Missionary work

“ Not all people can be aroused into interest for missionary work by any methods; whatever the zeal of the pastor, some indifference will remain. But if he has the missionary spirit, he will not be contented with an occasional preaching. He will determine the tone of worship and the direction of all endeavors by his enlarged view of God’s plan for the redemption of men. New suggestions, allusions, illustrations and prayers will swell the current of sympathy for missions, and increase contributions under any method of giving. ”

“ Missionary work, however, in the usual sense of the word, is only one manifestation of that spirit; for the same spirit which fills the heart of the missionary with daring abroad, gives courage also to the preacher at home, bearing witness to the truth that is within him. ”

“ Who will not acknowledge that we need the inspiration in our day?
If the Christian world needs for its own sake the information and the inspiration which can only come from the literature of missions, the missionary work itself needs equally this means to make its opportunities known to the Christian world. ”

“ By doing it with all our might, thus showing that it interests us; by showing that it is a specific work, placed in the hands of the Christian church by the marked Providence of God; by combining the efforts of women, North and South, for special missionary work; by not only arousing men, but raising money to carry it on to successful completion. ”

“ There is something so sublime, so noble in the act that elevates the missionary above the common order of human beings that we are not surprised that they make the sacrifice, and we silently wish that we, too, had been called to do missionary work. ”

“ It will necessitate earnest work on the part of our friends; but with such an important field urgently calling for the enlargement of missionary work, with so many evidences of the Divine approval resting upon it, and with so much ability in the possession of our friends, may we not hope that the churches will lay hold of the problem and solve it at once? ”

“ The first consideration in a missionary work should be to get souls converted to God. With much prayer and great faith upon the Almighty, I began my work, and when the Spirit spread all round that community and the sinners began to flock into the fold of Jesus, there was a change in a very short time. The old debt was paid, and we had comfortable quarters to lay our heads; and the roll-call of the Corps increased, and God was glorified, and there is a Corps, till this day, in Chicago, which they call the big 4 of the Salvation Army. ”

“ Much as I love, and deeply interested as I have ever been in the missionary work of our Church, I have not made the first move in this direction. Years ago I used to think I would love to go to a foreign field, but lately, as the Lord has been so blessing us here in the home work, and has given us such a glorious revival, I should have thought it like running away from duty to have volunteered for any other field. ”

“ Since the organization of our missionary societies—less than a century ago—there has been an important change of emphasis in the matter of missionary motives. The progress, I might almost say revolution, in theology has worked towards this change. The recent discovery of new sciences, and the utilization of the wonderful modern means of communication whereby a new knowledge of non-Christian peoples has been made possible to us, has affected our consideration of the whole problem of missionary work and has especially modified the missionary motive. ”

“ And all of the work should be done through the missionary society which alone can rightly coördinate and unify the whole work of the particular mission.
Faith Missions, so called, represent a genuine and a worthy spirit among many of God's people today. To them the somewhat lumbering business methods of the large missionary organizations savour too much of worldly prudence and seem subversive of the deepest Christian faith. They maintain that the old method is one that looks too much to men and too little to God for support. ”

“ If we needed other evidence that this line of work is the true one, we have it in the historical examples of other successful missionary work since the time of the Apostles. We only need to examine those great religious movements in history which not only lifted the Church, but started the human race forward on higher courses of thought and life, to satisfy ourselves that the Gospel was the quickening power, and furnished the motive and impulse to the astonishing results which followed. ”

“ You hear of overflowing schools, of many forms of Christian work, of the numbers added to our churches from ranks in day and Sunday-schools, but the wrestling prayers of earnest women, the watchful admonitions, the unremitting toil which has entered into what we call success, who shall record? Over two hundred such missionaries the American Missionary Association has upon its rolls, and it is for these, and that we may add to the number, that we ask your united support. ”

“ If our missionaries feel constrained to repudiate it as their own work, history will be more just to them than they themselves.19 262 And if not as the work of Christian missionaries, it will be recognized hereafter as the work of those missionary Christians who have lived in India, as examples of a true Christian life, who have approached the natives in a truly missionary spirit, in the spirit of truth and in the spirit of love; whose bright presence has thawed the ice, and brought out beneath it the old soil, ready to blossom into new life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The missionary is sent forth as a messenger of the Churches, after undergoing the scrutiny and securing the approbation of a host of Christian ministers, who, by their own talent and worth, have risen to the pastorate over the most intelligent and influential churches in the land, and who, moreover, can have no motive to influence their selection but the desire to secure the most efficient instrumentality for the missionary work. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No better work and none looking more to permanent results has been done. Many a missionary and pastor has found his work at once enlarged and all his means of good multiplied, when the house of God has been given him by its aid. And every such edifice stands forth as an eloquent witness of your loving care for the people of the South, and serves as a bond of union between the distant parts of our land. ”

