Five Sermons

by Henry Benjamin Whipple

I cannot tell the story of his life. One day he was found dead on his knees in prayer in an African hut. That life had so impressed itself upon the heathen folk that they did what will always be a marvel of history. They wrapped the body in leaves. They covered it with pitch. They carried it nine months on their shoulders. They fought hostile tribes. They swam swollen rivers. They cut their way through impenetrable thickets, and at last stood at the door of a mission house in Zanzibar, and said, "We have brought the man of God to be buried with his people." And so David Livingstone sleeps in Westminster Abbey.

Our Stanley took up Livingstone's work, and he laid Africa open to the gaze of the world. He travelled nine hundred and ninety-nine days, and the thousandth day reached the sea-coast. In all that journey he did not meet a single, solitary soul who had heard that Jesus Christ had come into the world. Stanley tells the reason why he went back to Africa. He said:

"When I found Livingstone I cared no more for missions than the veriest atheist in England. I had been a press reporter, and my business was to follow armies and to describe battles; to attend conventions and report speeches, but my heart had not been touched with sympathy for missions. When I found this grand old man I asked: 'What is he here for? Is he crazy? Is he cracked? I sat at his feet four months and I saw that a power above his will had taken possession of his life, and given him a hunger to lead poor heathen folk out of their darkness.

"I have heard the same voice speaking to my heart, 'Follow me,' and I go back to Africa to finish Livingstone's work."

This was a few years ago. To-day there are fifteen Christian Bishops of our communion in Africa. Eight were present at the Lambeth Conference. One of them, Bishop Crowther, was captured when a boy ten years of age on a slave ship, placed in a mission school, transferred to a high school, then to the university, graduated with honors, and went back to Africa as a Bishop. As I looked in the face of that black man and thought of his wonderful history, I remembered another man from Africa that carried the cross of my blessed Master up the hill to Calvary, and that this aged servant of Christ was following in his blessed footsteps.

Another of these Bishops was one of the manliest men that I ever looked upon; Bishop Smythies, the picture of manly beauty, honored by his university, beloved by friends, a face gentle and loving as that of St. John. When I thought of this man going on foot in the interior of Africa, perhaps to die for Christ, I could not keep back the tears, and I went to him and said, "My good brother, I cannot tell you how my heart goes out to you in loving sympathy." He smiled and said, "Bishop, when the Church in Jerusalem had more work than it knew how to do, the Holy Ghost sent one of its ministers upon a long journey to convert one African. Surely it is not much for the Christians of Christian England to send a Christian Bishop to millions who never heard there is a Savior."

And now I turn to the opposite quarter of the globe—Australasia, New Zealand, and Polynesia. When I was a boy there was but one English settlement, and that was known throughout the world as Botany Bay, the abode of the most abandoned criminals of English civilization. There are to-day twenty-one Bishops in those islands. I wish I could tell the story inwrought in the lives of Selwyn, Patteson, Williams, and a host of others, some of whom have laid down their lives for Christ.

To-day cannibalism is a thing of the past. Human sacrifices, thank God, are to be found nowhere on the earth. There is not one of those islands without its Christian church, and in some of them the last vestige of heathenism has passed away. They have thousands of Christian men and women under their native pastors. Surely this is no time to talk about the failure of Christian missions.

Now I turn to Japan. Less than forty year ago one of our brave American sailors, Commodore Perry, cast anchor on Sunday morning in the harbor of Yeddo. He called his officers and crew together for public worship, and they sang that old hymn of our fathers, "Old Hundred"; and the first sound that this hermit nation heard from her younger sister of the West was that grand old hymn.

Next year Japan will have a constitutional government. It has already adopted the Christian calendar. There are more that a million of children in their public schools. Many of these schools are under the charge of Christian men and women, and it is only a question of a few years when Japan will take her place beside other Christian nations. This is more wonderful when we remember that until recently there was a statute in Japan that, "if any Christian shall set his foot on the Island of Japan, or if the Christian's God, Jesus, shall come, he shall be beheaded."