non-Christian religions is minimized and their supposed or real partial truths and virtues are magnified out of all proportion to their worth, it becomes necessary, in order to the continuance of the missionary propaganda, to appeal to humanitarian motives instead of depending, as of yore, upon the true Biblical motives.

Dr. A. C. Thompson correctly says that "a disproportionate value may be placed on the incidental benefits of Christian missions." This is done when these are so presented and emphasized as to become, in appearance, or in fact, the object and purpose of the missionary enterprise and to displace or even supplant its true aim. Another writer says: "Such results are incidental arguments for missions, evidences of their efficiency. But while they reinforce, they do not constitute, the mission motives, being of a distinctively philanthropic, not missionary character." While in no true sense the aim of missions from the standpoint of the revealed Scriptures, they may appeal as motives to benevolently inclined people of the world, correcting misapprehensions, creating sympathy, and fostering a sort of philanthropic interest in the work. It is just and proper, too, that in such circles these temporal benefits should be pointed out-in answer to objections rather than as a basis for direct appeal.

It may be shown that the work would be worth while from a philanthropic point of view, if these temporal results were all the benefits that have been gained. Missions pay even from this viewpoint of commercialism and material interest. Much more are they worth

1 Protestant Missions. Their Rise and Early Progress, p. 215. 'Lawrence, Introduction to the Study of Foreign Missions, p. 39.

while, and much more do they pay, from the higher ground of the everlasting Gospel of Christ.

The true missionary motives grow out of the Scriptural ground of the missionary enterprise. They may be expressed in various forms according to varying points of view: The will of God as expressed in innumerable passages of His Word, particularly the words. of Christ, culminating in the Great Commission; Christ's compassion and His love constraining; the history of apostolic missions; the inner compulsion growing out of the universal scope of the leading doctrines of salvation; the obedience of faith; the mind of Christ and the life of Christ planted and nurtured in the believer; the need of those perishing without Christ, without God and without hope; the urgency of the King's business-the workday passing, the night of death and judgment coming on apace; consistency of our Christian profession and regard for the preservation and the perpetuation of the Church; thankfulness in view of what we have inherited and enjoy in consequence of missions and the godly impulse to glorify and adore the majesty of the King of kings who rules in the realms of nature and in the sphere of grace, and whose is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.

Yet, after all, these motives, variously expressed, all center about and are connected with one motive, the supreme motive expressed by St. Paul in the words: "The love of Christ constraineth us." This is the love of Christ which we are "to know," and which still "passeth knowledge," that we "might be filled with all the fulness of God." It is the infinite love of God in Christ Jesus, shed abroad in the hearts of true believers, and impelling us to love Him who first loved us and died for us, and to love those for whom, together with our

selves, He shed His blood, and who are just as needy of Him as we are.

The love of Christ constrains us to have compassion on our fellow men who are in distress, wherever they may be. This includes the temporal woes of heathendom. To relieve these and to improve the physical life of the heathen comes within the scope of the missionary's endeavor, while he never, in all his labors, loses sight of the real and abiding aim of the missionary enterprise.

IV. Missionary Means and Methods.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHARACTER OF THE MEANS IN GENERAL.

1. Not Carnal, but Spiritual.

The very nature of the Gospel and of Christianity requires this. The Gospel of the grace of God in Christ Jesus is the message to be proclaimed, and the kingdom of Christ is to be established and extended. "The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Christ, the King, said: "My kingdom is not of this world." And St. Paul declares: "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds."2 The burden of the message of Christ's ambassadors is: "Be ye reconciled to God." That cannot be brought about by force, by the learning and wisdom of this world, by appealing to natural instincts and interests. All such methods are fleshly, of the earth, earthy. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit," saith the Lord of hosts. The work can be accomplished by no other power.

Contrast, for a moment, with these evangelical principles the methods of the Moslem propaganda and of Roman Catholic missions. From its beginning it was a principle of Mohammedanism to spread the faith, exterminate "heresy" and conquer the nations, by fire and

'Rom. 14, 17. II. Cor. 10, 4.

sword. Those measures of violence and oppression were in accord with its intrinsic character. The false prophet had undertaken to found a kingdom of this world. And he succeeded, to the consternation of Europe, and to the extent that causes Mohammedan countries today to be the most formidable fields for Christian missions.

In medieval missions we find similar means and methods employed to a very large extent. This perversion of methods was due to the degeneracy of the dominant church and the deterioration of Christianity. This is only one example of wrongs done by ignorant and nominal or apostate Christians in the name of the Church, and for which inconsiderate and hostile worldlings hold Christianity and the Church of Jesus Christ responsible. The monks and priests of the middle ages, many of them, were zealous, even fanatical missionaries, but their zeal was largely without knowledge. Their methods were formal, hasty and superficial. Entire communities and tribes were "converted," baptized and enrolled as members of the papal church, with little instruction and with hardly any understanding of what true Christianity meant. The Jesuits in China openly declared that they only changed the objects of worship, substituting for the idols of the natives crucifixes, amulets, and rosaries. The Romish Church of the twentieth century shows by many marks, particularly in Protestant countries, how greatly it has been modified and improved by contact and competition with Protestantism. But still, to this day and in every land, Romish missions are radically different from Protestant missions in principle, aim, and methods.