Protestant missionary

“ But reassured by the steadfast loyalty of the Protestant missionaries, who have adhered strictly to their position as religious teachers, and whose prudent, sober conduct in difficult circumstances the Directors consider deserving of high praise, the nobles, believing that christianity had proved itself a great public blessing, began to accept it heartily for themselves. ”

“ On that principle they organized their churches, literally preaching the Gospel to the poor, and, at the end of a century, had a membership outnumbering any Protestant church in Christendom. It would be easy to show that modern missions, at home and abroad, have been most successful as they have relied most fully on the simple preaching of the word, and that the building up of churches has been the saving power of communities intellectually, morally and even materially. ”

“ That the day has come when the Christian Church should thoroughly reconsider the best methods of missionary approach to such peoples I readily agree. I also maintain that Protestant missions should everywhere scrupulously avoid all Jesuitical methods and political influences and should always strive to minimize, if not ignore, their political rights and magnify the spiritual side of their work. ”

“ But men of American sectarian preacher stamp never knew and never will know what a missionary spirit is. It is foreign to their habits as well as to their creed. When we hear of {358} American Protestant missionaries going forth with barely a change of clothes; when we learn that they abandon father, mother, family, house and home to preach the Gospel ”

“ I doubt the expediency of sending missionary ladies to perish here. Indeed, it may well be questioned whether a missionary ought, in any country, to be a married man. The care of a family must distract his attention and weaken his efficiency; and herein, it may be, consists one great advantage which the Catholic missionary possesses over the Protestant. He can penetrate into the interior; he can sleep in the hut, and eat the simple food of a native. ”

“ What particularly strikes me is that our missionaries do not make new conquests for a Church already powerful; that they do not extend the sphere of supremacy of the ecclesiastical government. The Roman Catholic missionary arrives alone, ignorant of the actual state of affairs, having none of the affections common to humanity—in a word, better fitted to acquire an ascendant than to enlist sympathy. The Protestant ministers are, on the contrary, family missions, so to speak ”

“ Now, taking these figures as correct in every particular, we arrive at the following curious calculation, to which we respectfully call the attention of the admirers of Protestant, and particularly Methodist, missions. According to their own showing, there is in India one missionary for every seventy-seven men, women, and children in the remotest degree connected with the Methodist Church; leaving out the children, there is a foreign missionary for every forty native adults, and taking the bona-fide church-members there is one duly commissioned American missionary for every twelve converts! ”

“ Now, where in the Bible do you find, that a spirit of self-denial and of consecration is enjoined peculiarly upon missionaries more than upon others? Where do you find it intimated, that a missionary spirit is a thing superadded to Christian character? An entire consecration of our children to Christ is not a test of missionary spirit, but a test of discipleship. ”

“ That this is not enough to bring the churches to their full effectiveness has been conclusively proved by the experience of foreign missionaries during the past hundred years. In proportion to the number of their missionaries, the missionary societies which have believed that proclaiming the Christian message is the only function of the church, have not made as many converts nor built up as strong churches as those which engage also in the work of healing the sick and teaching. ”

“ Like ministers at home, our Missionaries preach the Gospel; instruct, govern, and build up churches; watch over the young, and stir up their people's zeal. But they do a great deal more. Placed in many cases in simple states of society, on a low level of education and social connection, as well as of religion; in states of society saturated with heathen vices and heathen beliefs, our missionaries have not only to Christianize individual souls, but to Christianize literature, to Christianize public law, to form a healthy public opinion, to sanctify public taste. ”

“ There are few impartial and well-informed Protestants who will not confess that their missions throughout the world have invariably proved to be utter failures. No matter to what sect or denomination they belong, or from what country or association their funds are derived, Protestant missionaries, as preachers of that gospel about which they speak so much, never have converted, and we believe never will, convert the heathen save by units and driblets, hardly worthy of mention. ”

“ And it is in view of this truth, that the friends of a pure and full gospel have great encouragement to persevere in their work of faith and love. The missionaries connected with the American Missionary Association, at home and abroad, inculcate, fearlessly and persistently, a gospel of freedom, and make no more apology or allowance for slave-holding than for any other sin or crime. ”

“ It could not truly be said, that any material change had taken place in the character and condition of the people at large, as a consequence of Protestant missions. But this at least was true, that the impression given by the Jesuits, that Protestants had no religion, no priesthood, and no churches, had been extensively removed. The missionaries unite in their testimony, that the circulation of the Scriptures is not alone sufficient to regenerate a people. ”

“ What may she not do for Christ? And these heathen are in our own country; they are our own people. These young missionaries are very peculiarly ours, and it is through the Northern churches that they are trained for their work. ”

“ Why should missionaries fail to see this, and expect from their heathen pupils sacrifices which they themselves would shrink from by a natural instinct of self-preservation? It is no answer to say that the 56religion of those whom they wish to bring over to Christianity is antiquated, vulgar, hideous, and false. The religion in which a man is born, the religion of a man’s father and mother, has always something sacred in it that ought to be respected. Is there a single missionary who, if he had been born a Hindu or a Parsi, would have embraced Christianity without a struggle? ”

“ We are not blind to the evangelistic vocation of the church, though the energetic revival of this conviction may be said to date from the close of the last century, and it has as yet only partially leavened the great body of nominal Christendom. But we are even farther from having mastered the thought that nations are born of a divine purpose, and summoned to missionary service. ”

