New tasks for new times

Front matter

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Preface

The Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, provides that a special missionary cultivation campaign be conducted in every congregation of the denomination annually during the months of January and February. In this cultivation plan all the forces of the church are enlisted. The presiding elders are to “see that adequate plans are adopted for the missionary education of all the Churches.”’ The pastor is to “organize a missionary committee” and to “seek in every way to educate and inspire his people concerning the evangelization of the world.’”’ The missionary committee must “‘co-operate with the pastor in missionary education, distribute missionary literature,’”’ and, under the direction of the pastor, ‘‘hold a school of missions annually in every church.”

The present volume is intended to be the basis of this campaign of missionary cultivation and the textbook of the school of missions in every Church. It has been prepared by one of the secretaries of the Board of Missions who has had the full co-operation of all his colleagues; and it is sent out with full official approval and endorsement. It contains the facts and message which the present missionary situation demands and it is therefore earnestly commended to all the people.

The Church—all its branches—has recently undergone a serious testing time in the matter of world evangelization. Financial embarrassment and a wavering of faith and loyalty in this supreme business of Christianity have been experienced in every denomination. From this severe era our own Church is happily and triumphantly emerging. And our people seem prepared again to advance the lives of God’s kingdom throughout the world. They now need and desire information and a new vision of the task to be done. Given that, they will rally again to the Great Commission and do their share in taking the world for Christ.

This volume contains the message the Church needs. It is in popular form, adapted to the people. It is hoped that leaders everywhere will co-operate unstintedly in giving it to the Church by means of study classes in every congregation. f

W. G. CRAM, General Secretary of the Board of Missions.

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE I. THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE UNITED

STATES IN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS . . . 3

II. AMERICA PREPARING FOR HER TASK . . 27

Chapter One Duty Of The Strong To The Weak

P “O those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the state which

formerly governed them and which are inhabited by

peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization and that securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in this covenant. The best method of giving practical effect to this principle is that the tutelage of such peoples should be entrusted to advanced nations, who by reason of their resources, their experience or their geographic position can best undertake this responsibility, and who are willing to accept it.” Thus did those who framed the covenant of the League of Nations phrase in practical terms as applicable to international relationships the doctrine of St. Paul: ‘‘We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves.” (Roman 15:1) If this be true as regard the relationship of peoples as to national and international affairs how much more so as related to religious and moral character.

RELIGIOUS SITUATION WHEN AMERICA WAS OPENED

The opening of America and the making here on this continent of a nation of free people and their progress for a century and a half is one of the great romances of history. The land was discovered by voyagers who were subjects of nations dominated by Rome, and that at the period of Rome’s greatest intolerance. For a long time Rome had tried to suppress every form of heresy. It is a significant sidelight that the age of doctrinal controversy, now commonly spoken of as the Dark Ages, was an era of spiritual and moral decline, during which the Church lost her hold on much territory in which Christianity once flourished, as the Holy Land, Syria, Egypt and North Africa.

Many bright stars, such as Wyckliffe, Tyndale and Huss, shone along the horizon during these years, whose light will never be put out. Many gave up life for the sake of the truth they believed, the names of these martyrs to the truth are cherished in all Protestant countries, and by some also who have been subject to repression and persecution in other lands. The work of these worthies at last came to fruition in the birth of the Reformation.

