Chapter XI
Witnesses unto the Uttermost Part of the Earth
The breadth of the Christian's vision is exceeded only by its height, and his influence is coterminous with nothing less than the human fabric of which he is a part. By faith man penetrates into the heaven of heavens and reaches the very presence of God himself, a privilege and duty which belong not to a favoured few but to the race.
Too low they build, who build beneath the stars,
is a truth of universal application. But just as the stars must not limit man's vision as he gazes up, neither must the horizon limit his vision as he looks abroad. Christian energy is not doing its full work unless it aims at touching the uttermost part of the earth. That which is recorded in Acts 1: 8[31] tells of an abiding principle and not merely of a historic fact. Our Lord is speaking through that group of representative men who witnessed His Ascension, to all who become his followers. Not the Apostles alone but all Christians are destined to be His witnesses "unto the uttermost part of the earth." It is only to be expected that those who have the power to explore the secrets of the divine Being, will also have this lesser power of world-wide influence, which after all, great as it is, is infinitely less aspiring than the former. The same faith that enables us to love and serve our Lord in heaven, equips us to love and serve the men of the remote parts of the earth. To have the former is to be heir to the latter.
Men who imbibe this principle and make it part of themselves are said to have missionary spirit. But it cannot be too strongly insisted that this spirit is not something over and above the common Christian character; for it is not a possession which we are to claim simply because we are bidden to do so, spurred to it by the "icy purity of the law of duty." The missionary spirit is inherent in Christianity. Even though Christ had never said, "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations,"[32] even if He had not assured His followers that they were to be witnesses "unto the uttermost part of the earth," it would have made no practical difference in the final issue of Christian truth. The Church would have been missionary just the same—S. Paul, S. Augustine, S. Columba, S. Francis Xavier, would have striven for the Gospel's sake none the less boldly, none the less zealously. The missionary is not a missionary because of a few missionary texts in the Bible. He is a missionary because he is a Christian. All Christ's commands are invitations, which merely put into concise language what the heart already recognizes as its privilege and joy. The missionary commission[33] is the Church's charter, telling all men of her right to dare to make Christianity coterminous with humanity, arresting the attention of those to whom the missionary is sent rather than acting as the sole motive power of the missionary; from it we get definite authority, and so a measure of inspiration, but we do not rest upon it, as though it were by an arbitrary fiat of God that a Christian were converted into a missionary.[34] The latter term tells of one aspect of the Christian character, that is all. Whoever accepts Christ's Christianity—the redundancy is necessary—forthwith becomes a missionary.[35] Andrew needed no injunction to seek Peter; he did it because, being a follower of Christ, he could not help it. And if he had refrained, he would have ceased at that moment to be a disciple. Christians, whether considered individually or corporately, who are not missionary in desire and intention, are Christians only in name, getting little from and contributing nothing to the religion of the Incarnation. If the foregoing contention be true, the definition of "missionary" stands sadly in need of revision. A missionary is an honourable title not to be reserved only for those who work for God in the waste places of His vineyard, but the coveted possession of every Christian who strives to bear a wide witness, as well as deep, to Christ among men.
Missionary service is a personal thing; it cannot be deputed to another any more than it can have something else as a substitute for it. Contributing money in order that others may be maintained in their missionary undertakings, does not exempt the donor from personal service himself. Every Christian is bound to strive to deepen and widen, by the force of his personality in Christ, the Kingdom of God. Of course there is a narrower and a wider missionary spirit. The latter is reached by faithfulness to the former, here as well as elsewhere effective breadth beginning in depth. All missionary power begins (as well as ends) in that unconscious witness[36] which the Christian character bears to Christ. So infectious a thing is God's truth, that to receive it is to spread it.
As one lamp lights another nor grows less,
So nobleness enkindleth nobleness.
"Ye are the light of the world;" "Ye are the salt of the earth." And it is that part of the character which easily, simply and naturally lays hold on Christ, that first sheds God's light abroad and becomes the preservative element of society.
It is further noticeable that the sphere of Christian influence as alluded to by our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, corresponds with the sphere of witness-bearing marked out by Him in His parting words before the Ascension—"Ye are the light of the world;" "Ye are the salt of the earth;" "Ye shall be witnesses unto the uttermost part of the earth." To recognize the fact that the Christian life is the most invincible and the most permeating influence that the world can ever know, is an enormous incentive to consistency and zealous devotion. Christian character is the only force which a man can both leave behind him, and take with him when he comes to die. Nothing can withstand it, and nothing can check its career. It is bound to impress all that it touches, and it touches everything—"the world," "the earth." It is not too much to hold that unconscious influence always exceeds conscious influence, the latter reaching the zenith of its effectiveness only when it has been transformed, by constant use, into the former. It is in the home that the Christian begins that witness-bearing, which is destined to reach so far.
