The Call to All Disciples
This first lesson taught in the Acts of the Apostles, that the work of witness belongs to the whole Churchy dominates the book; so emphatically, so repeatedly enforced, that it must constitute one, if not the only, design of its records.
Those who believed were from the first sent forth as witnesses. It is of the very genius of Christianity that it implies and compels testimony; ‘’ I believed and therefore have I spoken; we also believe and therefore speak.” This is not only the logic of missions; it is the logic of spiritual life. The Church of God is an army, always to be mobilized in readiness for action, — more than this, always in action. Livingstone said, “The spirit of missions is the Spirit of our Master; the very genius of our religion. A diffusive philanthropy is Christianity itself. It requires perpetual propagation to attest its genuineness.”
How far this conception of a witnessing Church is the controlling law in the structure of the Acts of the Apostles, only careful search will show.
The introduction to this book refers to that ‘’forty days” of communion between the risen Lord and His disciples, the object and result of which were fourfold:
First, to leave in them no doubt of the fact of His resurrection; secondly, to give them instruction touching the Kingdom of God; thirdly, to prepare them for His unseen presence and guidance; fourthly, to inspire them with the true Spirit of missions.
Then, as soon as the Spirit was outpoured, we find the bold outlines of early Church history confronting us, the record of active, aggressive testimony, pushing its lines from Jerusalem into all Judea, then into Samaria, and so farther and farther into the remotest regions beyond.
1. The witnessing Church at Jerusalem and Judea. Chapter i. 13 to vii.
Ten days of prayer are followed by the Pentecostal enduement for service, persecution by Pharisees and Sadducees, Stephen’s martyrdom, and the dispersion of disciples; the voluntary community of goods, division of work, and the institution of the diaconate.
2. The witnessing Church in Samaria. Chapter viii.
Under Philip, the evangelist-deacon, Samaria receives a blessing, essentially a repetition of the Pentecost at Jerusalem.
3. The witnessing Church moving toward the uttermost part of the earth. Chapter ix. to the close.
The conversion of the eunuch represents evangelism begun in Ethiopia; and that of Saul of Tarsus, the chosen apostle to the gentiles, raises up the greatest evangelist the world has ever seen, whose especial passion it is to reach the regions beyond. Among the Romans at Cesarea, then among the Greeks at Antioch and at Ephesus, Pentecostal blessings descend with marvellous signs and wonders; and the first gentile Church formed at Antioch becomes the starting point for foreign missions. Paul’s three mission tours, with their ever widening circles, are outlined, and the book closes with the Cilician apostle teaching and preaching at Rome, the third great centre of Christianity.
In the latter part of the Acts, Paul comes to the front, while Peter disappears entirely. The reason is plain. The obvious object of the bock is to trace the beginnings of missions to the nations of the wide world. To Peter it was given to unlock the door of faith, first to Jews and then to gentiles; then he goes to the dispersion or scattered tribes of Israel; and Paul, whose commission is to the nations at large, the typical world-missionary, naturally becomes the main actor in the scene.
Attention has already been called to the fact, that Luke treats both the gospel which he wrote and this book of which he is the declared author, as parts of one connected, continuous, complete narrative. A careful study will show the links of unity. The purpose of the Spirit, in these two sketches, is to outline gospel history from its infancy in its humble Judean cradle to its mature growth as a world-wide power; to trace the seed of the kingdom, first sown on Syrian soil, then scattered widely beside all waters and borne upon the various streams of civilization to the heart of the heathen world.
Thus, from first to last, this combined narrative is the story of missions. In the gospel our Lord offers the good news to the Jews; and then seeing their actual rejection of Him and foreseeing their continued refusal of His message. He commands and commissions His disciples to go everywhere and witness to every creature. In the Acts we see the commission and command actually carried out; the preaching of the gospel to the Jews by both Peter and Paul, and its repeated rejection by them; with its subsequent and consequent proclamation to mankind as such at the great centres of population.