COLONIES IN NORTH AMERICA BECOME PROTESTANT

Was it merely an accident of history that the Protestant Reformation began in 1517 and that just twenty-five years before in 1492, America was discovered? Was not some Divine Providence working in human affairs in preparation of a continent for the free development and growth to maturity of the new spirit of life working in the souls of men? Most of the American territories were peopled from papal lands which were then the most powerful of European nations. Nor was North America exempt from an effort to subject its people to papal control. The colony of Maryland was governed by a Romanist and in the early years dominated by that faith. Florida was held by Spain even after the formation of the American Republic as were the regions of the ereat South West, now included in the states of Texas, New Mexico, California, Colorado, and a large part of Utah and Nevada. The great Louisiana territory purchased during the administration of Thomas Jefferson was governed by France, so that the largest part of the area of the present United States of America was under papal control. But “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.” From Protestant England came the sturdy Puritans to the bleak New England shores _ seeking a land where they could worship God according to their own conscience without fear of molestation. At tremendous sacrifice they gained and held their footing in this new land, with mighty effort establishing here a free church, founded schools for the training of a ministry and citizenship and a government by the will of the people. Protestant people came likewise to occupy Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia very largely of English stock, with an influential number of Scotch Presbyterians, French Huguenots, and Protestant Irish. Pennsylvania was occupied by the Friends led by William Penn seeking also religious freedom, while the Dutch people also of Protestant faith, perhaps urged on by the effects of the Spanish Inquisition, came to New Amsterdam (New York), and all these elements were actuated by a common desire for religious and political freedom. They combatted many difficulties, endured hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ in overcoming the adversities incident to residence in a new world surrounded by savage and hostile natives. They braved privations, poverty, sickness, and death to gain here a home for themselves, build their free institutions and maintain their religious liberty. But the end was victory for their most cherished hopes, though purchased at incalculable cost.

ORIGINS OF RELIGIOUS FAITH IN AMERICA—APOSTOLIC TIMES

The ancestors of these people were converted to Christianity by a noble band of missionaries whose names are written in the book of life. The cause of

Christ spread with such great rapidity, because every Christian was a missionary, that as early as the close of the second century Tertullian could say: “Weare but of yesterday and yet we already fill your cities, islands, camps, your palaces, senate and forum; we have left you only your temples,” and even half a century before, Justin Martyr, a contemporary of the later apostles, affirmed: ‘“There is no people, Greek or Barbarian, or of any other race, by whatsoever appellation or manner they may be distinguished, however ignorant of arts or of agriculture, whether they dwell in tents or wander about in covered wagons, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered in the name of the crucified Jesus to the Father and Creator of all things.” In 318 A.D. Constantine by imperial edict recognized Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. It is no wonder that Julian the Apostate emperor considering the triumphs of the cross exclaimed “Oh! Galilean, Thou hast conquered!’’

DIFFERING OPINIONS

Two widely differing classes arose from this condition. The one contended against the philosophies of non-Christian thinkers and the false doctrines which quickly appeared among the followers of Christ; and the other, leaving such contests to the Church at home and in the hands of such able defenders of the faith as Athanasius, Jerome, Chrysostom, Augustine, and others, went afar to strange lands and often savage people to proclaim the saving faith of the gospel of Christ. As Dr. Glover has said, these early Christians triumphed in all lands and among all kinds of men because they “‘outthought, outlived and outdied” the men of pagan faith with whom they came in contact.

PATRISTIC TIMES—SOME EARLY MISSIONARIES TO EUROPE

Among the early Christian missionaries was Ulfilas (Little Wolf) from a family of rank and influence who labored among the Goths north of the Danube and “was one of the first missionaries to give not only Christianity but letters to a whole people.” In order that the Goths might have the Scriptures, he invented for them an alphabet, translated for them the whole Bible excepting the Books of Kings, which he omitted in the fear that these might arouse the warlike passions of the Goths.

BEGINNINGS IN FRANCE AND IRELAND

Martin, Bishop of Tours (816-400), was an early missionary to the Gauls, others before him having carried the gospel to the savage Franks. He organized his men into bands, not to carry on war but to cut down sacred trees, destroy idols and temples and so remove the traces of paganism. For centuries he was the patron Saint of France. Succat, a Scot, known to history as St. Patrick, whose grandfather was a married priest, wrought a wondrous work in Ireland. He used neither rosary, nor practiced the worship of Mary or any saint, extreme unction, nor auricular confession. ‘The authentic records do not indicate that he had any connection with the pope cr with popery. The modern Romish sect did not then exist.”” The most striking characteristic of his writings is his frequent quotation of the Holy Scriptures, in which he used the Jerome translation.

