CHAPTER XVI
THE MISSIONARY MEETING
It was early summer when the Women's Foreign Missionary Society of Doctor Schoolman's church was to have a public meeting. On Sunday the faithful calendar announced it, and Doctor Schoolman made special mention of it, urging attendance. A missionary home on furlough was to exercise a part of his "well-earned rest" in addressing the meeting. It was to be held in the afternoon, but it was suggested that as many men of the congregation as possible unite with the ladies in giving welcome to one who had distinguished himself by faithful and valuable service on the foreign field.
The announcement was discussed in the Gray household and Hubert determined to join Winifred in attendance.
"Not that I believe much in it," he said, "when here all about us, and especially in our large cities, there are plenty of objects for our commiseration quite as wretched, undoubtedly, as those in foreign countries."
"No doubt," said Winifred. "It always seemed to me to be looking rather far afield for something to do."
However, the two determined to hear the voice from China.
Wednesday, the day for the meeting, came, and Hubert left work in time to join Winifred on her way. They found the lecture-room of the church rather better filled than was usual at a missionary meeting, but only a few gentlemen were present. Winifred had time to observe some of the faces about her before the meeting began. She knew the Secretary, a woman with a keen, earnest face, always active in good works, and indefatigable in her efforts to excite a generally indifferent church into some glow of interest in the missionary cause. There were a few other faces as interested as her own. Hubert saw the plain little body he had singled out at the church social as one who perhaps would find it a pleasure to talk about the Lord. Her eyes looked expectantly toward the quiet looking man who came in with Doctor Schoolman.
The President, rather new to her office, fingered her jeweled watch-chain nervously as she opened the meeting. The company sang "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," and Doctor Schoolman offered prayer. The Secretary read the minutes of the previous meeting—a "Thank-offering meeting"—and it was discovered that the sum of $90 had been realized. The ladies exchanged glances of satisfaction at the amount.
"Hm-m! Their combined thanks foot up to that," thought Hubert. He was a business man and must be forgiven such a practical view of the case. "The Lord must be gratified!"
"I feel, ladies," said the President, pushing a diamond ring up and down upon her finger anxiously, "very much pleased that our poor gifts have amounted to so much. We cannot all do what we would, but we may give our mites, and together they will count for something in the work. We cannot tell what these ninety dollars may mean to the heathen."
"Their mites!" thought Hubert, with something of his old-time irony. He was freshly instructed on the subject of money, and knew well the story of the widows' mites. "If Mrs. Greenman herself had given the ninety dollars, I should think she was beginning to feel a tinge of gratitude for something."
Winifred had fastened her brown eyes musingly upon the President. She was wondering if money might express thanks, and, if so, how much would appropriately suggest her own gratitude to God for His "unspeakable gift."
"No gift would be large enough," she thought, and then the familiar lines came to her mind:
"Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all."
"How true that is," she thought. "But I suppose it is nice to give some token, even though one cannot adequately express one's thanks."
There were some other reports and then the leading alto from the choir sang:
"There is a green hill far away."
"I am sure we are all glad," said the President, "to have with us Mr.
Hugh Carew from China, who has labored for years among the heathen there.
We shall be pleased to hear him tell us something of his work."
And Mr. Hugh Carew began. He was a man uninteresting to look upon, save that his face wore a certain indefinable expression of a man who has been a stranger in many places; a man habituated to loneliness and to silence. But he was evidently a man also accustomed to speak, for he addressed his audience with easy grace.
"The pleasure is mine," he said, "in being able to present to your interest and sympathy the dearest object of the heart of God."
Hubert started to hear the man's work, as he thought, thus spoken of.
Mr. Carew went on:
"Of course I refer not to my simple share in it, but to God's great work of salvation in all lands."
"Ah, that is what he means," thought Hubert, and repeated to himself—"the dearest object of God's heart!"
"You may question my definition of that work," said Mr. Carew, "but a moment's reflection will convince you that it is true. We may measure the object's value by the price expended for it. For what other than the dearest object would God have been willing to give His most priceless treasure—the Son of His love? You will pardon my giving some attention to the fundamental facts of our common salvation before speaking specifically of the work in which I have had a part for some years in China. My apology is this: that wherever the returned missionary goes, even among God's people, he finds himself obliged to defend his work to some who regard it as an impractical and self-devised effort at doing good, rather than the simple carrying out of the expressed will of God. We have to go back to first principles and inquire afresh: 'What is the will of God?'"