But the widest missionary spirit is inclusive. It is not a substitute for home work, any more than public life is a substitute for family life. The former is the extension of the latter. The disciples of the first days reached the uttermost part of the earth through Jerusalem and all Judæa and Samaria; while the disciples of these latter days must touch the bounds of the world through the parish, the diocese, the Church of the nation. Nothing, no matter how fine and striking it may be, can take the place of loyalty to the duties that are nearest at hand. Church life may be conceived of as a series of concentric circles, the innermost of which representing parochial relations, the next diocesan missions, then domestic, and the outermost circle foreign missions. Power to traverse the large circumference comes from faithfully treading the round of those that lie within, beginning with that next the centre. The only way to have power and to serve abroad is to live a deep full life at home, and, let it be added, the only way to have large power and to serve at home is to cast the eye far abroad and wind the interests of a whole world around the heart. And the spiritual force of the foreign mission field is no lying index of the spiritual condition of the home Church; it tells the tale as truly as the pulse reports for the heart. It may be perfectly true of every other society of men that mere concentration is the secret of power, but it is not so with the Church. Any ecclesiastical unit, be it parish, diocese, province, or national Church, which is content to feed itself on rich spiritual food, without regard for the rest of the world, will sooner or later be filled with disease and die. However specious a form self-contemplation may assume, it inevitably ends in ruin, for it leads to isolation; and what is isolation but the most awful and irretrievable of catastrophes? The only true independence is that which is the fruit of interdependence. A given Church may have all the appearance of life—there may be popularity, large property, handsome equipment and other signs of outward prosperity—but within there is nothing but death. It is just as wrong and just as fatal to hold aloof, on any plea soever, from the common life of the entire Church at home and abroad, as it is to cut ourselves off from the Church of the past by a denial of fundamental truth. The former, quite as much as the latter, is a departure from Apostolic Christianity, and so merits the opprobrious name of schism.
It is a strange but inflexible spiritual law, that those who aim at anything short of the best according to their conception, as God has given them light, will sooner or later come to grief. It is merely a matter of time. The hope of Christianity lies in its boldness. The Church is strong when she is daring, and only then; her strength rises and falls with her courage—victory is faith.[37] What an inspiration to every parish, the lowliest and poorest as well as the numerically strong and financially rich!—the uttermost part of the earth is within the reach of its influence: ay, more than that, is in need of its prayers and its labours. Work for foreign missions is the climax and crown of Christian life, not a sluggish tributary to it. And a parish will be in the vanguard of God's forces or far in the rear, according as it rises to its responsibility in this direction or not.
There is an immense amount of untutored missionary desire. That is to say, there are vast numbers of Christians whose hearts burn towards those who do not know Christ, but there is no man to teach them how to crystallize desire into prayer and action and let the stream of their desire run clear and full; there are many others, too, who have a narrow missionary spirit and who linger in Judæa and Samaria, only because they have never been shown how it is possible to reach unto the uttermost part of the earth. The fire is there, but it smoulders for want of fuel. Men need direction for their missionary aspirations; they need to be instructed in the work that is being done. We cannot expect people to be interested in what they know nothing about. If the cause of missions is presented as an abstraction, and men are urged to give "on principle," the gifts that come will be such as cost the givers nothing. And as for prayers—well, there will be none, for prayers cannot live on abstractions. The clergy should be the leaders in making the missions of the Church a living thing; and it is nothing short of a scandal that so many pulpits are closed to those who wear the title of "missionary." But whatever be the shortcomings of the clergy, there is no more reason why Christian laymen should be ignorant of the general features of Church work in the far West or in China and Japan than that they should be ignorant of international politics; and there is more reason for shame on account of ignorance in the former than in the latter case. Once waken men's interest in the work abroad as a concrete reality, and there will be stronger prayer, more numerous offers for personal service in foreign work from the best and bravest, more liberal contributions in money.
It has already been hinted that not only does the uttermost part of the earth need Christianity, but that Christianity needs the uttermost part of the earth. We cannot fully know Christ until all the nations have seen and believed and told their vision. The Church of God is poor, in that it lacks the contribution which the un-Christianized nations alone can give by being evangelized. Just as the speculative East needed in the first days the practical West to balance its concept of the Gospel, and vice versa, so it is now. Before we can see the full glory of the Incarnation, representatives of all nations must blend their vision with that which has already been granted. Every separate stone must be set before the temple reaches its final splendour. Foreign missions are as much for the Church's sake as for the heathen's, as much for the eternal profit of those who are sent as for those to whom they go.
No attempt has been made in these pages to argue as with men who do not believe in the widest missionary enterprise, for missionary spirit is not created by argument. Indeed, many an objection is but the instrument by which persons convict themselves of being Christian only in name. There is no answer to what they say excepting, "Of course you cannot believe in missions, because it is evident you do not believe in Christ. To believe in Christ is to believe in missions, missions unto the uttermost part of the earth." It would be a shame to appear to apologize for what is of the essence of Christianity. So we turn away from all smaller reasoning, to the one great spring and impulse of mission work far and near. The Christian has to see those whom Christ sees, for the follower looks through his master's eyes; the Christian has to love and serve those whom Christ loves and serves, for the follower lives only in his master's spirit. Consequently, he must see, love and serve unto the uttermost part of the earth. Being a follower of Christ, he cannot help it; he does it for the same reason and with the same naturalness that the sun shines and the rose sheds its fragrance abroad.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judæa, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.
[32] St. Matt. xxviii: 19.
[33] St. Matt. xxviii: 19, 20.
[34] The following remarkable phrase occurs in Bp. Andrewes' Devotions:—Who [i. e., Christ] hath manifested in every place the savour of His knowledge ... by the incredible conversion of the world to the Faith, without assistance of authority, without intervention of persuasion.
[35] The Brotherhood of S. Andrew is nothing more than an organized effort to fulfil a common Christian duty.
[36] Cf. Emerson's verses on unconscious influence:
Little thinks, in the field, yon red cloaked clown
Of thee from the hill-top looking down;
The heifer that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,
Deems not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse, and lists with delight,
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbour's creed has lent.
[37] 1 John v: 4.