BEGINNINGS IN SCOTLAND, GERMANY, HOLLAND, SCANDINAVIA

One of his converts, Columba, went to Scotland. The extent of his work and that of the missionary training school which he founded is shown by the fact that during his lifetime the gospel was accepted by the whole of the Western Picts; by the people of Hebrides; and by many in the Orkney, Shetland and Faroe Islands. In England the first great pioneer missionary was Augustine with his band of forty monks, sent out by Gregory te re-evangelize a people who had once been evangelized, but had relapsed into heathenism because of the weakness of the Church not able to stem the tide of the growing influence of pagan tribes. From Britain there went to Germany heralds of the cross of whom the most conspicuous are Winifred or Boniface, Columbanus, and Willibrord, of whom the most distinguished of the missionaries to Anglo Saxon peoples was Boniface (755). “It is said that in the course of about twenty years he baptised 100,000 of the pagan inhabitants of Germany, which became a professedly Christian land.” Others wrought with similar success in Holland, Denmark, Sweden, the Scandinavian countries and even to far away Greenland.

THE RISE OF PROTESTANTISM CONTEMPORANEOUS WITH THE OPENING OF AMERICA

In these North European lands whence came the first settlers in North America Protestantism arose and flourished just at the time when America was opened for occupancy, and furnished a home and refuge for multitudes weary of the wars, bitter religious persecutions and tyrannies of the old world. In this land they wrought out their salvation, and in the enjoyment of their freedom became the enemies of all forms of oppression civil and religious, and with heroic sacrifice and constant vigilance builded their free institutions laying strong the lasting foundations of liberty and independence of conscience and life upon which was reared the superstructure of this Great Republic of the West. They gave their blood that we might be free and worship the God of our fathers, every man “under his vine and under his fig tree.”’ We are debtors to the Christian purpose and service of those who bought for us the blessings and privileges which we enjoy. We are debtors to the millions who came after them from all lands, entered into their spirit and builded on the foundations they had by their sacrifice laid, men who have helped to clear a way through the wilderness, build highways through the forests and across the prairies, open the vast mineral resources, develop the industries, agriculture, and the commerce which help to make us not only free and independent as a people, but the richest in material wealth in all the world. We are debtors to those missionaries who introduced Christianity into Europe. We are debtors to those early Christians who went everywhere preaching Christ. “We are heirs of all the ages in the foremost files of time.’ If ever a people has been made great by the unsearchable riches of the gospel of the grace of Jesus Christ, we are that people.

THE UNITED STATES IS A CHRISTIAN NATION

The United States Supreme Court has declared that we are a Christian nation. Here the principles of Jesus are a vital force, controlling more than aught else in our national and international affairs, in business and in industry. Not that this is the only force at work. For the Prince of the power of the air works also and the results of his efforts are too often in evidence. But almost universally the mightiest appeal to our people is to the character and teaching of Jesus: and the working of the gospel leaven is everywhere and always in evidence. Our Churches are strong and influential institutions. At least half the adult population have acknowledged Him as Lord | ui and in solemn vow at the altar of some church sworn their allegiance to Him. Not that their life is completely surrendered to Him, as should be, but they have taken Him as their Lord and His teaching as their ideal of life, while multitudes who have not thus formally acknowledged Him yet pay tribute to Him as the world’s best hope and Savior. While selfishness, lust, pride, and a host of evils still have mighty influence over many and far too much, over practically all, it is still true that His teachings and life are the final court of appeals for the great mass of the people of this great commonwealth.