“ It is interesting as a fact, independent of any weighing of influences, to note that in church work and in Sunday-school work, in educational instruction and industrial training, in teaching those who have not had the chances for life, how to think, how to work, how to aspire and how to rise, we find ourselves, as if working by a chart in the expansion of the [371] missionary methods of this prophet who gave his life to rescuing the despised, teaching them how to live in the world that now is, while they are taught the lessons that shall fit them for the world to come. ”

“ It sometimes occurs that a missionary goes to his field of labor with a misapprehension of the nature of the work. Returned Elders in reporting their labors abroad often speak of the success they met with, and of the opportunities and needs there are for missionary work in the world. In listening to such reports a person sometimes gets the idea that those who go out as missionaries will find people anxiously waiting for them, and ready to receive their message. ”

“ The story of the Child at Work for Christ would not be complete without making mention of the missionary children who in such large numbers are trying to do their share toward bringing the Kingdom of Christ to this world. “If one life shines, the life next to it must catch the light,” and the joy and privilege of mission service in all its beauty,—and in all its trial and discouragement as well,—are well known to the missionary boy and girl. ”

“ We rejoice that "the most prolific missionary field ever opened to any Christian people— right here at our doors," is gaining upon the interest and benevolence of the churches year by year. Never were the friends of the cause mote responsive; never was the work more hopeful. The work enlarges, and the people's faith enlarges. ”

“ It would be a sad day for our missions if medical and educational missionaries ceased to be at heart evangelists, and were content to leave evangelistic work to others. Nevertheless, the technical distinction is a real one and must be expressed. Some men express their evangelistic fervour naturally and providentially in medical form, others in scholastic, others in teaching, preaching, and organising of the converts and the hearers. ”

“ There is indeed a way of judging the zeal of native Christians for the propagation of the Gospel very popular among missionaries, the way of tabulating and comparing the amount which they subscribe for missionary work. ”

“ Medical missionaries, thank God, do evangelistic work, and so do educational missionaries, and one day we shall learn that the evangelistic missionary, technically so called, is doing a most important educational work, and often truly medical, healing work. The division is a technical one and missionary-hearted men begin to resent it ”

“ Mission work is not preaching grand sermons, or witnessing marvellous baptisms; it is a patient Christ-like life, day by day, far from external help, far from those we love; a quiet sowing of tiny seeds, which may take long years to show above the ground, combined with a steady bearing of loneliness, discomfort and petty persecution. ”

“ But, could we turn to you the other view, show the work done, acquaint you with the trials, the sacrifices, the glorious victories over fiery temptations, the patient continuance in well-doing in the face of obstacles almost insurmountable, then, indeed, you might be tempted to [10] take the other extreme and feel that missionaries are hardly needed among a people whose Christian record shines brighter than our own. ”

“ BLACK MISSIONARIES FOR AFRICA—THE BISHOP CROWTHER PLAN. REV. G. D. PIKE, D.D.
If God “hath set bounds to the habitations” of the different races of men, or to any race, that fact should enter into our plan of missionary work. It is our duty to succeed. How to do it, is worthy of our greatest thought and most earnest prayer. When we take the road to success in God’s work, we find heavenly attendants all along the way, and abundant supplies of grace and every needful thing. ”

“ It is a profoundly serious and interesting subject for those responsible for its wise discussion, to account for the comparative lack of energy and success in modern missionary enterprises when set in contrast with those of the earlier Christian ages. Is it that the missionaries have lost their zeal, their fervor, their skill and power, in their work; or that what they offer, without much response of acceptance or gratitude from the subjects of their labor, is not the simple original boon of blessing once so triumphant in its peaceful conquests? ”

“ If we ask what proportion of those whom we train continue in their missionary work after the end of their first term of service, we shall certainly have some enlightenment; for it is true of medicals and educationalists, and of evangelists, though in a much less degree, that if any man continues in missionary work after he has fulfilled the letter of his contract, it will generally be because he has his heart in the work ”

“ Missionary periodical files abound in references to the war's inroads upon missionary enterprises, and to the important mediating work of missions. A great volume of testimony would show that while missionaries still regard the upbuilding of the mind and the saving of souls as fundamentally desirable, the enterprise affects every phase of the personal and community life of the peoples to which it ministers. ”

“ The Commission under which a society like this does its work. The warrant for a missionary society, as for all missionary effort, is found in the words of our Saviour to his disciples, just before he went up on high: “All power is given unto me in heaven and on earth; go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” ”

“ The Sabbath-schools have everywhere received due attention, and much of the progress in the different churches has been made possible by the earnest, prayerful and unremitting labors of our missionaries in this department of religious work. Missionary meetings and societies have been greatly encouraged and the cause of temperance widely promoted. Many of the young converts have found their way to institutions of learning, and many have engaged in teaching and missionary service. ”

“ The mission ought not to be three separate things but one thing; for the impression produced upon the non-Christian population is the result of the combination of all the various forms in which the one missionary spirit expresses itself. The spirit which produces them all is one, and it is that one spirit which influences and converts the heathen.
Now we already know the proportion in which workers and funds are divided between the three branches (p. 68) . We already know something of the work done by evangelists in hospitals (p. 83) , and by doctors in evangelistic tours (p. 84) ”