The Gospel according to Luke opens with Christ’s incarnation, and closes with His resurrection and ascension. The promise of enduement with power “not many days hence,” is the last link left to connect with the after narrative. In the Pentecostal fires the new links are forged for this chain of events, and so the Acts of the Apostles joins on to the gospel, beginning with the natal day of the Church at Pentecost and ending with Paul’s work at Rome.
Now, confining our gaze to the Acts, as a whole, we observe at least ten marked features, all indicating the mission, committed to the whole Church, of a world-wide witness.
1. The waiting for the Holy Spirit. The enduement from on high was also an endowment, fitting for the work of witness; the type of other effusions which followed and which indicated that not only Jewish converts but gentile believers also were to be thus endued and endowed.
2. The substance of this witness was Christ crucified, risen, exalted and glorified, as the only Saviour; pointed prominence being given to the Old Testament prophecies and the exact correspondence of New Testament history; and to that glorious second Coming of our Lord which is to put the capstone upon all prophecy and history. The book is full of Christ, Messiah foretold, Saviour revealed.
3. The resolute persistence of Christ’s witnesses in face of organized opposition. The Jews led by Sanhedric rulers, the gentiles led by such as the Ephesian Demetrius, drive disciples to face, if not to fight, that worst of all wild beasts, the mob. Persecution bares her red right arm and whets her cruel sword, warning disciples what price they must pay for free speech. But they “cannot but speak the things which they have seen and heard.” And so this story of the Acts becomes the first book of Christ’s mart3Ts. Stephen’s angel smile shines amid a hail of stones. James’ head drops under the axe of Herod Agrippa. Peter, kept for a like fate by the same despot, is loosed from prison, at the beck of One before whom even iron fetters fall and iron gates open of their own accord. Yet neither can bribe nor force stop the mouth of Christ’s witnesses. God is obeyed and man is defied.
4. Church life itself is moulded by this mission to mankind. Believers so commonly accept this work of witness that personal and private interests are merged into this wider and nobler service. The community of privilege and responsibility is emphasized by a more remarkable community of goods. With an unselfishness that has no other example in history, believers part with worldly possessions and pour the proceeds into a common fund, to be distributed according to the wants of each and all. Not only duties but burdens are shared alike.
5. The witnesses disperse more and more widely. Those who were sojourners in Jerusalem went back to their separate abodes with the new message of life burned into their souls by the Spirit’s fire, and burning on their tongues; and so light began to shine in the darkness. If we may trust tradition, the eunuch whom Philip guided to the blood of the Lamb and the water of baptism, founded the Church of Alexandria and baptized his own queen. The converted blasphemer from Tarsus, swept over a wider and wider arc, until his mission tours touched not only Ephesus, Athens, Corinth and Rome, but possibly Spain and Britain.
6. The open secrets of Apostolic success may be read upon every page of this short story. Apostolic activity moves toward its goal of world-wide missions with so rapid strides, that in one generation it reaches the remotest parts; yet it treads no strange road. All along the way God’s lights are hung, that he who will may follow. How simple the methods of work! Childlike faith in the promise of God and the power of His word and Spirit; believing and united prayer that laughs at the giant Anakim with their chariots of iron, and cares not for high walls and strong gates, and foes many and mighty; a heroic obedience that asks only for “marching orders,” and then dares all obstacles and opposers, moving on into the “valley of death,” to *Mo and die” — such are the simple clew to the whole maze and mystery of Apostolic missions.
7. The unseen divine presence pervades the whole history. To Christ’s last command was closely linked a last promise, “Lo, I am with you all the days, even to the end of the age.” This book is the record of the fulfilment of that promise. Wonder-working miraculous signs, divine interpositions, so abound that the uncommon becomes common, and the supernatural seems no more unnatural. As we cross the threshold of the story we meet the tongues of flame that tell the power of God; then each chapter is a new chamber of marvels. The healing of the lame man, of the divining damsel, of Eneas at Lydda; the raising of dead Dorcas; the healing virtue that invests the body of Paul and the shadow of Peter; the prison doors thrice opened, twice by the angel, once by the earthquake as God’s angel; miracles of judgment as well as deliverance; Elymas being blinded, and Ananias, Sapphira and Herod struck dead; — at every step we tread on enchanted ground.