THE MoRAL CHARACTER OF THE FOUNDERS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BLESSINGS WE ENJOY

The moral character produced by these ideals has given strength to all the institutions of this land, and is helping more than all other governing principles to increase our wealth. To freedom in government and religion is added the blessing of wealth. Blessing if used to His glory, curse if abused to selfish ends, or for the gratification of the baser appetites and desires of weak depraved human nature. The increase of our wealth is beyond the power of ordinary imagination to grasp. ‘“The National Industrial Conference Board recently announced that the national wealth of the United States amounted to well over $355,- 000,000,000 in 1925 compared with the previous census estimate of $320,000,000,000 in 1922”

(Washington Post Editorial), showing an increase of 35 billion dollars within the space of three short years, or at the rate of almost 12 billion per year. What are we to do with this vast profit coming from the industry and thrift of our people? If used to satisfy the baser appetites for extravagant luxury and selfish pleasure it will work destruction. “If in our haste to be rich and mighty we outrun our religious institutions they will never overtake us, and only come up after the battle of liberty is fought and lost as spoils of an inexorable despotism,” and serve to perpetuate a bondage unto death. If used for spiritual and moral purposes in the building and making strong those institutions that honor Christ and extend His Kingdom in the earth, it will become a means for saving ourselves and others. Let glory be given to His name!

WE ARE BOUND BY THE SPIRIT OF THE GOSPEL WuicuH Has BLESSED US

Let us consider what is the true spirit of the gospel which has so blessed us as a people, for surely if ever a people were under obligation to govern their lives and conduct in accordance with that spirit, the followers of Jesus in this western land are such. We cannot escape the duty. To do so would be to count the blood that bought us an unholy thing and to fail in loyalty to Him who is our Savior. Should we not seek to spend our wealth and our strength to exalt Him in our own and all the nations, and by so doing in some way discharge the obligation to Him and all those for whom He gave up His life?

MISSIONS CREATED THE NEW TESTAMENT

The New Testament is a volume of Missionary literature. Says McFadyen: “So far as we can see, had the propagating of the ‘good news’ not been felt from the first as an urgent duty, not only would there have been no Christian Church, but, granted the existence of a Church, it would have had no New Testament.” It is evident that in part at least we owe the synoptic gospels to the necessity of training the young converts of missionary effort won from a people who knew not the story of the life and work of Jesus. The Acts of the Apostles is the story of the expansion of the Christian Church through missionary effort. The letters of Paul were written to Christian Churches won from paganism and for their instruction in the way of the gospel. Many of the problems he encountered and wrote about and the evils he sought to correct are exactly the same that every missionary in non-Christian lands encounters to-day, such as the marriage relation and practices involved in the old idolatry of the people. Jesus in his life went beyond the bounds of Judea into Perea, through Samaria, where he preached to the woman at the well and her fellow townsmen who came to “see a man who told me all things that ever I did’; into the coasts of Zidon where he ministered to the woman whose faith triumphed. He showed himself

OurR RESPONSIBILITY IN CHRISTIAN MISSIONS oblivious to the distinctions which men made in his age when Roman and Greek despised every Barbarian, when the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans and when foods and people alike were divided into clean and unclean. In His presence all these artificial distinctions fell away and men stood forth revealed for what they were. He permits a sinful woman to bathe his feet with her tears and wipe them with her hair, disdaining not her unclean touch but sends her away with a song of peace in her heart. He receives sinners and eats with them, goes to be guest of a publican, and pronounces blessings upon the poor, against whom all doors were closed and no rabbi permitted even to teach, declaring that the Kingdom of Heaven is open to them.

THE LIFE AND SPIRIT OF JESUS EXPRESSED IN THE GREAT COMMISSION

If the critics could prove that the great commission was not a part of the gospels as originally written, which is not for one moment conceded, it is yet true that it expresses the spirit of Jesus and is essentially _ the very heart of His Gospel, who came that all men might have life abundant, and whose business was to seek and to save the lost. “On any theory, the commission is surely a correct interpretation of the whole attitude of Jesus to men. One of the most characteristic words of Jesus is that in which he pic- . tures God as the most hospitable of hosts, keeping open door and applying to candidates for admission to the great feast none of those purblind tests with which men restrict the circle of their friends.” (McFadyen)

Is THE DuTY GREATER TO TARRY AT JERUSALEM OR GO INTO ALL THE WORLD?

