William Garden Blaikie

“ There are many puzzles and entanglements, temptations, trials, and perplexities, which tend to inure the missionary's virtue. The difficulties encountered prevent his faith from growing languid. He must walk by faith, and though the horizon be all dark and lowering, he must lean on Him whom, having not seen, he loves. The future--a glorious future--is that for which he labors. ”

“ How many husbands left their wives and families! How many Christian men tore themselves away from all home endearments to suffer, and toil, and perish by cold and starvation on the overland route! How many sank from fever and exhaustion on the banks of Sacramento! Yet no word of sacrifices there. And why should we so regard all we give and do for the Well-beloved of our souls? Our talk of sacrifices is ungenerous and heathenish....
It is something to be a missionary. He is sometimes inclined, in seasons of despondency and trouble, to feel as if forgotten. ”

“ The greatest works of God in the kingdom of grace, like his majestic movements in nature, are marked by stillness in the doing of them, and reveal themselves by their effects. They come up like the sun, and show themselves by their own light. ”

“ We wish others to sleep soundly as well as ourselves; and we hate the trade in slaves. We are all the children of one common Father; and the slave-trade being hateful to Him, we give you a proof of our desire to promote your prosperity by joining you in the attempt to open up your country to peaceful commerce. With this view the Queen sends a small steam-vessel to sail along the river Zambesi, which you know and agreed to be the best pathway for conveying merchandise, and for the purpose of exploring which Dr. Livingstone left you the last time. ”

“ On the American Continent, what a wonderful amalgamation of races we have witnessed, how wonderfully they have been fused into that one American people--type and earnest of a larger fusion which Christianity will yet accomplish, when, by its blessed power, all tribes and tongues and races shall become one holy family. The present popularity of beneficence promises well for the missionary cause in the future. Men's hearts are undergoing a process of enlargement, Their sympathies are taking a wider scope. The world is getting closer, smaller--quite a compact affair. ”

“ Many men go to and fro, and knowledge is increased. No great emigration ever took place in our world without accomplishing one of God's great designs. The tide of the modern emigration flows toward the West. The wonderful amalgamation of races will result in something grand. We believe this, because the world is becoming better, and because God is working mightily in the human mind. We believe it, because God has been preparing the world for something glorious. And that something, we conjecture, will be a fuller development of the missionary idea and work. ”

“ And then there is the never-ending talk and wringing of hands over missionary "sacrifices." The man is surely going to be hanged, instead of going to serve in Christ's holy Gospel! Is this such service as He deserves who, though rich, for our sakes became poor? There is so much in the _manner_ of giving; some bestow their favors so gracefully, their value to the recipient is doubled. From others, a gift is as good as a blow in the face. Are we not guilty of treating our Lord somewhat more scurvily than we would treat our indigent fellow-men? ”

“ The present posture of affairs is, that benevolence is popular. God is working out in the human heart his great idea, and all nations shall see his glory.
Let us think highly of the weapons we have received for the accomplishment of our work. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual, and mighty through God to the casting down of strongholds. They are--Faith in our Leader, and in the presence of his Holy Spirit; a full, free, unfettered Gospel ”

“ No Indian gentlemen making themselves merry about the folly of thinking to convert the natives of India; magnifying the difficulties of caste; and setting our ministers into brown studies and speech-making in defense of missions. No mission has yet been an entire failure. We who see such small segments of the mighty cycles of God's providence often imagine some to be failures which God does not. Eden was such a failure, The Old World was a failure under Noah's preaching. ”

“ It is something to be a missionary. The heart is expanded and filled with generous sympathies; sectarian bigotry is eroded, and the spirit of reclusion which makes it doubtful if some denominations have yet made up their minds to meet those who differ with them in heaven loses much of its fire.... ”

“ We have heard again and again of a "preparatory work going on" in India, but who ever heard of such in Africa? A village of 600 or 800 may have one, or even two missionaries, with school-masters and schoolmistresses, and the nearest population, fifty or one hundred miles off, cannot feel their influence. Believers will not, in many cases, go beyond the circle of their own friends and acquaintances.
I was happy in having two worthy men of color, to aid me in diffusing a knowledge of Christ among the Eastern tribes, but the Boers forbade us to preach unto the Gentiles that they might be saved. ”

“ He works toward the coast, and when he enters the gateway by the sugar-loaf hill, there opens to the view in the Bay of Rio a scene of luxuriance and beauty unequaled in the world beside.
The missionary's head will lie low, and others will have entered into his labors, before his ideal is realized. The Future for which he works is one which, though sure, has never yet been seen. The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. The missionary is a harbinger of the good time coming. ”

“ Freedom of city of Glasgow, presented in testimony of admiration of his undaunted intrepidity and fortitude: amid difficulties, privations, and dangers, during a period of many years, while traversing an extensive region in the interior of Africa, hitherto unexplored by Europeans, and of appreciation of the importance of his services, extending to the fostering of commerce, the advancement of civilization, and the diffusion of Christianity among heathen nations. ”