8. The power of the gospel is everywhere conspicuous. Sinners are converted sometimes as in masses; saints are edified and educated, and the body of Christ grows strong. Even those who are neither converted nor convicted seem compelled to hear and to make some decision; they may not bow to Christ, but they cannot maintain the stolid apathy of indifference. Stephen’s stoners are cut to the heart, for his words are swords; Felix says ’ * go thy way,” but he ‘’trembles;” Agrippa will not yield but is ‘’almost persuaded.” Those who “gnashed on him with their teeth” “could not resist the wisdom and the spirit with which” the first martyr spake; and Saul, who stood by consenting to their deed, never forgot that shining face which prepared him for the glory that smote him near Damascus!
9. This is the book of the Holy Spirit. Throughout, there runs the stream of His subtle, unseen, mysterious, resistless working. Omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, find here the field for their display, promising and prophesying similar results, whenever and wherever like conditions obtain. Here God shows that in grace as in nature He has chosen channels for His power and energy, and if those channels are not obstructed. He who is the same yesterday and to-day and forever, will still work wonders.
lo. No undue emphasis is here laid on numerical results or apparent success. In the story of primitive missions the whole stress is upon obedience, not consequence, not on succeeding but on serving. The work is God’s, the instrumentality only is man’s; the whole responsibility is therefore with the Master Workman, and whether success or failure, defeat or triumph, be the apparent outcome, all is well.
No lesson taught in these chapters is more sublime, or more needful than this. In every age disciples need to learn it anew. So long as our eyes are dazzled by the glittering trophies of victory, and our hearts depressed by seeming disaster, we shall be in a state of chronic worry. Our joy and hope, our courage and confidence, will be like the waves of the sea, iossed up and down by every change of wind, and driven to and fro by every turn of tide. The work of missions is God’s work. Man did not plan it, cannot carry it on, cannot make it a success. As Dr. McLaren says, ‘’ the results are so poor as to show that the treasure is in an earthen vessel; so rich as to prove that in the earthen vessel is a heavenly treasure.” We are therefore simply to do our duty, and with a holy abandonment, a sublime “carelessness,” cast ourselves and trust our work upon Him whose we are and whom we serve.
Some of these ten principal features of this book will receive more attention further on; but at this point we have sought to look at them as at the features of one face, striking for the unity and harmony of their combination and impression. And they serve to characterize the Acts of the Apostles as the typical history of the witnessing Church during its first generation, wherein God teaches the philosophy of missions by a historical example.
This book of the Acts teaches that in this witness every believer is to take part. A duty is involved from whose obligation no disciple is excepted; a privilege from whose enjoyment and enrichment no believer is excluded. The opening miracle of Pentecost writes this lesson in letters of fire upon the doorway of this historic record, for it brought that two-fold gift of converting and anointing grace, and the anointing came upon all that little company, even upon the women. The gift of tongues was both a sign to the unbelievers and a signal to believers. What is the tongue but the great instrument of testimony? The message was spoken with many tongues to teach disciples that their witness was to reach every nation, whatever its language; and possibly that gift of tongues fitted them for such witness, without the tedious mastery of foreign speech. And the tongues were of fire to remind them that faithful testimony was to be attended by a new force, an energy not of man but of God.
So plainly is the tongue of every disciple thus set apart for testimony, that it is a fact beyond explanation that the Church should ever have lost sight of God’s purpose, that witnessing shall be the prerogative of all believers; and it is one of the startling proofs of a rapid decline from a primitive piety, that so few modern disciples feel the burden of personal responsibility for souls.
