INCREASED INTEREST AND SYMPATHY
And all the Christian churches are agreed that this duty has been laid upon them, The churches are alive to this duty as they never were before. And this is one of the most hopeful signs of the age. It does seem at times as if society were getting worse at the core; yet in regard to sympathy and helpfulness, especially in regions remote, it is certainly improving. And this increased interest and sympathy relates both to the bodies and the souls of men. This age has witnessed marvels of kindness and enterprise that would have been impossible only a few years ago.
Surely it is time. It must be confessed that the church in general has been very slow to take up the subject of missions with any zeal. There was great activity in the first century of the Christian era, and a little later. If it had only been sustained until the present time, possibly the whole world would have been evangelized. But there was a deplorable lapse of interest and of effort. And it was long continued. We might say that for sixteen hundred years the church was almost indifferent on the matter. But now there is renewed enthusiasm and enterprise.
This long lapse of interest should certainly make us moderate in our interpretation of Scripture. Here were the Saviour's words, clearly before the eyes of the church for sixteen hundred years; and it seems we did not see or hear them. He commanded us—and it was one of his last commands—to preach the Gospel to the world. But we took almost no notice. The world might have been dying in heathenism, but we seemed not to care. We had not the spiritual alertness to realize that the words of Christ had any application to ourselves. Such torpor of spiritual understanding and sentiment, I say, ought to keep us from being unduly positive, or self-assertive, in our interpretation of Scripture. Happily there is renewed interest now; and in this all the churches are agreed.