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IV.

THE DIVINE SPIRIT OF MISSIONS.

ORD LYTTON called color, "visible music." To study missions and become

absorbed in this work, is to find in it the fullest visible expression of the invisible Spirit of God, the incarnation of godliness.

Some motives and impulses belong to a low level, such as those which spring from appetite, avarice, and ambition, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.

One needs to be scarce more than an animal, at most an intellectual animal, to feel the sway of such aims as belong to our grosser nature.

Rising a little in the scale of motives, we reach a class that belong to a higher level, such as spring from man as a member of the household, of society, of the state, of the human brotherhood. We call these impulses domestic, patriotic, philanthropic. Self-love, if not selfishness, is largely mixed up with these three measures of meal, and leavens the whole lump. No human being who guards self-interest can be indifferent to the purity and harmony of the family, the unity and prosperity of the state, or the progress and welfare of man

as man.

We are not independent of each other, but dependent members of one body.

To a yet higher level of motive, which few reach, it is now my privilege to point-may I not also say?-lead, my readers. But let us understand, beforehand, that this is an altitude in which the worldly and the carnal nature can no longer breathe freely. Such a height has an atmosphere of its own, too pure, too rare, for sensual, sordid, selfish souls to inspire. And, of those who have climbed to those lofty heights, and there abide, there is but one possible explanation: it is because God hath given them of His Spirit. The spirit of missions is not only akin to the Spirit of Christ: it is the Spirit of Christ. And we shall now try to find what it is which, in the missionary spirit, constitutes the divine and Christlike element, to which so few really attain.

Our inquiry touches the work of missions at its root: "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he": out of the heart flow the issues of life. Whatever lack there is in missions as an enterprise is to be traced to something wrong or wanting in the spirit of disciples. And here all new beginnings must themselves begin. Like Elisha, we need to follow the bitter and brackish stream back to its fountains, and cast in the salt at the spring; then all that flows from it will give evidence of new conditions at the fountain head. Let us carefully search, then, the real source of our lack.

The great practical problem, whose solution demands the prayerful and prompt attention of every believer, is this: How may the Church of Christ carry the good tidings round the world, during the lifetime of this generation? For the present generation of the saved to reach the present generation of the unsaved, is the one question of the hour that leaves all others far in the distance. To the solution of that problem in God's own way, the Church, and every member of it, should bring all the brains, heart, conscience, will, money, intelligence, and enterprise at command. To aid, so far as we can, in the accomplishment of this work, it behoves each of us solemnly to give ourselves and our substance, our tongues and our pens, for whatever time may be left us. To this work let me once more earnestly invoke others.

All

The solving of this problem is not a matter of method, or means; but primarily of a mind and heart and will, that is according to Christ. machinery, however complete, depends for effectiveness upon its motive-power. Here force is generated. Wheels and levers are but the channels through which power has play; and, however intricate and complicate the mechanical adjustments, there cannot even be motion, much less efficient action, unless and until force is created or applied. The gigantic ordnance-gun, ball, charge, all wait for the spark. And all our best, wisest, most complete methods of mission work

will stand like a motionless machine, until the Spirit of God becomes in disciples a spirit of missions, and generates spiritual force adequate to move and to keep moving the wheels of Christian enterprise.

1. Of course, the Spirit of Faith is the secret of all other Christian attainment. This we assume as beyond the need of argument. What the root is to the plant, what the spring is to the stream, that faith is, to all the beauty and growth and power of a child of God. Not only in prayer, but in all our work, "without faith it is impossible to please Him." We must first of all receive Christ by believing, and in believing He must receive us, so that we are His and He is ours, by the mystic bond of unity. When we are in Him by faith, and He in us by love, all else becomes possible; and without Him we can do nothing, and are nothing.

Taking this as granted, we proceed to ask what are the real fruits of faith, which the true spirit of missions reveals and ripens in us?

2. We answer, first of all, the Spirit of Obedience. There is no justification for missions that is either possible or needful, except the plain, explicit repeated command of Christ. We have our "marching orders": that is enough. "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." That settles the matter, and leaves no argument or vindication to be added or needed.

The question, "Do missions pay?" is both irrelevant and irreverent. It always pays to obey authority, especially when authority is supreme. And so clear is our Lord's command, that the process, by which that command can be made of none effect, would make void the whole Word of God. Eyes that are so dim as to see no such duty enjoined on the Church must be blind. And only in the dark ages, when the very candlestick of God almost ceased to shine, was the debt of a Christian to a lost world even doubted. Nothing, to-day, is to the Church its shame and its crime, as is this, that, since Christ gave this last command, nineteen centuries have struck on the clock of the ages; and more than sixty generations have lived, sinned, suffered, and died, with an aggregate population from ten to twenty times the present number of the human race. And yet, with this positive command standing before us like Christ Himself, and pointing to the great world-field; and with the facts of awful spiritual destitution staring us in the face, the great bulk of the human family has perished, and will, in this century, continue to perish, not unsaved only, but unwarned! For such a state of things, no adequate apology or excuse is possible.

Our obedience to our Lord's will should be immediate. It has been long enough delayed, and the time is short. We firmly believe, and the conviction enters into the very marrow of our being,