Was it very long preparation for comparatively short work? But the worth of work done does not depend upon the length of time occupied in the doing. We may better understand this if we think of our Blessed Lord’s Life,—the Thirty Years of silent preparation and waiting; and then the Three Years’ Ministry. Each moment of His Life upon Earth bore fruit; but none the less, those Thirty Years were mainly of preparation for what should follow.
There are some who would not agree with Charlotte Tucker in considering ‘Missionary work of all work the highest’; yet in one sense, if not in all senses, it certainly is so. The soldier who goes on a forlorn-hope expedition ranks higher in the minds of men than the soldier who remains in camp; and the pioneer is counted worthy of more honour than the settler.
We hear in these days many a careless sneer levelled at attempts to convert the Heathen, at the uselessness and fruitlessness of such efforts. Nothing is easier than for a man, sitting at home in his luxurious arm-chair, to flout those who go forth into heathen lands. And there is a certain trick of seeming common-sense in the arguments used, which sounds convincing. So much money spent, and so many lives sacrificed,—and for what? Half-a-dozen converts, perhaps, in a dozen years, some of whom prove in the end to be faithless, while others are very far from being faultless saints. Is the result worth the outlay?
As for the characters of some of the converts, we only have to look at home, and to see for ourselves what the average civilised and well-taught and highly-trained Englishman is—how very far in a large majority of cases from being either blameless, or saintly, or entirely faithful to his Baptismal vows. After that glance, one may feel less surprised to hear of failures among young and untrained converts, the whole pull of whose previous lives has been utterly adverse to Christianity; not to speak of the baneful effects of a surrounding heathen atmosphere, always present after conversion.
But as to the main argument,—whether the result is worth the outlay,—I should be disposed to say at once frankly that, from a purely mercantile point of view, it certainly is not. Very often indeed the immediate results, seen to follow upon Missionary work, are not at all commensurate with the amount of money spent. Many a Missionary has given his time, his income, his life, his all, for the sake of no apparent results in his own lifetime. There have been grand men, who have toiled steadily on through ten years, twenty years, thirty years; and at the close, if they have had any converts at all to show for their labours, those converts could be counted on their fingers.
It may well be that one man brought out of the darkness of heathendom is a prize worth fifty times—or five thousand times—the money expended in bringing him. But this would not be seen from the mercantile point of view. Neither does it touch the true gist of the question.
A little story told of the great Duke of Wellington, so ardently admired by Charlotte Tucker, shall supply us with a clue here. Whether or no the tale itself be genuine hardly affects its value as bearing on the subject. A young clergyman is stated to have one day, in the presence of the Duke, spoken about foreign Missions in the disparaging terms often affected by a particular class of young men. One can exactly picture how he did it,—the supercilious contempt of one who knew little about the matter; and the careless looking down upon all who did not agree with himself. But the Iron Duke is said to have responded sternly:—
‘Sir, you forget your marching orders,—“Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature!”’
If the Duke did not speak the words, they sound very like what he would have spoken. It is a soldier’s view of the matter, and it is the view which all true ‘soldiers and servants of Christ’ ought to take. For this is no question of mercantile views, of business arrangements, of what will or will not repay, of so many converts more or less, of success and failure. This is not in any wise a question of results. It is purely and simply a question of Obedience. The Church generally is commanded to preach the Gospel throughout the world; whether men will hear, or whether they will not. Individuals are bound to go, if called,—and if not themselves called, they are bound to send others.
All of us who are Baptized in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, are bound to His Service who is our Royal Master; and His orders we have unquestioningly to obey. Whether or no we can see the wisdom, the necessity, of what He commands to be done, makes no difference. We are but privates in His Army; and a private has no business with an opinion of his own as to where he shall go or what he shall do in the time of war.