Alexander Crummell

“ We sit down and brood over the evils of Christian countries, forgetful that those evils are in no way whatever the fault or fruit of Christianity, but only show the quarters where devils have not been cast out, where evil spirits still linger, and show the needed power of Christ's Church. By this short-sightedness, moreover, we lose the full impression of the wonderful work the Gospel has done, and fail to see the conquering might inherent in the religion of Jesus. ”

“ And that the Gospel alone can do. It can do it anywhere and everywhere. Its power is not confined nor limited. It is fitted to men of every clime and nation. It is the only remedy, the only agency on earth, which has such power and ability. The Lord Jesus Christ is the only physician of souls who stands up amid the million masses of men, capable of turning and touching any one of the crowd surrounding, and by touching curing, and sending them away healed and whole, for time and for eternity.
There is another point in which we may see the fitness of the Gospel for all men. ”

“ As a consequence, the Gospel would not be fitted for all men, nor be adapted to the whole race. But see how, in its terms and requirements, the Gospel proves its universal fitness. The grand terms of the Gospel are repentance and faith. And never have there lived a people on earth, however lowly and debased, who have not had regret; none who have not exercised, in some way, the quality of faith. All men have been sorry about something in their lives, and so when they are convinced of the error of sin against God, they can be sorry for sin. ”

“ Paul is equivalent to this: that the Gospel is the complement to main's universal needs and miseries. He says, in effect, these words: "I know that men have intense spiritual ailments; I am aware of man's inward needs and miseries; I see clearly the fact of soul-sickness, and God has made me an instrument for man's cure and man's relief. Hence I have announced this sacred medicine among my own kith and kin—the Jews; but do not think for a moment that this medicine is for them only. The day of differences and distinctions has passed away. The blood of Jesus Christ is for all men. ”

“ If you come to Africa, you find the fruitful source of her heterogeneous ills and sufferings is sin. If you visit the islands of the sea, sin there is the parent of pains and agonies. If you turn to India, sin, among her many millions of idolaters, is the desolator. And so, if you traverse the provinces of enlightenment, whether in Europe or America, everywhere you will see the deadly spots of the same loathsome leprosy, which from the infant days of the world has been eating out the vitals of humanity. ”

“ Now, many of the ills of men are local; they pertain to particular nations, zones, and hemispheres, and hence the cures of certain ailments in one quarter could not benefit men with dissimilar ailments in other quarters of the globe. Now, the peculiarity of the Gospel is, that the remedy for the great evil which underlies all human woe is both fitted and designed for all men. It is world-wide in its adaptedness, and universal in its efficacy.
If you go to China, the disease which is the fruitful source of all her multiplied miseries—social, civil, religions, and political—is sin. ”

“ Now, whatever may be the development of this virus, if you do not attack it itself your labor is in vain. You may cure this evil; you may get rid of that ailment; you may lop off this withered limb; and cut off that cancered excrescence; and yet, after all, if you do not go directly to the seat of the disease which is ruining man, your labor is vain and profitless.
Sin in the heart, that is, selfishness, alienation from God, perfect absorption in self, that is the disease in every man and nation on earth which must be cured ”

“ There are the common miseries of life, which bring their measure of soul-sickness, and plead for healing. This earth is a charnel-house, filled with the diseased and suffering. The griefs and the pangs of the wretched issue forth continually from palaces, and huts, and alms-houses, and hospitals, in all the lands of earth. ”

“ But besides these, there are the deeper, more secret, and sorer miseries, which afflict the unirersal heart of man. As there is a wretchedness which is originated in physical ill, which comes out of the bodily afflictions of men, so there is an anguish which has the soul itself as its fountain-head, and preys upon its own vitals. "The heart knoweth its own bitterness." There is an inward agony and desolation, the torture of which is felt by mortals, but which they cannot, at times, find words to tell each other. ”

“ We have His promises, too, that His Gospel shall prevail, and lie has given vouchers for the triumph of the Gospel, in the glorious facts which the work of missions presents in every quarter of the globe, and among the most debased of human tribes, "turned from dumb idols to serve the living God" There is a certainty about our work, then, which anticipates our labors, and which has never been realized before, in any of all the endeavors of men. Here is ground for faith and assurance which men in no other undertaking could possibly experience. ”

“ These few words of explanation open the way for me to introduce to your consideration the topic, that is—"The fitness of the Gospel to the great needs of humanity, and the great work it contemplates with respect to those needs"—to which I desire to call the attention of this Convocation this morning.
1. With respect to these spiritual needs of men, we have no great difficulty in apprehending them. Our human miseries are so common and so personal that no one can miss them. They lie at every man's door. They press heavily upon every man's soul. ”

“ And then, when death has done its doleful work, and carried grief and wretchedness into their sad homes, do we not see the deeper traces of his mischief and malignity in the wretched rites and the miserable ceremonies which attend the passage of the dead from the hut to the grave? A whole populace carried away in a frenzy by the absurd notions of the after-life which they cherish among them ”

