Doubtless the committee, in assigning to me this subject, had in view the fellowship of missionaries in the foreign field, for it is there where the need of this fellowship is more certainly felt than perhaps anywhere else. Those who have never been away from their loved ones, and especially from their associations in the home church, can not very well understand the supreme need which missionaries, on the foreign field, feel with respect to the fellowship of the saints. Nowhere do men come to understand how truly dependent they are upon one another and how closely associated they are with respect to all matters of the present life, as when they are engaged in missionary work in foreign lands. It is then that we come to realize fully that--

      We can not isolate ourselves from one another, even if we wish to do so; but there are few persons that would be satisfied without a reasonable amount of personal association. The farther away we get from home and all of home's hallowed associations, the more

W. T. MOORE.

we feel the need of this very partnership which compels us to recognize a common sympathy, a common interest, a common life of struggle, a common joy, a common faith, a common hope and a common love. These missionaries, who are present here to-day, understand, as no one else does, the truthfulness of what I now say. At home, we have so many other concerns, that our religious life is not the whole thing with many of us. On the foreign field this is different. There, religion is not [127] only important, but we care for little or nothing else, and the imperative duties of every hour are so great, so all-compelling, that there is little time for discussing the contemptible shibboleths which divide Christians in the home land. The missionaries have reduced Christian union to practice.

      The denominationalism of our homeland Christianity prevents the fellowship of many earnest souls the moment they reach the limit of their own denomination; and this fact serves to emphasize the character of sectarianism, for the reason that sectarianism is essentially, always and everywhere, opposed to that broad fellowship of which I have been speaking, and in which all Christians should participate by a common service.

      From this point of view it is easy to see that our foreign missionary work is essentially a protest against a divided Christendom, and is a constant appeal to Christians everywhere to become helpers in the great work of saving souls, building them up in faith, hope and love, and leading them to the delightful joys that come only to those who are followers of Christ Jesus our Lord. May it not be that, in the providence of God, the greatest work which shall be accomplished by foreign missionaries will be the final union of God's people through the very fellowship which these missionaries realize, and which they all want the home churches to realize? But whether this shall ever be so or not, of one thing we may be fully persuaded, and that is that the church will never become strong enough for the conquest of the nations until it shall enter fully and heartily into the great and comprehensive meaning of the word koinonia, the partnership of God's redeemed people.

[CCR 127-128]