ADDRESS OF REV. D. O. MEARS, D.D.
Now the question comes right here: shall we give according to what we are, or what we have? One of the largest contributors in New England told me the story of his conversion the other day, and it was this, as we sat in the evening by his fireside. “My wife and I,” he said, “had acquired a competence; money seemed to be coming in. I had been brought up outside the Christian faith, and while such a one was preaching on one occasion I debated the question: Can I become a Christian? My wife found the light and for days I wrestled with the question. Light would not come. I knew what it was; it was my pocket book; shall that be included? When I decided my pocketbook for Christ, then light broke in; and,” said he in that narration, as a fit appendix to the whole, “I have never put my means in any place where I have ever lost in all my experience.”
It is said that after the events at Pentecost, Andrew went down to China and preached and that Thomas also, whose finger ached to pierce the nail-torn hands of his Master and whose fist was almost doubled that it might be thrust into that pierced side, went down to China to preach the everlasting Gospel. Now 75,000 of that race, whose great engineering works were the world’s marvel 250 years before the call of Abraham, whose emperor wrote a classic a thousand years before David touched his sacred pen, are at our very doors; and if it was worth while for Andrew and Thomas to go from Jerusalem to China it is worth our work to preach to them and teach them and call them to us when they are so near, is it not? I remember it is written in the prophets, as I suppose Matthew read, “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands to God,” and Ethiopia received the preaching of Matthew, so say many. I remember that Mark founded the church in the upper part of that dark continent. I remember that when our blessed Master fainted under the cross it was an African who put his brawny shoulder under it and walked by the side of our Lord, his Lord, to the crucifixion. And almost as a revenge, though not revenge, Simon, the zealot, who looked to Africa, was crucified himself in lower Egypt. If these thought it worth while to evangelize Africa, what shall we say of the 7,000,000 of Africa’s sons at our very doors?
The question now comes: Can we give? Is there money enough to give? There is an article in the “Century” for November, I think it is, which states, after computation from two cities of considerable size, that four-fifths of the inhabitants were attendants upon church services. The figures struck me with absolute astonishment and consternation. And, you remember, a year ago it was said that fully one-fifth of all the property in the United States, according to calculation, is held in the hands of Christians. I saw this so late that I had not time to go over it extensively; so I took the single city of Worcester. I took the 322 highest tax-payers in that city, and I called on a man who I supposed knew best the church-going habits and pew-owning property of these leading business men, and I said: “Will you tell me where this one goes and that one goes?” We marked them off last Sunday night, and of the whole 322 we found only 65 whom we did not know to be church-goers; and it is safe to say from the percentage that 25 of the 65 were church-goers—men who belonged to families that we felt sure would attend the house of God. We knew that 255 attended church; and adding the 25 that were doubtful, we had 280 out of 320 of the leading men in the city of Worcester that attend the Protestant churches in that city. Take the banks. There are eleven banks in Worcester, and we went over the names of the directors and trustees. Out of the entire number (there were two unknown) we found only three individuals that were not represented in a church, and two of these were the same man—that is, one was a director in two banks.
Now, what is the use? Shall we say that the money belongs to the evil and the piety to the good? The piety and the money, the heart and the gold, are ever in the church. We are reading of a house to be put up in a celebrated watering-place that will cost $750,000. I saw that in the city of New York the land where that great opera-house is, brought the sum of $700,000. The owner of this property in either case would keep two great organizations like this going; and I said, “What! do we want some of that money that is to build that summer resort by the sea?” No, we don’t want it. “But we would like some of that money that is beneath that splendid building that is costing its millions?” No; we don’t want it. If men will build houses for self, let the Christian do his work for the Master, and let us outdo the world.
But I must hasten. There is this demand of the nation upon us. It is said that Robert Peel was riding with his daughter on her birthday—he had given her a splendid riding habit, and the two were admired by all who saw them, and the father looked with pride upon his daughter—and in less than a week the daughter was beneath the sod. The seamstress had sewed the habit while sitting by the side of the bed of her husband groaning under the delirium of the typhus; and in the chill that came upon him she had cast the garment over him. The typhus of the garret became the typhus of that celebrated house. And we are concerned with the swamps, with the morasses, with these debased and poor colored people. We cannot afford to be other. I would, if there were time, enlarge upon this in connection with the report so admirably given; but I must pass on.
It is said that the Puritan captain Hodgdon was riding one day at the head of his company near the mountains when he heard the sound of a bugle. As he heard it he said to his soldiers: “Halt!” and every man leaned on his arms. “List! I love to hear the sound of the bugle: there is so much of God in it.” Yesterday came the report from the counties of Kentucky. It was a bugle-blast to this assembly. Was God in it? 500,000 people who could not read their names, though written in characters that might be read 100 rods off—500,000 illiterate, ten years of age and above, in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia! From the mountains there comes the sound of the bugle that has stirred us. Did it wake us up? Was God in it? I heard a voice in that sound. We are told in our press and from our platforms that the A. M. A. is not doing full work in the South, and other helpers must come. Wait. Don’t hurry. The bugle has sounded; it was God that was sounding it. I ask for no vote of this assembly. I call for no show of hands. Yet, if you wait before God, you must answer in the name of this world to his call: “I ordain you to go and devote $50,000 to the mountain work, in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.” It must be done. There is no drawing back.
It is said that when Robert Bruce was marching to meet Edward, and came within sight of the glittering sheen, he said to his soldiers, “Kneel down, every one”; and the army of Robert Bruce, with their eyes to the earth and their lips moving, offered their prayers to God, then rose up—a little army—and defeated the English. It was God’s voice that sounded like a bugle. It is for the soldiers to pray, and to fall where the bugle calls.
One other point only, briefly, in regard to this question of the demand that Christ makes on us. We must never establish a condition that he has not established; never set up a standard which he has not set up; but follow him and receive the blessing while we follow. It was the remark of Augustus that he found Rome of brick and left it of marble. Our fathers, a century ago, found this nation half slave and half free. It is now left a free nation. God grant it may become, by Christian effort, as good as it is free! In a dark day of our war when the armies were failing, and the hopes of the nation were placed in Lincoln and Lincoln lost hope, when our courage depended upon him and our flag seemed as if about to be rent by an unseen hand—when Lincoln said, “I see no hope”, for the rush of the armies seemed away from the South and up back to the North, Stanton uttered the words that gave courage to his heart: “Weary man, don’t you know that the churches of the North are everywhere praying for you?” And the weary look passed away from his face, and the smile came back to its wonted place. The children of Father Abraham need the prayers of the churches of Christ.