“What did you do?”
“You see,” Keith went on, not noticing her question, “according to our confession there is no salvation even in any ordinary knowledge of Christ, but only for the elect few who experience personal regeneration by conscious acceptance according to the line laid by such men as Calvin and Edwards. Now we know that judged by this test a very large percentage of any so-called Christian community is doomed to eternal punishment, and when you come to the heathen, it grows unthinkable—do you see?”
“Yes, I feel.”
“I went very soon to Dr. Durham, and poured out a full confession of my ‘unsoundness.’”
“What did he say?”
“Anna, that was what settled me. I almost think that if he had said, ‘Stop where you are, and wait until you can see it differently,’ I might have come back to my early convictions in some sort, at least sufficiently to give me a motive for working on. What he did say, in his large, hearty way, was: ‘Oh, my dear fellow, there is nothing more common than such doubts and questions! They naturally arise from time to time with us all. Probably not half the men who are at work in this cause actually believe literally in the common conception that the heathen who do not know of Christ are all condemned. Oh, no, I ceased to hold any such opinion long ago.’ ‘Then why don’t you say so openly?’ I asked; to which he replied impressively: ‘Don’t you see, Burgess, that if we told our change of views to the churches at large we should cut the very nerve of the missionary motive? We may hold these slightly modified views on eschatology ourselves without detriment, perhaps, or danger, although of course they must be held well in hand; but if we should speak them out to the rank and file, the result would be an instant falling off in the receipts of our treasury, and the Lord knows they are small enough and inadequate enough as it is. The average man would reason, if the heathen can be saved after all in some other way, it is not necessary for me to deny myself in order to send them the gospel. So keep still, my dear Burgess, just keep your views to yourself as some of the rest of us do. Go right along as you have been doing, and there will be no harm done.’”
“Keith, dear Dr. Durham did not know it, but that is Jesuitism!” exclaimed Anna, with flashing eyes.
“I thought it was,” he replied quietly, “and the result was I gave up my office, partly on account of my health, partly because I could not continue what would actually have been, for me, getting money under false pretences.”
“Still, Keith, it is not only to save the heathen from everlasting punishment that we want to send the gospel, but to give them the present salvation from sin.”
“Certainly. There are other motives left. I think they may be sufficient to energize our work far beyond what the Gospel of Fear could do, but they are not at present the popular motives to which I am expected to appeal. The future of the cause is not clear to me. If Durham is right, and the nerve of missions will be cut when people cease to believe that the heathen are necessarily damned because they have not accepted Christ, why then I have little hope, because it seems to me impossible for thinking people to hold this view much longer. But I must admit that it is hard enough to get them to give money when they believe implicitly in the immediate and hopeless doom of every heathen soul departing to judgment.”