“ To combine strict faith and practice, according to the New Testament standard, with a proper respect for local customs and traditions, demands great wisdom in our missionaries, and makes their conferences very practical and very necessary. Certain it is that in our Baptist missions abroad greater care is exercised in receiving members than that to which we are accustomed in the homeland. The missionary cannot afford to have false disciples in the flock, if he knows it, for "one sinner destroyeth much good." ”

“ And when the Church has had that possession of the Spirit, has it not been especially her inspiration to cry out with the Gospel message? The great figure in this Association work in the past has been the teacher. We have had a gifted line of men and women in this work, and to them all honor be given. It would be impossible for us to give them the honor which is their due; but in the future the great figure is to be the missionary preacher, the man who can reach masses of men with the Gospel message. We are lifting this race, and what has been true in the past will be true in the future. ”

“ The appeal that is made for the American Missionary Association, in the name of the witness to the gospel, and in the name of Christian patriotism, gains its height when it is made in the name of Christ.
Every argument by which this work appeals to us to-day, is a prophecy of its success in our hands. Work among the despised races, work that sets the seal of power on the Christianity of our time, work that is to realize God’s thought for the land, work so Christly cannot fail! ”

“ Our missionaries need to live and move in an atmosphere of holy self-denial and charity, to be empowered by the prayers and godly zeal of the great brotherhood of the saints, in order to a full consecration. We can expect men and money for the work in sufficient number and amount only as the churches, like mighty reservoirs, gather and hold all their forces of brain, of heart, of will, of wealth and of learning, of piety and of power, for Christ. ”

“ Almost by common consent, pastors are excused; and missionaries are looked for from the young men and the children; and the hope of the heathen amounts to this, that some young men may be kept from imitating the example of their fathers and elder brethren, and be prevailed upon to enter the missionary work before they become pastors. For if the mere fact of being a pastor places the question at rest, young men will feel themselves relieved as soon as they enter that office. ”

“ We believe there are pastors, devoted and efficient in their parish work, who yet are broad-minded and large-hearted enough to keep a watchful eye on the interests of the great missionary societies, and, at the appropriate time, to urge upon their churches liberal contributions for the hour of need. ”

“ And we should not wait to be called to the Old Country or elsewhere, or to be set apart as Home Missionaries, or to be Bishops or Presidents of Stakes, High Counselors, etc. For I say unto you that every man who has received any portion of the Priesthood is a missionary; and the salvation of the world, to a certain extent, rests upon his shoulders. ”

“ You ought to be a missionary.”
“Every Christian man ought to be a missionary,” he answered. “If he love the Lord Jesus, and know that the Lord Jesus love him, then he ought to tell that love to others, and if he knows the value of his own soul then he values the souls of others, and try to win those souls for Christ. The truth is, massa, I do want to be missionary, and I seek to go to England to learn more. I there learn to preach the gospel, and when I come back I carry the glad tidings of salvation to my ignorant countrymen.” ”

“ We are dealing with no abstractions, neither are we considering the operation of human agencies. What Christ was in his earthly ministry, that Christianity is, because of His living presence {157} in the church to-day. Wherever we discover the working of those principles which were exemplified in his life, there He is present in living power, the inspirer of the endeavor, and the strength of it. The claim that the work of the American Missionary Association makes upon our attention, may be presented in a variety of forms. ”

“ Missionaries of the different denominations have gone into these remote regions, have lived amidst many privations, and have given their lives to the blessed work of Christianising, and then civilising these long neglected people. They have not toiled in vain. Thousands have renounced their paganism and become earnest, genuine Christians. The missionary life in such a land and among such a people is, as might be well imagined, very different from that in other countries. ”

“ Every principal sect has its missionary society, whose utopian speculation is the conversion of the world under the warrant of the apostolic commission! As if a command given to the apostles to preach the gospel of the kingdom were a command given to modern missionaries to go and preach Churchism and Dissenterism, Calvinism, Arminianism, and Popery to all the world! ”

“ If it does, then let us be honest enough to recognize it, and if it does not, let us be courageous enough to assume our responsibility towards it for we must hold that the great justification for missionary effort is the evangelical and not the polemical one. If there is no greater reason for our entering a country than for the purpose of fighting the Catholics, then I, for one, am frank to say that I do not think we ought to spend our energies in any such field. The question for us to settle is whether there is a real call for the preaching of the gospel in a given country. ”

“ It seems to me they must make excellent missionaries; they appear to realize so fully the sad condition of their heathen friends, and are so simple and unquestioning in their faith in the God revealed to them by our Bible. All their teaching and preaching is the love of Christ, and what we should do in return for such love. ”

“ In these countries, where religious expressions are in every one’s mouth, a missionary has most valuable employment, as he is able to bring their minds back to their own expressions, to their own import and power, as we are desired to do to those who heartlessly use that beautiful form of dedication in the communion service of the Church of England, “We here present unto thee our bodies, souls, and spirits to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice unto thee.” ”

“ Our evangelistic missionaries are busy about everything, from itinerant preaching to the establishment of banks and asylums. Can we afford it? What purpose is dominant, what aim really governs the policy of those who send out evangelistic missionaries? What decides the form of their work and the method by which they pursue it? It is hard to guess, it is hard to discover, it is hard to understand. ”