The race of man is lost in sin-lost to God, and to holiness and heaven. Beside the generic, federal fall of the race in its head, there has been a voluntary and personal fall, each sinning soul for itself, in departing from the living God. Jesus Christ, the second Adam, takes man's place. He obeys the law which Adam transgressed, and proves obedience possible; then He dies in the sinner's place to make his redemption also possible. We do not here tarry to consider the philosophy of the plan of salvation: the fact is enough that, in some way and sense, "He bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness," and that "by His stripes we are healed." While the Word of God repeatedly and constantly affirms this fact, it never attempts to exhaust its philosophy. Nor need we.

The only condition of salvation is the acceptance of God's free gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. As Chalmers taught, this is the supreme glory of the Gospel, that it is simply to be accepted. Repentance is only that godly sorrow for sin and that sense of need which dispose us to faith; obedience is only the natural fruit of that new life begun in believing. tral and all-inclusive, and faith is believing, and believing is receiving. "To as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the Sons of God, even to as many as believe on His name." That one verse proves that to believe is to receive;

And so faith is cen

and, in all the instances in the Gospel according to John where that word, believe, occurs, we may substitute the word, receive, and find the sense unaffected.

We need to take one step further, and we reach another equally simple but equally vital truth. 66 'God would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." The salvation is broad enough to cover the sin of all mankind. The rescue is ample for the ruin of the race. How shall the unsaved be reached? Behold again how divinely simple is the thought of God: let every believer become a witness-let every man, who is saved, seek to save. It is no irreverence to say that God's whole idea of missions may be found, in essence, in that one word, witnessing. The salvation of God is full and free. To accept it freely is immediate justification; to accept it fully is complete sanctification; to witness to it fully and freely is complete service-it is to be a missionary wherever we are.

Let us dwell a moment on the simplicity of witnessing for Christ. Nothing can be more primitive and simple. The word itself has a lesson: it is from the Saxon, witan, to know, the root of many kindred words, "wit," "wist," "wisdom." A witness needs, therefore, but two characteristics: knowledge and utterance. To know and to tell makes a witness, and hence even a little child is now admitted to our courts of law as competent

to testify. And in the higher Court of Humanity, the Parliament of Man, even a little child is admitted, to bear witness to Jesus and the great salvation, before the tribunal of public opinion; because a child can sin, can repent, can believe, and can therefore tell what he knows of salvation by faith. In fact, no testimony is more convincing than that of a guileless child.

This simplicity is in order to universality; for it brings the privilege within the range of all believers. As the Gospel is marked by its universal adaptation to man as man, so the missionary charge is peculiar for its universal adaptation to believers as believers. It requires but the least measure of capacity, to sin, and whoever can sin, can be saved from sin; and so it requires but the least measure of capacity to be a witness, for whoever can sin and can be saved, can tell of salvation.

We repeat, it is simple that it may be universal. This duty, this privilege, is committed to all believers, and has reference to the whole race of man. It is therefore doubly universal; all believers are to witness, and are to witness unto all. All who are saved are to bear testimony, and all who are unsaved are to hear that testimony.

Here we meet, at the outset of this discussion, the first of those traditions of men which have practically made the Word of God of none effect. Believers commonly have no sense of either personal duty or responsibility toward lost souls. What

ever be their duty, it is believed it may be done indirectly and by proxy. Nay, during the ages, the Church of God has come to recognize a dividing line, not found in the New Testament, between the clergy and the laity, so-called. A small minority of church members are set apart for the preaching of the Gospel and the care of souls. The very terms "preacher," "pastor," "curate," have come to embody this conception, that these men are especially ordained to preach the Gospel, shepherd believers, and care for souls. What, then, is the duty of the "laity," but to take care of the "clergy," hear the Gospel which they preach, keep in the fold, or follow with the flock where the pastor leads; and to see to it that, while the curate" is caring for souls, he shall be paid for his professional work? This is the theory, judged by the practice. The great bulk of professing Christians have no systematic work for unsaved souls; many of them have never yet even looked upon it as a duty to seek and to save that which was lost. In their conceptions of the Christian life this does not enter as a necessary integral factor. To go to church with reasonable regularity, to pay pew-rent punctually, to be honest and honorable and charitable; to behave like a Christian in the church, in the home, and in society, especially if, to all else, be added a generous gift now and then to missions at home and abroad; this is -to most professed believers-to live the life of a

66

disciple. O for the trump of Gabriel, to peal out this truth as with the voice of the thunder !—in all this a true child of God sees but the beginning, not the end, of holy living! Where shall we find adequate room for that grander thought of direct service to God in witnessing to souls in Christ's name?

We here unhesitatingly affirm that the conception of Christian life which leaves out personal labor for lost souls, is as radically wanting as that conception of salvation which leaves out faith: for believing is not more prominently connected with salvation than is witnessing connected with service to God! And, because all new energy or enterprise in missions hinges on a revival of this apostolic faith and practice, we give it intensest emphasis here at the outset of this discussion.

Careful comparison of the various accounts, given by the evangelists, of our Lord's last interviews with his disciples, has led Rev. Dr. Robinson and others to conclude that 'the gathering on the "mountain in Galilee" was the occasion when, as Paul says, "He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once."* It was not needful that He should go into that northern province simply to meet the eleven, whom He repeatedly met in Jerusalem; nor could it be any of them who " doubted," since even the sceptical Thomas had ceased to question. But Christ had spent the bulk of His

* Cf. Matt. xxviii. 16; I. Cor. xv. 6.