The Coming Victory
Failure Swallowed by Victory.
But G.o.d"s failures are only for a while. They are real. There is the tragic element in them. There is the deep, sad tinge of disappointment running throughout this old Book of G.o.d. Yet the failures are only for a time. Sometimes it seems a very long time, especially if you are living through some of it. But the time reaches eagerly to an end. Victory comes.
And G.o.d"s victory will be so great as to make us completely forget the failures that marred the road.
The Eden plan was more than a plan. It was a prophecy of the final outcome. The Book of G.o.d begins with failure, but it ends with a glowing picture of great victory, painted with rose colors. Every feature of beauty and of good in Eden has grown greatly in John"s Revelation climax.
The garden of Genesis becomes a garden-city. All the simplicity and purity of garden life, and all the development and power represented by city life, are brought together. There is now a river of life, and the tree of life has grown into a grove.
And G.o.d isn"t through with that nation of Israel yet. The Jew can"t be lost. In every nation under heaven he can be found to-day, a walking reminder of G.o.d"s plan. Every Jew, in whatever ghetto he may be found, is an unconscious prophecy of a coming fulfilment of G.o.d"s purpose. The strange racial immortality of the Jew is a puzzle from every standpoint, except G.o.d"s. He can"t be killed off; though men have never ceased trying to kill him off. The Jew looms up bigger to-day than for many generations.
The present strange restless Jewish longing for national existence again, that will not down, spells out the coming victory of G.o.d"s plan after centuries of failure. And even though the present tide may run out toward ebb, it will be to gather force for a new and fuller flood. When G.o.d"s plan works out the world will have a wholly new idea of national life, and of a world-power without army or navy or any show of force, touching all men, and touching them only to bless.
And though King Saul failed, there was already the ruddy David, out among the sheep, waiting the anointing oil, and carrying about in his person his nation"s greatest king.
Jesus" Judas failed to realize the promise of his earlier days. He struck the record note for baseness. But Paul was being prepared by blood inheritance and scholarly training. Under the touch of the Master"s own hand he became the Church"s greatest leader in its life-mission. If Judas struck the lowest note, Paul rang the changes on the highest note of personal loyalty to Jesus and to His world-wide pa.s.sion and purpose.
And the Church has waked up. I said, you remember, last evening, that if you look over the whole history of the Church since its birthday on Pentecost, you are pained by the sore fact that the chief mission entrusted to it has been for the most part forgotten. There has been more forgetting of it, and neglecting it, than fulfilling it.
Yet always, be it keenly noted, in every generation of these centuries there have been those whose vision of Olivet never dimmed. There have always been those who have tried faithfully to carry out the Church"s great mission. The darkest days have never been without some of the brightest light, made all the brighter by the surrounding night.
The Revised Missionary Motto.
But there"s a new chapter of the Church"s life being written as we talk together. Its writing began in the closing twilight of the eighteenth century. That chapter isn"t finished yet. Some of its best pages are now being written, with more and better clearly coming.
Its first lines were written by a very common pen. Carey"s English cobbler-shop became a sounding-board whose insistent, ringing messages began to waken the Church. The Church is waking up, and shaking itself, and tightening on its clothes, for the greatest work yet to be done in fulfilling the life-mission entrusted to it.
A hundred years ago the fire of G.o.d found fresh kindling stuff in the hearts and brains of a few young college fellows in an old New England village. The sore need of the world crowded in upon them by night and by day. But they were few, and young, and unknown. And the task was stupendous. The rain-storm of a Sabbath afternoon drove them to the shelter of a hay-stack. And the storm of the world"s need drove them to the shelter of prayer, and then to the shelter of a great purpose. With simple faith in G.o.d, and strong devotion to the great neglected task, they spoke out to the Church the thrilling words, "We can do it if we will".
And on that same spot a hundred years later the Church gathered. Those intense words had been heard. The Church had waked up. Men of long service in far-away lands stood with those of the home circle. They talked of the past, but far more of the present and future. They revised the century-old motto. No group of scholars in the Jerusalem Chamber of Westminster Abbey ever did finer revision work. They said, "We can do it, and we will". No greater tribute to the memory of the faithful little hay-stack group was ever made than in that changed motto.
The young collegians" bold cry had sounded out throughout the Church. And the Church heard and roused up. The modern missionary movement of the Church is the most marked development of the past century of church history. It can be said that the Church of our day in its missionary activity far exceeds the early Church. That is to say, in certain particulars we have exceeded.
It is common to refer to the missionary zeal of the first centuries.
Fresh from the Master"s touch, the early Church was chiefly a missionary church. One great purpose gripped it, and that was to take the news of Jesus everywhere. And they went everywhere. We know most about Paul"s journeys in the Grecian and Roman worlds. But there is good evidence that there is another "Acts of Apostles" beside the one bound up in this Bible.
Out to the farthest reaches of the earth they seemed to have gone in those early days, preaching and winning men and establishing church societies.
The bulk of the modern movement is without doubt greatly in excess of the early movement. The number of men out in various fields, the amount of money being given annually by the Church in America and Great Britain and the Continental countries is so much greater as to leave comparison practically out.
In the thoroughness of organization, the elements of permanency, the great variety of means used such as hospitals, schools, literature, and industrial helps, the present probably exceeds by far the early movement.
