gospel had been preached and was bearing fruit in all creation under heaven. The Gospels culminate in the great commission. All that goes before leads up to this and prepares for it. All that follows in the New Testament is a result of the carrying out of the commission by the apostles and their associates. When our Lord sent these men out on their first preaching tour, He told them that they were not to go into any way of the Gentiles, nor to enter any city of the Samaritans; they were to go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Now their field is the world. They were to go in all directions, into "regions Cæsar never knew, where his eagles never flew," and to give the inhabitants a knowledge of salvation through Jesus the Crucified. The word of command was, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation." They were to make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; they were to teach those who accepted their message to observe all things whatsoever Christ had commanded. Warneck shows that the gospel necessarily issues in a missionary commandment. "It is penetrated through and through by thoughts of universal salvation, which make it a religion for the whole world." Nothing is more deeply imbedded in Christianity than its universality. The commission is not "a counsel of perfection"; it is a positive command enforcing on the disciples what their Lord had spent His ministerial life in doing, and directing a course of action which is so essential and inseparable a part of the plan of salvation that it is impossible to neglect it without wrecking the whole scheme. The great commission contemplates the evangelization of the whole wide world. Nothing short of this answers to the sublime conceptions and aims of its Author. The critics have had much to say about the Gospels, about their composition and authorship and date and credibility; but no one has ventured to deny their missionary significance. No one has charged that their missionary teaching and spirit are interpolations. The apostles were incapable of interpolating the missionary teaching of the Gospels. They were Jews and had all the limitations of their race. They lacked the cosmopolitanism of Christ. "For Him there were no race prejudices, no party lines, no sectarian limits, no favoured nation. There was nothing between His love and the world. His heart beat for the world-and on Calvary broke for the world." It was only in such a heart that the missionary enterprise could be conceived. Their name They are not The Gospels are missionary documents. indicates their nature. They are good tidings. "tidings" at all except to such as are ignorant of them. They are not "good" except to those who hear them. The messenger who loitered with the king's pardon till the prisoner was executed did not bring good tidings. The pardon was not worth the parchment upon which it was written. Tidings that are not made known possess only potential value. It is of the very essence of good tidings that they be proclaimed. The first impulse in a healthy mind on hearing a good thing is to pass it on. Philip and Andrew heard of Jesus, and their first concern was to bring their own brothers to Him. When the apostles were strictly charged not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus, they said, "We cannot but speak the things we saw and heard." They could not keep the good news to themselves; they could die more easily. It is evident that missions are a vital function in the Christian system. They are included in its very essence. They are of its warp and woof; they are not a fringe or tassel on the garment. The apostles understood this. As soon as they received the gift of the Holy Spirit they went out and preached everywhere; the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word with the signs that followed. These signs demonstrated the fact that they had correctly interpreted the meaning of His parting charge. The booked called "The Acts," what is it? It is sometimes spoken of as the book of conversions. And it is that, in part. Quite a number of conversions are recorded on its pages. The apostles spoke as the Holy Spirit gave them utterance. Many of those who heard were convicted of sin and asked with much concern what they should do. They were told what to do by men who were not giving their own thoughts, but the thoughts of God. This book is sometimes called the gospel of the Holy Spirit. And it is that, in part. The Holy Spirit descended upon that little company assembled in the upper room in Jerusalem, and the early church was guided in its thought and speech and conduct and in all its ministries by the Holy Spirit. But The Acts is first of all and last of all and most of all an inspired record of the missionary activity of the church in the first decades of its existence. Here is the core of the book, "But ye shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.' That is its main thesis, and all the rest is commentary and illustration. I have sometimes thought that a stranger coming into one of our assemblies might conclude that we regarded the thirty-eighth verse of the second chapter as the heart of the book. But to do that would be to miss its meaning, great and important as that verse is, and rightly as we have emphasized it. " For the first few years Peter was the leader; because to him the keys of the kingdom were given. While Peter was the leader the gospel was preached throughout Judea and Samaria and Galilee and at some few points beyond the limits of Palestine. In course of time Paul appears on the scene. He was peculiarly qualified by natural gifts and by training for leadership. After some years Peter and Paul divided the field between them. Peter went to the Jews; Paul went to the outside nations. We know what followed. At once Peter retired into the background. Paul came to the front and filled the whole stage, and almost two-thirds of The Acts are occupied with the records of Paul's missionary travels and sermons and trials and experiences while serving Christ as a foreign missionary. The last glimpse we have of him he is in the capital of the empire preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness, none forbidding him. There the curtain falls, and we see him no more. The Epistles, what are they? For the most part they are letters written by missionaries to mission churches which they had founded. The field was large. The apostles were few in number. Facilities for getting about were not as complete then as they are now. Many problems were pressing for solution in these churches gathered out of Judaism and out of Paganism. The same questions that confront missionaries to-day, questions relating to idolatry, polygamy, caste, slavery, drunkenness, extortion, reviling, the right relation between the sexes, the nurture of children, and kindred questions, confronted the church in the first century. Sometimes the apostles could go in person and settle these questions. Sometimes they could not go; then they wrote letters and discussed them. In the providence of God these letters have come down to us, and they constitute the Epistles of the New Testament. It must be remembered that the Epistles are missionary documents; they must be read as such by those who wish to have a clew to their meaning. The Christian communities addressed were all far from Jerusalem, the birthplace of the church. These communities were located in Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colossæ, Thessalonica, Pontus, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. These peoples had been won to Christ by missionary endeavour. In these Epistles we read, "Is God the God of the Jews only? Is He not the God of Gentiles also? Yea, of Gentiles also if so be that God is one, and He shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith." God is represented as saying, "I will call that My people which was not My people; and her beloved, that was not beloved." "For there is no distinction between the Jew and the Greek; for the same Lord is Lord of all, and is rich unto all that call upon Him; for, Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." "The Gentiles are fellow heirs, and fellow members of the body, and fellow partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel." John speaks of those who went forth for the sake of the Name, taking nothing of the Gentiles, and adds, "We ought therefore to welcome such, that we may be fellow-workers for the truth." The Pastoral Epistles are full of missionary significance. Timothy was exhorted to tarry in Ephesus, that he might charge certain men not to teach a different doctrine, neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questionings, rather than a dispensation of God, which is of faith. Titus was left at Crete, that he might set in order the things that are wanting, and appoint elders in every city. These men were missionary agents. They were Paul's most trusted lieutenants. In these Epistles we read, "There is one God, one Mediator also between God and man, Himself man, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, the testimony to be borne in its own times." We read also that "the grace of God hath appeared bringing salvation to all men." The book of Revelation, what is it? There are some things in this book that I do not understand. one understands them. I never met but two men who claimed to understand all about this book, and I think they understood less about it than any other two intelligent men with whom I have ever talked on the subject. We read of a woman arrayed with the sun, and the moon was at her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars. I do not know what that woman represented. The Christian Scientists hold that this woman represented Mrs. Eddy. So in the mother church in Boston there is a stained glass window showing the woman of the |