It is evident that a Church cannot propagate a more potent Christianity than it possesses in its own members, and that the gospel must prove its power‘ to save people in Jersualem, the city in which the mighty works of Jesus were known, where he lived, wrought, taught, died, and broke the fetters of death with mighty triumph over the grave and all the powers of darkness, “bringing life and immortality to light in the gospel.’ But when the beginning was made there thoy were to go to the uttermost parts of the earth and preach the gospel to every creature. The Kingdom of God “‘as the world wide sovereignty”’ of the truth and grace of God must be set up amongst all men. Says Principal Garvie (Missionary Obligation and Modern Thought): ‘To-day it is beginning to be recognized that the salvation of all is necessary to the completeness of the salvation of each. The Christendom of to-day, in as far as it has apprehended and appropriated this conception realizes that, apart from the conversion of the whole world, it cannot itself be made perfect. The life of an organism is affected adversely or favorably by its environment;

and a Christendom surrounded by paganism or heathenism cannot become fully Christian. To maintain life in fellowship with Christ; to realize the fullness of that life in a Christian society that purpose must find its world wide fulfillment.” So the early homilists interpreted the parable of the leaven as the Church planting the gospel in the individual heart and in humanity. The three measures of meal representing either the individual with intellect, sensibility, and will, or as the human family constituted of three primal races. The life of the individual Christian acts as a potent influence on society and in turn the effect of the leaven in society reacts on the individual. So we have to-day much about the reflex action of the missionary effort on the home Church. Certainly, the Church must live up to the spirit of the gospel in order to realize the fullness of its saving efficacy, “for no man liveth by himself and no man dieth by himself,’”’ which is just as true of nations as of men. America cannot experience the benefits of saving grace without sharing them with those who need them. The Dead Sea is such because it receives but gives out nothing. The Great Lakes are fresh because they are constantly giving out what they receive.

“That man may last but never lives

Who much receives but nothing gives,

Whom none can bless, whom none can thank;

Creation’s blot, creation’s blank.” Jesus commands “‘as ye have freely received, freely

1% give,’ and St. Paul proclaims as one of His precepts applicable to the life of His Church: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.’ His Church to save itself, must illustrate His life, and its greatest achievement by giving itself for others.

AMERICA IS CALLED TO MINISTER TO OTHERS

The process is a constant one of internal growth and external expansion until the whole be leavened | and the Kingdom of God is come. America has the © resources in men and means for waging a vigorous and aggressive war against sin, superstition and error . in all the world. Is any other nation more richly | endowed? Why has God so blessed us but that we may bea lighthouse for all those upon life’s seas who are seeking to find and know God? This nation has been divinely endowed, equipped and commissioned to “bear His name far hence to the nations” that know Him not, but feel after Him if haply they may find Him.

Gop DoEs Not APPROVE A SELF-CENTERED CHURCH

It will not suffice for the Church to expend all its resources and energies upon its own local programs, and to gratify its pride in the erection of costly temples and the elaboration of ritual, however beautiful. The story goes of one who at great expense builded and equipped with the finest machinery a factory to make lubricating oil, and after operating it for a long period when asked about his output explained that it required all the oil his mill could produce to lubricate its own machines. A church which requires all the oil of grace produced by means of its activities to lubricate and keep going its machinery is doomed. Such a Church cannot truly represent Jesus Christ. The only business of a Church is to spread scriptural holiness over all lands. One which is not actively engaged in that business has no reason it can give to God or man for continuing its existence as an organization. If America fail, will not God let her pass into oblivion and raise up unto Himself another people to carry on His work? God has shown his purpose to save the world. The peoples who have failed to bring themselves into harmony with His plan are dead and the dust of centuries buries their glory. What will be the destiny of America? It is for her to decide her fate. His laws are immutable and work out their own fulfillment. How pathetic the lament ‘‘O Jerusalem, that stonest the prophets—your house is left unto you desolate.” America has the choice of prodigally wasting her God given substance in riotous living, or by vigorous evangelism at home and over the wide, wide world building altars of consecration and service to God and men and so save herself and others. God loves a selfish church no more than He loves a selfish man, and that sin is no more excusable in the one than in the other.