"That sounds sensible," thought Hubert, who loved to hear vital principles discussed.
"Some very simple, well-worn texts will serve for our brief study," said Mr. Carew. "First there is that comprehensive passage, familiarly known and quoted in all evangelical circles: 'For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.' The words that I wish to emphasize especially are two:—'the world.' They show you the scope of God's love and gift. He loved 'the world,' not some favored race within it. And love, which cannot rest inactive, gave; gave according to its own measure—'His only begotten Son.' We cannot be otherwise than agreed that this love and this gift were for all, and so must include my poor China. Indeed, could you divide God's love arithmetically (it is a foolish way to put it—you cannot divide infinity!) then my friends over there might claim about one-fifth of it, I suppose, as they number about that proportion of the world's population."
The ladies smiled indulgently at the curious way of putting it, but were not yet persuaded in their hearts that so considerable a portion of the love of God could be diverted from their own delightfully engrossing race, not to China alone, but to other peoples also, as would follow by that kind of arithmetic. Let the missionary talk. It would still be as obvious to their consciousness as the glittering pompon on Mrs. Greenman's bonnet that themselves were the consistent and natural monopolists of the favor of their Creator!
But Mr. Carew went on: "We may find our two very illuminating little words in another text almost equally familiar. It is this: 'Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world.' This lets us farther into God's attitude and purpose concerning 'the world.' Loving all His creatures, He still saw that they were involved in ruin brought on by sin. If He brought them to Himself—the only event that could satisfy love—it must be by a great and costly Redemption. One emanating from Himself must be projected into the ruin and death of the world and come back to Him, spotless and unsullied, bringing with Him 'many sons' unto the glory. But He must purge their sins. So He gave Him to be a Lamb of sacrifice; that He taking the sins of the world upon Him, might work in Himself a death unto sin that should be made good to all that become united to Him. Potentially, then, the sin of 'the world' is taken away. If we wish to support further this point in our study concerning 'the world' we may turn to Paul and hear, 'God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them.' Or the Apostle John will tell us that 'He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.'
"Now that we have reminded ourselves of the love, and of the gift embracing redemption, it occurs to us to ask how are our poor brothers in China to avail themselves of the gift or to hear of the love. Another well-known test, containing our two words again, tells us very clearly. It offers the only logical answer to the question, and it is this: 'Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature.' Love has devised its gift and prepared it at unspeakable cost, and now commands our feet that we may bear it to all habitable parts of the earth. Wherever the objects of God's love are, there the gift must be borne. Do we not all see that the work which we call 'Foreign Missions' is in the direct, simple carrying out of the purpose of God, bearing the knowledge of the gift to all for whom it is intended, that they may avail themselves of it? What object could be dearer to the heart of God? What He has Himself done shows us of what moment the matter is to Him. How can we ever excuse ourselves that it has been a matter of such indifference to us? He has limited Himself to human instruments for the carrying to the lips of dying ones whom He loves the water from the smitten Rock, and how have we responded? Are we indeed His sons and daughters, that His supreme wish should be our last concern?"
The speaker's eyes had deepened in color as he spoke. Now they burned with intense feeling. His long, tenacious hands were clenched repressively. He went on:
"I imagine I hear an objection that the same work is being done at home, and that there is ample field here still. We may not trust our own understanding to argue the case as to the value of confining our efforts to the home field, but let the Scriptures, always ready to instruct us, give us light. Probably we will agree that Paul, the apostle-missionary, is in his life an exponent of the theory of Gospel preaching. He had an ambition. Hear how he expresses it: 'Yea, being ambitious so to preach the Gospel, not where Christ was already named, that I might not build upon another man's foundation; but, as it is written
"'They shall see, to whom no tidings of him came,
And they who have not heard shall understand.'
"He shows his Roman readers his method; telling them that from Jerusalem unto Illyricum (just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy) he had 'fully preached the Gospel of Christ.' Now he was ready to look farther, his task to those regions being accomplished. What did he mean? Was he leaving behind him converted areas, whose every inhabitant magnified God in Christ Jesus? Far from it. 'Fully preached' though he had, communities were still heathen, but for the lights that he had kindled from place to place in his persecuted journeyings. Remembering that he is in his life the model for Gospel preaching, as he is in his writings the messenger of Christian doctrine, must we not see that the Gospel is for broadcast sowing, not for close gardening, save by the careful hands that God will raise up in the wake of the evangelist. Or, to use another figure, it is the notification, to lost heirs, of a fortune bequeathed them; and the responsibility of the ones entrusted with the carrying out of the will is not so much to persuade heirs to receive their inheritance as to notify them of it. So the Apostle preached 'not where Christ was named,' having a zeal to discharge his debtorship of making known to all nations God's gift of grace. Now over into Spain—far, far afield, as distances then were gauged—the eager eyes of the Apostle looked and longed for a crown of rejoicing from that land also in the day of Christ. In him we see the faithful exposition of the missionary idea."