The study of words reveals ethics in language. Error and truth find crystallization in current forms of speech, and so this habitual carelessness that shifts the work of soul-saving upon other shoulders has become coined into popular phrases, fixed forms of expression.
For instance, let us look closely at that dangerous term, “division of labour.” It is often said that the Acts of the Apostles encourages and enjoins this principle; and the institution of the diaconate is cited to prove it, because the Church was bidden to look out honest men to serve tables, leaving the Apostles free to give themselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
Let us beware of too broad an induction from so narrow a basis of particulars. There is a great gulf of difference and distinction between division of labour and distribution of labour. Division hints at partition and separation; distribution implies only a special assignment or allotment of work. Expediency and convenience may set apart some to a particular service, in order to free them from all entanglements, and to assure a more competent and thorough attention to that branch of work; but it is quite another matter to build up a dividing wall, or draw even a dividing line, which practically parts disciples, and which they come to think it improper to cross. Service is to be so distributed, that each may have his own sphere and work, and no department be overcrowded or under-supplied. But never, during Apostolic days, was there found asserted in the Church of Christ any law of monopoly, clerical caste, or exclusive right. Whatever such notions or customs have since grown up, ’ * from the beginning it was not so.” All believers had, and exercised, an inalienable and undisputed right to proclaim Christ to lost men. Experience of grace was the sufficient warrant for witness to grace; and the only limits to such witness were those of ability, opportunity and consecration.
The appointment of deacons was wise and needful. Material and temporal wants demanded supply, and such cares must not collide and conflict with purely spiritual offices and ministries; and, because provision for God’s poor was a form of service to Him, it must be in charge of men, not only of honest report and of wisdom, but full of the Holy Spirit.
The same need still exists. The ministers and missionaries to whom is committed as their one absorbing trust, the curacy of souls, must not be hindered and hampered by the stern necessity of ministering to the temporal needs of their own and of other families. There is a “business side” of the Lord’s work which calls for men with a practical talent for finance and
THE CALL TO ALL DLSCLPLES. IGl
business. Some who are not called to give themselves wholly to prayer and the ministry of the word, may unshackle those who are relieving them of needless tax on time and strength, by taking care of poor saints, and by providing a sound financial basis and bottom for evangelistic and spiritual work.
How often a noble structure of missions has come to wreck and ruin from dry rot in its timbers, because there has been no one to look after supplies! The war is God’s, but it needs money and materiel. Brave Captain Gardiner, at Tierra del Fuego, led a little band of seven against Satan’s seat in Patagonia, but had to turn back, and died of starvation at the very gates of his stronghold, and in the very crisis of the assault, because of lack of the necessities of life. Had some well organized body of men and women at home kept up the “line of communication” between the base of operations and the source of supplies, Allen Gardiner might not have fallen at Spaniards’ Harbour in 185 1, and the victory might not have been postponed for half a century!
Let it be noted, however, that the appointment of the seven deacons to serve tables, did not shut them out from preaching or even baptizing, as the records of both Stephen and Philip clearly show. Distribution of labour did not divide disciples, nor debar any from taking part in evangelizing. Over the doors of the early Church the Master wrote in letters so large that he who runneth may read at a cursory glance, ‘’ Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” The command was and is to all disciples. Those who cannot go in person, must go in the person of others who can; and with no less self-denial, prayer, self-offering, must they who tarry by the stuff support those who go to the battle, than if they themselves went to the field. Only so will they share alike in the work and the reward. Let this one law of service be framed into church-life, and all will be alike missionaries.