“ So much care and independent investigation are bestowed on the selection as to make it plain that extraneous influences can have but small power. No pastor can imagine that any candidate has been accepted through his recommendations, however warm these may have been; and the missionary may go forth to the heathen, satisfied that in the confidence of the directors he has a testimonial infinitely superior to letters-apostolic from the Archbishop of Canterbury, or from the Vatican at Borne. A missionary, surely, cannot undervalue his commission, as soon as it is put into his hands. ”

“ I was also much averse to being connected with any Society, having a strong desire to serve Christ in circumstances which would free my services from all professional aspect. But the solicitations of friends in whose judgment I had confidence led to my offers of service to the London Missionary Society. The "Opium War" was then adduced as a reason why that remote, difficult, and untried field of labor should stand in abeyance before the interior of Africa, to which, in opposition to my own judgment, I was advised to proceed. ”

“ As our aims and purposes will now appear in some degree divergent--on their part from a sort of paralysis caused by financial decay, and on mine from the simple continuance of an old determination to devote my life and my all to the service of Christ, in whatever way He may lead me in inter-tropical Africa--it seems natural, while yet without the remotest idea of support from another source, to give some of the reasons for differing with those with whom I have hitherto been so happily connected. ”

“ But sometimes the missionary note is pitched on the same key. The white cliffs of Dover become immensely dear to those who never cared for masses of chalk before. Pathetic plaints are penned about laying their bones on a foreign shore, by those who never thought of making aught of their bones at home. ”

“ The story of Redemption, of which Paul said, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ," is old, yet in its vigor, eternally young.
This work requires zeal for God and love for souls. It needs prayer from the senders and the sent, and firm reliance on Him who alone is the Author of conversion. Souls cannot be converted or manufactured to order. Great deeds are wrought in unconsciousness, from constraining love to Christ ”

“ God working mightily in the human heart is the spring of all abiding spiritual power; and it is only as men follow out the sublime promptings of the inward spiritual life, that they do great things for God. ”

“ How often they retire with broken-down constitutions before effecting anything! How often they drop burning tears over their own feebleness amid the defections of those they believed to be converts! Yes! ”

“ Accompanied by many kind expressions of approbation, which I highly value on account of having emanated from a body of men whose sole object in undertaking the responsibility and labor of the Direction must have been a sincere desire to promote the interests of the kingdom of our Lord among the heathen, I find the intimation that the Directors are restricted in their power of aiding plans connected only remotely with the spread of the gospel. ”

“ And no man would in his sober senses build his house on the crater of a volcano." Having removed to the Bakwains of Sechéle, I spent some of the happiest years of my life in missionary labor, and was favored in witnessing a gratifying measure of success in the spread of the knowledge of the gospel. The good seed was widely sown, and is not lost. It will yet bear fruit, though I may not live to see it. In the pursuit of my plan I tried to plant among the tribes around by means of native teachers and itineracies. ”

“ Hundreds of young men annually leave our shores as cadets. All their friends rejoice when they think of them bearing the commissions of our Queen. When any dangerous expedition is planned by Government, more volunteers apply than are necessary to man it. ”

“ No matter how much you may produce, our people will purchase it all. Let it be known among all your people, and among all the surrounding žtribes, that the English are the friends and promoters of all lawful commerce, but that they are the enemies of the slave-trade and slave-hunting. ”

“ We are a manufacturing people, and make all the articles which you see and hear of as coming from the white men. We purchase cotton and make it into cloth; and if you will cultivate cotton and other articles, we are willing to buy them. ”

“ It is equal to all it has to perform. It is not mere enthusiasm to imagine a handful of missionaries capable of converting the millions of India. How often they are cut off just after they have acquired the language! ”

“ And it is added, also, that even though certain very formidable obstacles should prove surmountable, the "financial circumstances of the Society are not such as to afford any ground of hope that it would be, within any definite period, in a position to enter upon untried, remote, and difficult fields of labor." ”

“ Livingstone often referred to were composed of resin of jalap, calomel, rhubarb, and quinine. It was usually observed that active employment kept off fever, and that on high lands its attacks were much less violent. Where the stomach refused the remedies a blister was usually the most effectual means of stopping the sickness. ”

“ They will give their "mites" as if what they do give were their "all." It is utterly unfair to magnify the little we do for Him by calling it a sacrifice, or pretend we are doing all we can by assuming the tones of poor widows. He asks a willing mind, cheerful obedience ”

“ Livingstone says he and his companions were exposed in the early hours of the morning to the dew from the long grass, marching during the day over rough country under the tropical sun, and then sleeping in the open air; but though they had discontinued the daily use of quinine they Were perfectly well, as were also their native attendants. This was one of the considerations that gave him such confidence in the healthiness of the Shiré highlands. ”