By this time Hubert was looking at the speaker very intently, with widened, almost startled, eyes that were opening to a new idea. Winifred also sat with riveted gaze, her cheeks slightly paling beneath the deepening conviction of a tremendous truth. True worshiper that she was, to know the truth must be to shape her life in consonance with it, and a voice at her heart gave warning that to be conformed to this newly revealed will of God would be pain. But where was the theory that had seemed so clear and sensible to both Hubert and herself when they came to the meeting? Hubert always had clear ideas. What would he say to this? Now Mr. Carew was saying:
"I have frequently heard it objected to foreign missions that there are works of philanthropy still to be done here. The objection is absolutely irrelevant. The work of missions is not an indefinite 'doing good.' It is the bearing of a specific good to those who have not received it. It is not, per se, the bettering of temporal conditions. It is the securing to those who believe its message the best eternal conditions. It is not a matter of 'elevation'—it is a matter of translation. Not into a bettered life, but into a new life with an eternal outlook—into a new realm altogether, and that divine—the Gospel we carry ushers its believers! How would the poor, irrelevant argument I have quoted have affected Paul? Looking across the sea to Spain, and to Rome by the way, he was leaving behind him in Judea, in Asia—in all the region unto Illyricum, hungry people still unfed and the naked still unclothed. Want and misery still stretched out their hands to be relieved. But they could not stay the feet of the Apostle. He had heard the supreme call! God had a supreme gift to bestow; the world had a supreme need; and to bring the need and the gift together was his absorbing, constraining zeal. Would God it were ours also! Friends, my plea for China is not for its temporal needs; it is not that its women's feet are bound, that its men are opium-stupefied, or that it needs our Western ideas, as it is waking from its Eastern way. It is this: God has an unspeakable gift for its people, and we must bear it to them."
His tall figure was leaning forward and his burning eyes chanced to rest fully upon Hubert. The latter started, and a half audible groan burst from his lips. Was it the burden of a new motive, or the sudden smiting of a chord he knew right well? The "unspeakable gift!" Yes, he knew it; and its glory was ineffable beyond the highest earthly good he had known. Happy the man under commission to bear such a treasure, though it be to the uttermost parts of the earth! And the great Giver longed to bestow it on the millions of His creatures, but waited the unwilling feet of His messengers! It was heart-breaking! But was there no other way? Why should an infinite God limit Himself to finite man in carrying out His great design? Mr. Carew continued:
"You may ask why does God restrict Himself to the human instrument in bearing the tidings, and through the tidings the effective result, of the Redemption? I cannot tell you why, but I see that it is so. A light from heaven may overpower a Saul of Tarsus, and he may hear words straight from the ascended Christ. But a Christian man—Ananias—must be sent to tell him how to wash away his sins, and to minister the Holy Spirit to him. An angel may communicate with Cornelius, the Centurion, but he stays his lips from uttering the Gospel of Christ. That privilege is reserved for the human lips of Peter. Is it not sufficient that the Commander has said, 'Go ye'? Had the task been set for angels, it would have been accomplished long since, for they do His pleasure. But He trusted it to us, who might be expected to be so bound by ties of gratitude to His will that we would eagerly spring to do His bidding. And we have miserably failed. 'Is there not another way?' we languidly ask in the face of the command. I do not see another way. But the Lord has most clearly outlined this way: That the Gospel should be preached in all the world to every creature, and that the one who believes and is baptized should be saved. To sit and philosophically consider that an infinite God must surely find some other way if we fail in this, is not reverence for His wisdom. It is mutiny."
Some of the ladies looked startled at this bold setting forth of the case, and remembered how, privately, they had given voice to the sentiments under criticism before coming to the meeting. The Secretary's keen face betrayed thorough assent to what the speaker was saying, and the President was glad that she held such a relation as she did to a cause so evidently right, with a reverse side so evidently wrong. The plain little body of the Church Social beamed thorough sympathy.