In that Samarian Pentecost, God laid new emphasis upon the truth already taught, that the commission of disciples was not limited by priestly lines nor confined within narrow channels. The sharp distinction between priests and people, found in the days of Judaism, disappears in the Christian Church; the barriers were down between the court of the gentiles and the court of Israel, and the middle walls of partition between the court of Israel and the court of the priests perished with the old Temple, and has no place in the Church of Christ. Nay, the veil is rent between the Holy Place and the Holiest of all, and all believers approach alike without hindrance or hesitation to the mercy-seat. What means all this if not a plain assertion of a certain equality of right, dignity and privilege? No assault is designed, in the calm recording of these convictions, upon the views or practices of fellow-disciples; but candour and loyalty to truth demand of us, that as honest students of this great missionary charter of the Church, we shall accept and defend its plain teachings. If we are in earnest to perfect the missionary methods of our own era, we must with open eyes see our present defects, and own our departures from the primitive standard. The prime condition of all spiritual progress is a candid mind. That a custom exists is no warrant for its right to exist; it is at best but a presumption in its favour. As Cyprian said, “Consuetudo vetustas erroris,” — Custom may be only the antiquity of error. And if in the Church any notions or practices have found root and growth which are not of God’s planting, and whose fruit is not of godly savour, however marked by old age, the sooner we cut them down and extirpate them, root and branch, the better. And surely whatever hampers or hinders all believers from bearing witness for the gospel, must find sanction outside of the Acts.
God used persecution to reveal the true value and need of what is somewhat invidiously called, ‘’Layagency,” in the world-wide work. The Spirit records with marked particularity how in this wide scattering of disciples the Apostles were excepted; so that the fact might be more emphatic that it was the common body of believers who being scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the word. God may yet use persecution to repeat the same lesson, that, as there is to be no distinction among those who need the gospel, so we are to deny to no believer the prerogative, which is a sort of birthright, of telling the gospel story as best he can. It needs all believers to reach all unbelievers. The silver trumpet which peals out God’s year of jubilee is wrought of the whole Church, every believer adding material to the trumpet and volume to the sound. The Church is God’s golden lampstand, and everyone who is taught of God is part of that framework, helping to lift the Light of the world higher and give its rays more range and power. Because we believe, therefore we speak, is the reason for missions. Every one of us is needed in the work: the Church, the world, God, have need of us, and we ourselves need the work for our own growth.
The Church, as primitive piety declined, built up priestly barriers about the ‘’ clergy” and taught the “laity” that it was impertinent intrusion for those who are not ‘’ ordained,” to preach the good tidings. But in all great epochs of spiritual power, believers have burst these bonds like cords of burnt tow, and claimed the universal, inalienable right to tell lost souls of Jesus. Such false restraints are cerements of the tomb; they belong not to the living but to the dead; they have the odour of decay, and, like other grave-clothes, should be left behind in the sepulchre. When Christ’s voice calls the dead to life, and one comes forth bound hand and foot with ceremonialism and traditionalism, even his mouth bound about with the napkin of enforced silence — the Lord of Glory says, “Loose him and let him go!” As well force him back into the sepulchre and roll the stone to the door as to leave a converted soul bound! Let every live man be a free man. Stand back! ye who would fetter a disciple’s utterance. He is one of God’s witnesses. Teach his tongue, but do not bind it! Train him for service, but do not hold him back! Ye, who are preachers and pastors, become ye teachers of teachers, trainers of workers! turn your churches into recruiting offices, barracks, armouries, where disciples enlist for the war, and are put through the drill and discipline of soldiers; where they put on the whole armour of God, and then go forth, led by you, to fight the good fight of faith!
Do we, with needless repetition, seek to emphasize this lesson of the common duty and privilege of believers to preach the gospel? Mark how God repeats it in this book. That Samarian Pentecost was a new voice of God teaching this truth. All that great work of grace revolved about Philip the deacon, a man set apart indeed, but not for preaching or baptizing; and God set his own sign and seal in a wonderful way upon the ministry of this lay evangelist. What a divine rebuke to all unscriptural notions, whether sacerdotal or sacramental! The age of missions holds a blessing so large, that it cannot be confined within priestly lines and limits. The vast host to be reached defies us to overtake their destitution while we rely upon a few thousand educated, ordained, highly trained workmen. Millions sink, unsaved and unwarned, while we are waiting for experts to come to their rescue with all the most improved life-saving apparatus of the schools. If for these souls in wreck we cannot command the rocket and gun, the swinging-basket and life-boat, let us have the strong arm of the swimmer, the plank — anything to save a sinking man!
