It is surely not without significance, dear friends, that the origin and history of the career of the Disciples of Christ are entirely contemporaneous with the great period of Foreign

CHARLES T. PAUL.

Missions which fairly opened with the nineteenth century. In the year 1761 in England was born William Carey; in 1763 in Ireland was born Thomas Campbell, and the time has come for the historian, it seems to me, to link the men together. For names of these although probably the relation was not consciously recognized by either of them, the movements which they have inaugurated have turned out in a wonderful way to have been complementary the one to the other.

      William Carey was gathering his first converts and building his first chapels on the banks of the Hoogli in India, while Thomas Campbell had already appeared as the advocate of Christian union before the synods of Glasgow and Belfast. Both of these men were great Christian, pioneer prophets. Campbell was the prophet of restoration, and Carey was the prophet of expansion. And I think if you read the subsequent history of the church correctly you will find that the very soul of all true Christian progress has been gathered up in these two words, restoration and expansion. "The church is one," said Campbell; "let her integrity be restored." "The church is for all," said Carey; "let her advance in every land."

      As were the beginnings in England, so in the United States. In the year 1806, just a few months before Mr. Campbell's message was first heard along the banks of the Allegheny, what happened in America? The fire of American Foreign Missions had already been kindled in the hearts of Samuel J. Mills and his associates at the famous [138] Haystack Meeting in Williamstown, Mass. It would seem that the note of restoration could not be sounded in America apart from the note of expansion. In that reinterpretation, that rediscovery of true Christianity which began in different parts of the world, which they were feeling after, there could be in the providence of God no historic separation between the fundamental unity of the life and faith of Christianity and the universality of its message. And thus it transpired that while the newly awakened missionary conscience in America was expressing itself in the formation of the American Board in 1810, in the sending out of the first foreign American missionaries, Judson and Newell, to India in 1812, and a little later the formation of the American Bible Society--while these things were going on, these old Pennsylvania hills were ringing with the voice of the Scottish preacher who was pleading for the unity of all believers in the name and in the love and in the service of Christ alone.

      I have been asking myself during these last two or three days what, after all, were the two leading events of the nineteenth century, so far as their fundamental and far-reaching influence on the history of Christianity is concerned, and I must in my own mind answer that question for myself in a word, and it is this: I think they were the coming of Thomas Campbell to America and the landing of Robert Morrison in China. My friends, these two events took place the selfsame year, 1807. Put that down in your notebook as a remarkable year in the history of Christianity.

      If one of these events resulted in all that is indicated by this splendid Convention, and a great deal more; if the influence that the Disciples of Christ have exercised in all branches of the church all around the world; and if the other of these events has resulted in the awakening of that great empire which shall bulk so largely in the future history of the world, I am going to show you how all down the years the developing of our movement has been inextricably bound up with the great missionary century.

      The year 1909, for instance, is not only the centennial of the publication of the "Declaration and Address," but it is also the centennial of the publication of William Carey's completed translation of the Bible in Bengali. Such is the historic, simultaneous emphasis upon the importance of the church's adherence in fidelity to the Scriptures, and then upon her duty to give the Scriptures to every man in his own tongue.

      My friends, this is true. Let us learn to Orient ourselves in the past history. The Disciples of Christ were born in a great missionary age. They have been nurtured and have come to their present maturity in a great missionary environment. Herbert Spencer, you will remember, has defined life as correspondence to environment, and I think I am safe in saying to-night, that as Christendom fought the Disciples of Christ then and we are this evening a live people, a growing people, and a prosperous people, and that is only another way of saying that some of us have not been very much alive--some people never wake up to the reality of their environment. They remind us of some who call themselves Disciples, but have never realized just what sort of environment they were born in. Here we are, then, as regards our past relation to this great missionary age, and it is a vantage-ground from which we should look out to the future.

      I am sure time would not permit me adequately even to attempt to stare to you this evening what are the possibilities in our great fields. Just two or three things I want to indicate in these closing moments of to-night's session.