"Do you say," continued Mr. Carew, "that God will be merciful to the heathen because of their ignorance? I believe He will, and do not doubt that it will be 'more tolerable' for those who have never heard than for those in this country (heathen also, in the Scriptural sense) who, having often heard, are still rejectors of the Gospel. But there is a greater question involved than that of lessened stripes or mitigated woe. Do you say that men will be saved by lack of knowledge? The prophet said his people perished for lack of it! Ah, if God had ordained ignorance to be the way of salvation He might have spared Himself great cost!—cost of the redemption sacrifice, and of its proclamation, often in martyr blood. But He confers His boon to faith and 'faith cometh by hearing.'
"You say it will increase the responsibility of the heathen if they hear, and put them in worse case if they reject the message? Very true. But had that been a sufficient reason it would have silenced our Lord's 'Go ye' at the outset of the age. Never would the Gospel have traveled to our barbaric fathers, and we should be without hope to-day. But the treasure was too great which the Saviour sought. No thought of deeper shadows cast by the very brightness of the light could deter Him from holding it forth. Beyond all cost of difficulty, danger, or the deepened condemnation of the lost, was the value of the Church He sought—the pearl of great price for which all other possessions might be forfeited! Ah, friends, since the object is so dear to Him, where are our hearts that we think of it so coldly! The burden of my plea is for Him; not for the missionary, not for philanthropy, not even so much for the heathen themselves, as for Him, because He loves and longs to give but lacks the human vessels through which to give!"
The speaker paused, and absently pushed back the hair from his flushed forehead. An almost tragic yearning shone in his deepset eyes. There was one in the congregation whose heart burned in a fellowship of grief over the Saviour's unmet longing. Mr. Carew continued more slowly, in a voice intensely sad and almost broken:
"Do you sometimes quote softly for your comfort, 'I will guide thee with mine eye'? You have thought of His eye upon you—and that is right—to care for, protect and lead. But have you ever watched the glance of His eye with another thought, not for yourself, but for Him? Not to see in it provision and help for you; but to see to what He is looking, for what He is longing—what it is that will give joy to Him? When I look in His eyes," and the speaker was looking far away from his congregation and spoke as though half forgetting them, "I seem to hear Him saying, 'I have other sheep—I must bring them!'"
His voice sank to a whisper. Hubert felt a little convulsive movement beside him and Winifred's hand was shading her eyes. Mr. Carew recovered from the emotion that nearly mastered him, and remembered his hearers and their probable wishes. He began again:
"But perhaps I am neglecting to tell you that which you came especially to hear—some details concerning the actual work of God in China. You will pardon me, but I cannot forbear speaking wherever I go concerning the principles underlying our work, as well as of the work itself. One might describe the people and their ways—and all that is valuable in making them more real to us—and might present a score of curious things which would perhaps beguile an hour very pleasantly, but still leave an indifferent heart unchanged as to the real motive of missions. However, all that I have said will gain and not lose by our turning attention for a time to the practical outworking of the theory."
Then the speaker gave illustrations of the way lost souls are found in China. Very pathetic were some of the incidents, and again and again Winifred's eyes were dim, and an unspeakable pain gnawed at Hubert's heart. Fervently he thanked God for those whose darkness He had turned to light, but sad beyond expression seemed the repeated instances which had occurred in Mr. Carew's experience of earnest pleadings for missionaries to be sent to various places and his absolute inability to answer the cry. But broader than the fact of the wish of some stood the need of all! Populous cities without one witness to the grace of God! Wide regions untraversed by the feet of His messengers! Hubert had thought New Laodicea a place of desperate need; and so it was in the matter of vital, fruit-bearing piety. But as he thought of the inky darkness in which China's millions dwelt this seemed a place of light.
The meeting came to an end. But first the President expressed the thanks of those who had listened to the lecture, and hoped all had been stirred to greater zeal and effort for the future in helping so good a cause. She suggested that the mite-boxes should be redistributed.
"'Mite-boxes!'" thought Hubert and squirmed in his seat impatiently. Then an inward voice reproved him for his contempt of small things. He thought of the poor that might deposit from time to time small coins that meant much from their slender incomes. Yes, "mites" were all right, if they were like the "widow's," and not the meager drippings from a selfish superfluity. But suppose he take a mite-box? How many of them would be required to hold the hoarded, unnecessary, unused wealth at his command? He could not insult the Lord and the "dearest object of His heart" by an offering unworthy of his resources.