Let us thank God for the age of a Reformed Church! For fifteen centuries the vicious ecclesiasticism that found deep root in Constantine’s rule, overshadowed the Church, and some remnants of it
Still survive. Too often, with the average Christian, the practical conception of duty is fulfilled if he attends Church-worship, supports the preacher, gives to benevolent work, and lives an upright life, leaving to the minister to do the preaching and to take care of souls.
Such notions find no native soil in the Acts of the Apostles. There, from first to last, we find one truth taught and one duty done: all who believed were expected to take part in spreading the faith; many, not fitted to lead and teach, could, at least, tell the good tidings. In every age, and above all in an age of reviving missionary activity, this fact needs anew to be wrought into the convictions of God’s people, that in this sort of ‘’preaching” every believer is to have part. No golden chalice, costly and rare, polished and jewelled, is needed to bear water to those who are dying of thirst; a tin cup or a broken potsherd will do, anything that will hold water.
In our day, new voices of God, loud and clear, are calling disciples to share in this active, aggressive crusade for Christ. God’s Providence is the new “Peter, the Hermit,” that goes through Christendom, shouting, ‘’Deus vult!” — God wills it! The one great feature of our century has been the growth of consecrated hidividtialisin; and as a natural, necessary sequence, has come the breaking down of all false barriers that, in direct work for souls, fence in ministers of Christ and fence out members of churches. While the ministers are no less needed and no less busy, in all churches where true life throbs common believers have come to feel that every man is his brother’s keeper; and that to shirk personal work for souls is not only culpable neglect of the lost, but serious risk of spiritual loss to the neglecting party!
It is just a century ago since, in 1793, France called all loyal citizens to rise and resist the flood of invading foes that threatened the destruction of the nation. All were bidden to take part in the work. The older men could forge arms and the younger bear them; the women could make tents and uniforms, and even the children could scrape lint and prepare bandages. The God of Battles calls all alike, old and young, men, women, children, to a share in the work and war of the ages. He tells us in unmistakable terms, that those who think of nothing beyond their own salvation, are scarcely saved, if at all; and in answer to His summons, a new generation of disciples is coming forward trained to an unselfish consecration to soul-saving.
1. If we seek some examples of this modern development of personal activity in Christian service, let us hear God’s voice in the modern Sunday-school. Robert Raikes had originally no aim beyond the occupation of the idle, ignorant children, who made the Lord’s day noisy with their mischief. But God was behind the movement that started in Gloucester, and by it He was leading out believers into new fields of work. And now in the Sunday-school, the humblest disciple may find a little congregation for teaching saving truth, a little parish for exercise of pastoral oversight, a little field to sow and reap in the Master’s name. So universal has the Sunday-school become that no church is complete without this nursery of young plants for the Lord’s garden.
2. The Young Men’s Christian Association, now completing its first half century, has a like providential mission. Its rapid growth and world-wide extension reveal its place in the plan of God. Already it has wrought three marked results: it has brought believers together, encouraged Bible study, and trained lay workers.
It belongs to the very basis of this great organization, that it lifts into prominence only the grand truths which evangelical disciples hold in common; and so, leaving out of sight those minor matters of creed or polity which have often proved divisive and destructive of unity, it unifies all believers by magnifying their agreements and minimizing their differences.
Then this association directly stimulates systematic search into Holy Scripture, putting the word of God into the hands of young men as their text-book in holy living and serving, and teaching them that its contents are to be mastered and utilized for growth in grace and usefulness. The last half century is the era of the Bagster and the Oxford Bible as the habitual companion of Christian young men.