NATIONALISM OR PATRIOTISM AND CHRISTIAN INTERNATIONALISM

A spirit of Nationalism (so called) has in recent years been growing apace and spreading its branches over the peoples of every land. Its chief characteristic is extreme selfishness. That it has rooted itself in America there can be no doubt in the mind of a most casual observer. Nor is it confined to the lands south of the Rio Grande. It is strong in the United States and has become what one writer calls a religion. Some Christian Churches in the United States have wrought out a ritual and held elaborate services in worship of the flag. Its chief watch cries are ‘“‘America first,’’ ‘“America for the Americans,”’ and it has found numerous means of expression in our attitude toward the people of other lands. It crucifies altruism, exalts self and appeals to the sordid in human nature. There is a patriotism which is worthy and blessed; a patriotism that seeks to make the nation worthy in its life and character, and because loving its own a friend of all mankind. To save ourselves from the threatened evils of this rampant spirit now tearing through the whole world with the threat of wars and slaughter and their accompaniment of cruelty, famine, pestilence and hate, there is no better remedy than a vigorous effort to seek and save the lost, begotten of love to Christ and toward all those whom He came into the world to save. The best corrective for a selfish nationalism is the gospel of Christian internationalism. In recent years there are evidences that this selfish spirit has crept into our Churches, as witness the falling off in contributions for missions despite the increase of wealth, and a large increase in offerings for local programs. The spirit of Jesus and His love for all men alone can save the nation from the curse of worship to a false God.

It 18 TIME TO GO INTO ALL THE WORLD

The disciples were commanded to tarry at Jerusalem until they were “‘endued with power from on high,” not until Jerusalem was entirely Christian. They were to build there under the influence of the Holy Spirit a Church strong enough to carry the gospel message into all the world and then go unto all the nations. This was important, for a Church is not capable of carrying into the world a more vital and potent religion than it possesses. But when strength to propagate it has been developed then the exercise of spreading it abroad to others helps to develop greater strength and to keep active the powers already developed. Without such exercise the strength atrophies and will die. The time came when the Providence of God thrust them forth and the very going and the achievements in consequence brought new vitality to the home church. New conceptions and interpretations were given, and in course of time the results of missionary effort reacted as a saving agency for the Church itself. America cannot wait until the whole people are Christian, nor until all its life is under the dominion of Christ. The preaching of the gospel to others will build a stronger, better Church in America and help mightily to bring the day when Jesus shall rule in all her affairs social, industrial, civil and international.

It 18 TIME TO SOUND THE ADVANCE, NOT A RETREAT

This is not time for retreat or retrenchment, but © to “strengthen the things that remain, that are ready to die.’”’ In His name the motto should be forward whither His scarred hand points the way. Mighty world forces oppose the progress of the gospel and flaunt their banners in the face of all good; forces which seek to undermine our most cherished and dearly bought institutions; forces which mock at our Church, scorn our religion and laugh in the very face of God. ‘The Lord shall have them in derision.” In an open conflict between sin and righteousness, evil and good, error and truth, there can be but one issue, complete and triumphant victory for truth and righteousness, for “right is right since God is God, and right the day must win, to doubt would be disloyalty, to falter would be sin.” He leads who carries the keys of death at His girdle, who fears no foe nor shrinks from seeming danger. The Church, this nation, needs more of the spirit which carried Him through Gethsemane to Calvary, and to the resurrection morn and His ascension into glory. The people who are true to Him and with consecrated zeal give themselves to the accomplishment of His Divine purpose will realize the fullness of His saving grace and power. America needs, sorely needs a revival of vital godliness, of true holiness and in carrying out a vigorous, earnest missionary crusade at home and in all the world will find the satisfaction ~ of all her needs, life, life abundant, life eternal. May America realize her obligation and rise to her glorious opportunity in the day of her redemption through Jesus Christ.