There was a pleasant buzz of voices at the close of the meeting and nobody seemed to be going. Doctor Schoolman was shaking hands with Mr. Carew. Doors were opened into the parlor and there was the fragrant odor of a collation prepared. For the benevolences of New Laodicea were nothing like certain reluctant pumps that will give nothing until they have been given to. To whet an interest in such meetings as this, and to cajole small sums from unwilling purses, it was found necessary to make a gastronomic appeal.
Hubert and Winifred moved forward to personally express to the lecturer their appreciation of his words. Doctor Schoolman greeted them warmly and introduced them to him. Mr. Carew had noticed the two among his hearers, and looked at them now with an unconsciously appealing glance. His face was still flushed and the hand Hubert took was hot.
"You are not well," said the latter involuntarily.
"No," said Mr. Carew, rather absently, "I suppose not."
"I should not think this work you are doing would tend to recovery?"
"No, perhaps not," said the missionary.
Hubert looked at him inquiringly. "Then why do you do it?" he wished to ask, but refrained.
Mr. Carew answered his questioning look.
"I am not to be pitied," he said with a smile, "even if I should not recover as I hope to do. Some men are sick and die for pure folly's sake, or for business. They are to be pitied. But if it were given a man to be spent for Christ's sake—to know some faint shadow of suffering for the same cause for which He suffered as we never may—that man is happy, I think."
"He is," said Hubert earnestly, "he is."
Mr. Carew was struck by the sincerity of Hubert's tones. He looked at him with a searching, yearning expression; somewhat, it may be, as the Lord Jesus looked on the rich young man and "loved him." Would this one stand the test of love's requirement?
Some ladies were taking Winifred away to the parlors for refreshments, and someone invited Mr. Carew and Hubert also. They both accepted with the mutual wish to prolong the conversation. As they ate they talked of the Living Bread which must be borne to men.
In the course of their conversation Hubert confessed: "You will be astonished, but I have never before seen the matter as you presented it to-day, and yet I have been a Christian for three years."
"A good many men have been Christians for many years, and yet have not come to see the true motive of missions," said Mr. Carew. "It is singular how the most fundamental principles may be most ignored; I suppose somewhat as a man thinks less of the foundation stones of his house than of what he finds inside it. But in spite of this if a man has really a heart for God, when the matter is clearly presented to him he responds to it. God's purpose must find an 'amen' in his heart."
"That is true," said Hubert.
Presently they left the parlor, still talking together earnestly of God's will, and inadvertently drifted into the great auditorium. Mr. Carew glanced about at its finished elegance.
"Perhaps," he said to Hubert, "they think this instead, is doing the will of God. I daresay they have read that the house Solomon builds for God must be 'exceeding magnifical,' and they think so must this be. And, indeed, the spiritual antitype of that house must be beautiful! It 'groweth into a holy temple in the Lord.' And the work of missions is gathering its 'living stones.' But this—the New Testament breathes no word of instruction concerning this material house! Ah, if I were to write a general confession for our church I should say: 'We have left undone the things we were told to do, and we have done the things we were not told to do, and there is very little health in us!'"
Hubert smiled at Mr. Carew's words, but felt their force. He ventured to remark: "This building does not look as though there were lack of money among us."
"Oh, no!" said Mr. Carew. "Oh, no!" He repressed his lips, as though fearing to say more than would be courteous. But presently he spoke again in general terms.
"The church at home," he said, "has largely forgotten her pilgrim character. She has put off her sandals, and loosened her robes for luxurious living instead of girding them for service and pilgrimage. As to display and indulgence at home, she says plainly, 'I am rich,' but as to the carrying out the will of God entrusted to her for the world, she is pitifully poor."
They were emerging from the stately auditorium, and Hubert bethought him to look for Winifred. They met her in one of the rooms with Mrs. Greenman.
"Oh, Mr. Carew," said the latter, "I was looking for you. Our ladies appreciate so very much your talk to us! I hope—"
Winifred and Hubert were now speaking together and did not hear more of the President's remarks. But before they left the place Hubert had sought Mr. Carew again and had asked him to call at his office the following day.
"I should like to talk with you further concerning your business," he said.
He used the word "business" absent-mindedly, and Mr. Carew smiled, not at all illy pleased with it. Hubert was thinking of an investment.