      In speaking of the future of our missionary work, of course we are thinking especially of the missions conducted by our Foreign Christian Missionary Society. The first great outlook upon the future generation of our missionary activity, I think, is the great possibilities of missionary education. It seems to me that the great work of the society from this time forward is to carry on that splendid work of missionary education which has already been so auspiciously begun. It must be done thoroughly and in a systematic way. I believe it would be a good thing for the society to get into close touch with the [139] colleges and seek to encourage the study of missions in the colleges, then out through the churches, until our whole brotherhood is well informed on the great missionary enterprise. It was a custom of Napoleon, as he went out on is great campaigns, to instruct his soldiers in those wonderful discussions as regards the meaning of the campaign. If we are going to make great advances in the future, it is necessary that the entire brotherhood should become acquainted with the real facts of the campaign, with its methods, with its principles, with its problems, and with its opportunities. One of the ways, in fact, the best way, in which this result can be obtained, is by launching a great campaign of mission study. There should be mission-study classes in all the churches. We must not go along any longer under the impression that the Foreign Society can handle alone this great enterprise. If we are to make an advance, every member of the church must co-operate intelligently with the society. We can not turn over this work to the society as such; we must learn to co-operate with them. If our own enthusiasm is to be what it ought to be, we ought to put ourselves thoroughly abreast with the facts. Did it ever occur to you, my friends, that the duty of systematic mission study is involved in the entire mission of Jesus when he sent us out to evangelize the whole world? Do you not suppose he wants us to be well acquainted with the world into which he sends us? But yet many of us would have to-night to confess our ignorance of God's great world.

      Dr. Zwemer said, not long ago, that you might fire a shot-gun into an average congregation, and, unless the gun scattered tremendously, you will not hit anybody who could tell, for the life of him, whether the city of Madras is on the east or west side of India, unless he has taken a course in mission study. We can test ourselves in our missionary facts and in the great facts of history that bear upon the development of missions. Test yourself for a moment: What bearing did the Treaty of Nanking have upon missions in China? What was the effect of the Battle of Plassy upon Christianity in India? The reply of Gregory to the Great Mogul? The journeys of Marco Polo? The church does not know about these great men and these great events. We had a college student not long ago, in one of our classes, who told us Marco Polo was a great man who discovered both the North and South Poles. That was before Cook and Peary had come on the ground to dispute the honors with Marco Polo and with each other.

      If we are going to understand and advance this great campaign in the future, we must become interested in every part of this God-created world upon which the human race is living. It seems to me that when I remember that every spot in this earth is literally consecrated and purchased with the blood of Jesus Christ, that every spot of the earth has become indescribably precious. I was looking upon a picture of Mecca the other day and the gathering of the great Islamic hosts. There was the city of Mecca, with the great quadrangle of the mosque containing the Kaaba stone, filled to its utmost capacity, and away out over the streets, across the surging way, and away over the encircling hills, were great crowds of pilgrims who had come from all parts of the Islamic world, hundreds and thousands of miles, that they might set foot upon that spot precious to them, the birthplace of their prophet. The whole world ought to be precious to us. We ought to be desirous to know the course of every river, the contour of every mountain, the position of every plain where men are found. And do you not suppose that Jesus Christ wants us to be acquainted with the people to whom he is sending his church? When he commands us to evangelize the nations, don't you think he wants us to become acquainted with those nations?

      How much, after all, do we know to-day about the Chinese people? I wonder how many of us know the name of the Emperor of China? How many of us have read a dozen pages of the sacred literature of China? How many of us are really acquainted with the social developments and problems of the Chinese people? How many of us know the workings of the Chinese mind? We do not know the great people that God has placed in those great countries, and [140] the time has come, my friends, when we must make acquaintance with them. Conscience and self-respect require it.

      Perhaps some day you will have the pleasure of visiting the philological museum, and you will come along to the Samoyeds, and you will say, "Oh, you are a Samoyed, are you? How are things going over there in Samoa?" And he will then give you a blank stare, because he doesn't come from Samoa at all; he came from the northern, arctic shore of Siberia, but you don't know anything about the beautiful, romantic story of his people. If we are going to send the church forth to the conquest of the world, we can do it systematically only as we become acquainted with the history and the problems and the hearts of these people to whom Jesus Christ is sending us. And so I am pleading to-night for a great campaign of mission study in our churches, and I would like to see all the colleges co-operating in mission study. When we get the information rightly diffused to the churches, all the other problems will be solved.

      No trouble about prayer, my friends. If you study the history of prayer, study the prayers of John Knox, of Scotland; the prayers of William Booth, of London; the prayers of Thomas and Alexander Campbell for the great movements they inaugurated--you will find that those prayers all compassed superior knowledge of the problems of their day, and the great movements by which they were surrounded. And so, back of prayer for missions is information on missions, and when you get to praying for missions, and when you get well informed, there will be no trouble about the financial side of missions.

[CCR 138-141]