“ Let us seek out and examine the lives of the noble spirits who have spent their lives in Gospel labors on heathen soil. No one can estimate fully the riches of missionary biographies or the value of missionary journals. There are the records of the mother Church of England, the narratives of the successful ventures of the godly of the different denominations; and, not seldom, of even pious Romanists. Everywhere we may learn wisdom and pick up instruction. ”

“ Injustice and oppression crush out the hearts of millions. War, intemperance, and lust, destroy the hearts of nations, sweep millions into untimely graves, carry desolation and sorrows into innumerable families. And passion, hate, and jealousy, poison the well-springs of life at their highest sources. ”

“ Should we have doubt that yet nobler triumphs await her progress in new and opening fields among more susceptible and anxious people? I know that we often get discouraging words from the wise men of the world as to the prospective results of missionary labors. They look back with an inquisitorial eye, a carping mind, and a doubtful and denying spirit, at the long years of Christian zeal and energy from the time of Christ. They see the larger epiarters of the globe under the rule of Satan, and presumptuously demand, "Where is the promise of His coming? ”

“ The Holy Spirit breathes, and vivifies, and enlightens, in strict accordance with the most rigid system. There is nothing erratic in the kingdom of grace. All the facts of Scripture, though at times seemingly confused and disarranged, have, nevertheless, underlying them great laws of regulation. There is a science of Scripture; so, likewise, there is a science of the application of Scripture. So far as the facts which may serve for precedents are concerned, God has given us but few in the Bible. The Acts of the Apostles seems to be the history mainly of missions among civilized people. ”

“ The groans of infants, the shrieks of convulsed children, the despair of men and women, passing, in darkness, from time into eternity, come wafted on the breeze from these crowded towns, at times, every morn and eve. ”

“ See how, in a single generation, our Holy Faith has brought forth the first beautiful blossoms of these excellencies from the dark and chaotic disorder of the Pacific isles, New Zealand, Sierra Leone. ”

“ And as God has always blessed the wise efforts of faithful men and holy women striving to save souls and to glorify Christ, so we have every spur and incitement to press on in our work, looking for and expecting gracious results to follow faithful labors. With all our hopes and encouragements, however, we must remember that the Divine blessing waits chiefly upon those efforts of His people that are in accordance with the universal law of fitness. ”

“ These are what may be regarded as the great spiritual miseries of man, and they are common to mankind everywhere, whether on Christian or on heathen ground. They are those ills and sufferings which assail our human nature, irrespective of circumstance or condition. No one will deny their presence in the better states of society; and if any one doubt their existence among sueh rude and benighted fellow-creatures as the heathen around us, we can refer, without the shadow of a doubt, to the facts which meet us on every side in this benighted land. ”

“ We have, however, the whole broad field of modern missions for nigh three hundred rears before us. God thus by His providence teaches us the details of our work and labor, points out to us the mode and manner in which sacred truth may be savingly applied to the souls of the heathen, and also how His servants may conduct missions among barbarous people. We must fall back, then, upon these facts for instruction and direction as to the regimen and rule of our work here. We know already what we have to teach souls. ”

“ The kingdom of God, in all relations, is marked by the presence and the power of this great principle, that is, the adaptation of means to ends. The law of order rules and reigns under the highest spirituality and the most exuberant grace. ”

“ If the Gospel demanded money as its terms, if it demanded learning, if it demanded power, if it demanded wisdom, if it demanded skill, few of the wretched sons of men could secure its blessings and its gifts. ”

“ ISTever was there a man, in all the world's history, in whom selfishness was so thoroughly mortified. So entirely conformed had he been made by the Spirit, to the Lord Jesus his Master, that his whole life, after his conversion, presents the rarest, most exquisite spectacle of self-forgetetfulness and self-sacrifice that the world has ever witnessed. ”

“ We are not, therefore, to concern ourselves so much with the Apostle himself, as with the burden of his heart—"the Gospel of Christ, in its adaptation to the needs of men." This idea so fills his soul that it overcomes him. "Here is man's safety," seems to be his feeling. "Here is man's hope ”

“ The pains and the sorrows which disappointments, and failures, and jealousy, and care, and treachery, and malice, gender in the souls of men, who can estimate? Then there are the lacerations of bereavements, the sorrows and the desolations which death entails. ”

“ We have, moreover, every incentive to renewed exertion in all our labors; for we see that a great feature in the economy, that is, the workings, of this gracious scheme for man is, God's use of human agencies for the ends he purposes.We are the present agents He employs for the grand objects we have been considering. ”

“ Look now among men for any thing high, noble, manly, brave, generous, beautiful, large-hearted, expansive, and where do you find it? Nowhere else but among Christians! The bravery of arms; the security of freedom ”

“ Cut there is this great favor vouchsafed all the true disciples of Christ laboring for Him, that, whatever may be their mistakes, their ignorance, their blindness, and their unskilfulness, He abideth faithful; "He cannot deny Himself;" ”