These two results contribute to a third, yet more important — the raising up of a generation of young men competent to take intelligent part in soul-winning. Even the Apostolic age may safely be challenged to show any parallel development in this direction. Within fifty years hundreds of thousands of young men have been brought to think, not of denominational distinctions, but of fundamental, saving gospel truths; led to give themselves to personal study of the word of God, until they have attained marvellous mastery of its contents and facility in its use, and then have been drawn to feel the duty and delight of direct work to save others, and to engage directly in active personal service for Christ.
It is a sublime sight to behold this vast army of young men, prayerfully searching the Scriptures, and then going forth to use their knowledge of the inspired word to guide others to Christ, and train them for similar service. To this lay-activity the whole providential history of this world-embracing organization has so rapidly and directly led, that even those who were once incredulous and suspicious are constrained to see in it all, the will and working of God. Just now there is, perhaps, a risk that in the new stress laid upon athletic skill, intellectual culture, social standing, moral excellence, the ultimate end which God obviously had in view may be sacrificed or obscured. If the Young Men’s Christian Association should degenerate into a mere religious club; if spiritual development is made subordinate to any other end; if Bible study, training for service and actual soul-saving are ever pushed to the rear to make way for other practical objects however laudable, the unique place which this association has filled in history will be sacrificed, and it will be no longer the important factor and mighty force it has been in the purpose of God. As one who has been identified with this organization for forty years, and who has lovingly and thankfully watched its growth, the writer of these pages thus leaves on record his warning word against those devices of the devil which endanger the future of this wonderful outgrowth of this missionary century.
3. It must not be forgotten that Young Women’s Christian Associations are the natural result of the other, seeking to do for the sisterhood what the companion associations have done for the brotherhood; and there is coming to be, not the iinsexing but the unbinding of woman. In the kingdom of God there is to be ‘* neither male nor female.” Fetters of unscriptural restriction are fast falling off from the gentler as from the sterner sex; and where man finds a closed door, woman’s suasive tenderness and delicacy touches the secret springs of power.
4. Another example of God’s call to general activity in behalf of souls is found in the Yonjig People’s Society of Christian Endeavor.
In the year 1881, somewhat more than thirteen years ago, a young New England pastor felt that something must be done among the younger members of his congregation to educate them into habits of witnessing and working for Christ. He must unloose tongues spiritually dumb, and arrest the drift toward the Dead Sea of idleness and stagnation. So he formed in his own church the first society of
Christian Endeavor. Its simple secret was a pledge regularly to attend its meetings and habitually to take part in some way in their exercises. Around this mutual covenant, as a nucleus, the society rapidly grew; and so well did the new plan work that neighbouring pastors and churches followed the lead, and formed societies of a like sort. And so it has come to pass that live coals from the altar at Portland, Maine, have been borne from church to church, until, as we write, the number of these organizations is already legion, and the total membership reaches 1,725,000. Rev. F. E. Clark, D.D., who ail-unconsciously kindled this first fire, has been on a world-round tour to visit, as bishop, the hundreds of societies which are belting the globe!
5. What shall be said of the ‘’Salvation Army,’’ which, notwithstanding its crude notions and strange methods, has left in the rear all other organizations for carrying the gospel to the most destitute? After an existence of twenty-eight years, it reports 4,397 mission stations; seventy-four homes of rest for officers whose health is broken down; sixty-six schools for the training of officers; sixty-four slum posts; forty-nine rescue homes for fallen women; twelve prison-gate homes, fifty-two food and shelter depots; thirty-four factories and employment offices; and five farm colonies.
Who can look at such developments of our own day and not see God’s way of working? How plainly do all these, and other similar voices of God, unite in one loud testimony! He is evoking all the latent energies of his Church for the work of witnessing to all men the gospel of His grace, with a rapidity and energy that remind us of the Apostolic age; the forces He had set in motion have swept away artificial barriers between young and old, male and female, and thrust all alike into the field of service. He who watches the signs of the times must see God in history and will have no doubt which way His march is moving. He is summoning and leading all willing followers to a combined assault on the strongholds of Satan and the powers of hell.