The statesmanlike study by church leaders of the whole world-field, the steadiness of movement year after year, in spite of difficulties and discouragements, the careful systematic effort to inform and arouse the home church--these are marked features of the present foreign-mission campaign. They are such as to awaken the deepest admiration of any thoughtful onlooker. In all of this the modern Church is making a wholly new record.
Ahead, But Behind.
Yet, while all this is true, it can be said just as truly that the Church, as a whole, is so far behind the primitive Church as, again, practically to leave comparison out of the question. They were so far ahead in the ma.s.s of their movement that we are scarcely in the lists at all. Then the whole Church was an active missionary society. Every one went and preached. The nearest approach to it in modern times probably is the movement of the native Church of Korea. This foreign people seems to have caught the early spirit. Our heathen brothers are taking their place as pace-setters for the Church.
By contrast with that, the modern activity has been by a minority, really a small minority, though a steadily growing one. The leaders have struggled heroically against enormous odds in the backward pull of the majority.
Then they went everywhere. That is, they went everywhere that they could, so far as open doors, or doors that could be pried open, let them.
We have gone actually farther, and to more places probably, but we haven"t begun to go everywhere that we could.
Our ability to go, and the urgent requests for us to come, would carry us to thousands of places not yet touched. If we began to do things as the early Church people did, it would stand out as one of the greatest movements in the history of the race. If a small minority of us have made such enormous strides what could the whole of us do if we would!
In a Swift Current.
The momentum of the present missionary movement has been startling. It suggests that we are on the eve of an advance undreamed of by the most enthusiastic. The last twenty-odd years have seen progress clear outstripping that of the previous hundred, though all built upon the foundations so well laid by the earlier leaders of the century.
In answer to the earnest persistent prayer of a few, the Spirit of G.o.d found new stuff ready for His kindling fires among the colleges. The story of the prayer of a few that preceded the forming of the Student Volunteer Movement is thrilling. That great movement was literally conceived and brought forth in the travail of prayer. Its wide-spread influence upon the colleges, and then upon the churches; its early campaigning, its remarkable leaders, its great conventions, the steadiness of its growing influence through more than twenty years, and the distinct mark it has made upon the whole mission propaganda abroad, make up one of the most thrilling chapters of church history, ancient or modern. To-day its influence encircles the earth. Its volunteers are found everywhere.
Its reflex influence upon that other movement, the Young Men"s Christian a.s.sociation, has been no small part of its work. The two have been interwoven from the beginning, each contributing immeasurably to the other. The practical power of the Young Men"s Christian a.s.sociation on foreign soil is recognized by the Church, and by foreign governments, as of a value clear beyond calculation or statement.
It has come to be one of the great expressions of the unifying spirit of the Church on foreign-mission soil. Our churches at home may go their separate ways, largely. But the pressure of the sore need of the foreign world has been welding the churches there together remarkably. The Christian a.s.sociations, both of young men and young women, belonging to all the Church and representing all, have held a strategic position in action, and been of inestimable service to the Church in its missionary propaganda.
The Young People"s Missionary Movement, whose long, warm fingers are reaching throughout the whole Church, and the newer Laymen"s Missionary Movement with its aggressive campaigning, are both remarkable expressions of the new uprising.
The women of the Church were forehanded in their earnest working and praying. They were up at dawn of day. Their influence is mighty, clear beyond any words to express. And now at last the men are waking up, and the new life is showing itself anew within organic church lines. Men"s missionary conventions, with great attendances, are swinging into line, and revealing the awakeness of the Church.
Power of Leadership.
The enormous power of personal influence and of devoted leadership has been most marked. In the throng of strong men that lead in all this activity there are two men that by common consent stand out big in the group. Young men they are, both of them, not yet in the full prime of their powers. One has a genius for organization probably never surpa.s.sed, if equalled, by military general, or Jesuit chief, or modern captain of industry. The other has mental grasp, keenness of thought, and power of persuasive speech not surpa.s.sed by any, if equalled. Both are marked by a singularly deep, tender spirituality, a rare gift of leadership, a poise of judgment, and a devotion to the Church"s great mission as true and steady as the polar star.
Around these two young men has grouped up in no small measure this later missionary activity. And it is probably quite within the mark to say that no stronger, abler men can be found in any of the great activities of life to-day in either of these two great English-speaking peoples. It is surely significant that the modern missionary movement rallies around such giants.
It is worthy of special note, too, that the body of men to whom is entrusted the administration of this vast network of foreign service, the foreign-board members and secretaries of the Church, have developed such remarkable power and skill. No body of men has problems more intricate and exacting and difficult. And no body of men in any sphere of activity has shown greater diplomacy and astuteness, hard sound sense, and untiring devotion.
Some good friends are sometimes disposed to be critical of methods and management. They think the affair could be conducted better in some details which they think important. Well, it would be surprising if it were not so. The same criticisms are made of every governmental and great industrial enterprise. Everything human seems to make progress by correcting and improving. But the thing for you and me to keep a critically keen eye upon is this: that no such detail be allowed to affect by so much as a hair"s weight the steadfast ardor of our support.
No strong man in the thick of the great driving purpose of his life is turned aside or stopped by the biting or buzzing of a few insects. If even they can"t be brushed aside, let them buzz and bite, but don"t let the great pa.s.sion of a life be affected by them. Indeed, they will be clean forgot, even while they are remembered, by the man who has been caught and swept by the fire of his Master"s pa.s.sion for a world.