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"We'll suppose

Mount Athos carved, as Alexander schemed,
To some colossal statue of a man;

The peasants, gathering brushwood in his ear,
Had guessed as little as the browsing goats
Of form or feature of humanity

Up there-in fact, had travelled five miles off
Or ere the giant image broke on them
Full human profile, nose and chin distinct,
Mouth, muttering rhythms of silence up the sky,
And fed at evening with the blood of suns;
Grand torso-hand that flung perpetually
The largess of a silver river down

To all the country pastures. 'Tis ever thus
With times we live in-evermore too great
To be apprehended near."

The missionary enterprise has done for the church far more than the most enlightened know or even imagine. It has contributed to her vitality and energy and enterprise and devotion. It has filled her with the instinct of victory. As she has thought of her sons and daughters, her heroes and heroines, on the far-flung battle-line; as she has read of or listened to their experiences, her own heart has been strangely warmed and strangely stirred; she has tightened her grip on the great truths of the gospel; she has attempted to live a more Christlike life; she has summoned all her powers to do exploits in the name of her Lord. The missionary enterprise has created a new atmosphere in the church, an atmosphere in which a higher and finer type of manhood and womanhood has been developed. It has saved the church from worldliness, from provincialism, from sectarianism, from selfishness, and from many other evils. It has brought the membership into closer fellowship with Jesus Christ, and into more cordial coöperation with Him in all His efforts to save the whole world.

Back of the missionary cause is the Old Testament and the New Testament; back of the Old Testament and the New

Testament is the eternal purpose of God; and back of the eternal purpose of God is the infinite love of God for every soul that bears His image. Because this cause is rooted in the love of God, it must succeed. Heaven and earth may pass away; but His sure word of promise cannot fail.

IX

THE DIVINE ORDER IN MISSIONS

ACTS 1: 8; Luke 24: 47; Rom. I : 16

TANDING with the Eleven on Mount Olivet, our Lord said to them, "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." This language shows conclusively that He did not mean that the apostles were to address themselves to these places in the order named, finishing one before doing anything in the next. What He had in mind. was that they were to bear testimony in them simultaneously. There is nothing here to indicate that any one of these places had any preference over the others. Our Lord was thinking of the whole world, and He wished them to undertake worldwide witness-bearing. Unquestionably this was His program.

This Scripture is frequently misquoted and misapplied. Speakers and writers quote it thus, "You shall be My witnesses, first in Jerusalem, then in Judea, then in Samaria, and then unto the uttermost part of the earth." By substituting "first" for "both," and by inserting "then" three times where it does not belong, they materially alter the meaning of the sentence. They speak of their city or town as Jerusalem, of their state as Judea, of their nation as Samaria, and the rest of the world, as the uttermost part of the earth. The place in which they live is first in their estimation in every sense, the state comes next, the nation next, and the outside world is last of all and least of all. They insist that this should be the order in all missionary undertakings. One has only to read

the passage as it is found in all the versions to discover that it gives no support whatever to this view. The text has been changed to justify the theory. It may be said that any theory that requires a change in the inspired text should be rejected.

If the apostles had confined their labours to Jerusalem till all the people in that city were reached and won to the faith, they would not have been able to preach the good tidings of the Kingdom of God elsewhere. They had not so interpreted the

parting charge of their Lord. Having made a beginning in one place, they hurried on to the next. They sought to reach every part of the habitable globe with the message of salvation through Jesus the Crucified. They planned and laboured for the widest possible diffusion of the gospel and in the shortest time possible. Because of their policy and unwearied activity, we are not surprised to hear in a little time of the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria. The Epistle of James, the first Christian document that has come down to us, shows that the gospel was heralded among the twelve tribes of the dispersion when it was written. In the Epistle to the Colossians we read of the gospel being preached in all creation under heaven, and of it bearing fruit in all the world and increasing. In accordance with the instructions of their Lord, the apostles undertook to reach every section of the field. What they aimed at they practically accomplished. In a single generation the gospel was preached in all the places named in their commission, and to all classes and conditions of society.

The successors of the apostles had the same conception of their duty. Eusebius tells us that they continued the work of preaching the gospel, and scattering abundantly over the whole earth the wholesome seed of the heavenly kingdom. A very large number of the disciples divided their goods among the poor, left their country, filled the office of evangelists, coveting eagerly to preach Christ, to carry the glad tidings of God to those who had not yet heard the word of faith. "And after laying the foundations of the faith in some remote and

barbarous countries, establishing pastors among them, and confiding to them the care of these young settlements, without stopping longer, they hastened on to other nations, attended by the grace and virtue of God." By the close of the first century the gospel was preached from Spain to Babylon and from Scythia to Central Africa. At the middle of the second century, Justin Martyr said, "There is no people, Greek or barbarian, or of any other race, by whatsoever name or manners they may be distinguished, however ignorant of arts or 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 the great commission as recorded by Luke we learn that our Lord told His apostles to "begin from Jerusalem." But that was not, as is erroneously believed and taught, because Jerusalem was their home. We know that Jerusalem was not the home of any one of them. On the day of Pentecost the people who heard Peter and the Eleven, said, "Are not all these that speak Galileans?" Jerusalem was not their home, nor was Judea. In the different records of the great commission, nothing is said about preaching in Galilee. They were to begin from Jerusalem for other and most cogent reasons. Referring to this command, Broadus says, " And doesn't that mean that I ought to begin at Louisville, and that you ought to begin at Boston, and others ought to begin at Brooklyn and New York, and some other people ought to begin at Smoketown, and that everybody should begin at home and work out in widening circles? I trow not, because not one of these men lived in Jerusalem." Broadus says that they were to begin at Jerusalem because at Jerusalem the great events of the Christian religion had taken place; and if they had not made some converts in Jerusalem they could not have gone to foreign parts and expected the people there to believe these events. Jerusalem Christ died for the sins of the world; He was buried;

In

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