is calling, man is calling; the past is luminous with its lessons, the future luminous with its possibilities. The Church should dare great things for God, and hope greater things still from Him! The God of the future is, to those whose faith is greater, a greater God than the God of the past, and has some better thing for those who by faith, prayer, and obedience make possible the discovery of His true greatness.

The disciple of Christ will find his greatest inspiration and encouragement to duty in the thought of his "high calling"; hence when he looks not backward but forward, not downward but upward, keeping in view the goal which is ahead of him and the crown of glory which is above him, he finds perpetual stimulus to faith, hope, love, and every holy labor.

The one all-inclusive need for mission work is to get and keep close to the mind, heart, and will of God. Then we see both the work and the world through His eyes, and feel somewhat of His unselfish and holy love for human souls. Then alone can His Spirit work unhindered in us and through us.

As we confront the work anew we need a new vision and revelation, both of opportunity and responsibility. If Christ is the Light of the World, so is His Church. Satan is represented as blinding the minds of unbelievers, lest the light of the glory of the Gospel of Christ should shine unto them (2 Cor. iv: 4-7)-i.e., lest the illumination, the enlightening influence of the glory of the Gospel, as reflected and transmitted through the believer, should reach them with its irradiation. In the same connection we are taught that He who commanded the light to shine out of the original darkness hath shined in our hearts to produce this irradiation in us, and make possible this illumination of others; and that one great proof, both of the power and grace of God, is found in that He thus makes it possible for a "vessel of earth" so frail and unworthy both to bear or contain such Divine splendor as a revelation to itself, and to bear forth or convey such glory as a revelation to others. The highest privilege of a believer is to receive, reflect, and transmit the glory of God as revealed in Christ

through the Gospel, which, practically, will never shine in the hearts of men except through believers, as mirrors or transmitters of God's grace.

At least four factors combine to constitute a new and critical emergency in missions, beyond any previous one in importance and appeal; those factors are: the vast unoccupied area, the entire inadequacy of the army of occupation, the lack of a proper standard of giving, and the lack of a proper spirit of prayer.

Immense areas and populations are thus far unreached and neglected; one-half of the region of the Death Shade yet unoccupied, and one-fourth of it practically unapproached! Great realms where darkness reigns, as large as the British Isles, Scandinavia, or India, and nineteen centuries of Christian history gone! God only can awake a dormant Church to the guilt and consequences of such delay! Thirty times the entire present population of the globe is computed to have passed into eternity since Christ rose, far the major part of them. dying without even the knowledge of Him, and the earth being depopulated every forty years. In a sense not perhaps originally meant, Paul might say, "For some have not the knowledge of God: I speak this to your shame."

Some needs are so imperative that they drive us to God without stopping to trifle with secondary means and agencies; and a high calling like the work of missions must have a motive power correspondingly high and holy.

For the solution of this foremost problem three things are needful: a missionary conviction, a missionary subjection, and a missionary service which is the fruit of the other two.

A MISSIONARY CONVICTION.

First, there must be a missionary conviction; that is, a thorough, changeless, and final acceptance of this, as the last entrustment committed to the Church by her ascending Lord. This must be put beyond dispute, denial, or doubt, for here hesitation is treason. There will be no proper obedience if we even halt to consider. Christ's command leaves, and was meant to leave, no room for question. As surely as "there is none other name given under heaven among men whereby we must be saved," there is none other work given by God to His saints whereby the world is to be made acquainted with this salvation. Not to believe and accept this as indisputable truth shows something wrong from the root upward, and prevents any true growth, flower, or fruit in Christian life. An uncertain sound in the Gospel trumpet leaves men to doubt the danger of sinning and the reality of salvation; and so an uncertain sound in the companion trumpet of missionary appeal leaves disciples to a fatal complacence with, and complacence in, their inactivity. There should therefore be an upward and plead

ing look to God, to create in us and in the Church a deep, immutable missionary conviction and persuasion.

A second and kindred need is a missionary subjection; that is, a practical subordination of all our being to Christ as the missionary Leader and Commander.

What inspiration is found in a practical sense of His actual Divine conduct of the missionary campaign! A holy evangelism, marked by a constant expansion and a tireless enthusiasm, becomes natural and delightful when He is seen habitually moving before His people.

The one aim should be to bring this Leadership perpetually to the front, and so to make His presence on the field a felt reality. Then every great event becomes a step of God, and every marked stage of progress a milestone along His highway. So long as faith sees the Lord on the battle-field, every new advance is merely keeping step with Him, and every new accession of men or means is thankfully owned as His answer to prayer and His fidelity to promise. If mission work is thought of as a church scheme or enterprise, of course adhesion to it will be inconstant and variable. But, if God is seen leading the way, it will become our high calling to follow; to feel no interest in missions will show that we are out of harmony with God's plan, and to say so will be to declare our disloyalty not to the Church only, but to the Captain of the Lord's Host.

A sense of "God with us" begets a sublime courage. When a Russian official said to Dr. Schauffler, "My imperial master, the Czar, will never allow Protestantism to set foot in Turkey," he calmly replied, "My imperial Master, Christ, will never ask the emperor of Russia where he may set His foot or plant His Kingdom." Yes, God is the Controller of History. Before Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Russia he told the Russian ambassador that he would destroy that empire. The ambassador's reply was, "Man proposes, but God disposes." "Tell your master," thundered the arrogant and self-confident Corsican, "that I am he that proposes and I am he that disposes." It was a challenge to the living God to show who is the ruler of this world; and God accepted the challenge. He moved not from His throne, but sent the crystal snowflake from heaven to punish the audacious boaster! Napolean flung his forces into Moscow, but in his retreat he left on the frozen plains the bulk of his vast army; and the official returns of the Russian authorities reported two hundred and thirteen thousand five hundred and sixteen French corpses buried and ninety-five thousand eight hundred and sixteen dead horses. When, in 1815, Napoleon, escaping from Elba, again threatened to dispose" events in European history at his will, the Sovereign of this world, whose hand is on the helm of history, ordained that Blucher should join the Iron Duke at the turning-point of the conflict of Waterloo, and by that decisive battle turn the fate of Europe. That

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