The missionary should be a prophet to rebuke and to condemn evil. He will find numberless evils on all sides of him—in Church, in general society and in individual life among the people. He must not hesitate to use constantly his voice as a protest against all forms of evil. This duty is the more incumbent upon him as there are none among the people to protest and to denounce the most flagrant, demoralizing and universal evils of the land. One of the most discouraging things concerning the situation in India is, not the universality of certain evils, but the utter absence of those who dare to withstand them and denounce them as sins before all the people. Missionaries have done more in that land to rightly characterize certain gross evils and to call the attention of the people to them than have any other people in the land. And they have recognition for this. And this prophetic function of the missionary must be exercised with increasing faithfulness for the good of the land and for the purity of the Church of God.
In that country the missionary must also stand before the people as their exemplar. He must represent, not only Christianity at its best, but also the civilization of the West in its purest and most attractive garb. India has always greatly needed such human types of nobility of character to encourage and stimulate the people to a higher life. With all modesty and due humility the missionary is called upon just as much to live as he is to teach the best that is found in his religion and in the civilization of his mother country. In India, the life of the missionary [pg 227] has spoken more loudly than his words. There are millions in that land today, who, while they deny and reject the teaching of the missionary, give him unstinted praise both for what he is and for what he has done for the country.
The testimony of Sir William Mackworth Young, Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab is only one of many such;—“I take off my hat to the humblest missionary that walks a bazaar in India,” he said, in a recent public address, “because he is leading a higher and a grander life and doing a grander work than any other class of persons who are working in India. If the natives of India have any practical knowledge of what is meant by Christian charity, if they know anything of high, disinterested motives and self-sacrifice, it is mainly from the missionary that they learn it. The strength of our position in India depends more largely upon the good-will of the people than upon the strength and number of our garrisons, and for that good-will we are largely indebted to the kindly, self-sacrificing efforts of the Christian missionary. It is love which must pave the way for the regeneration of India as well as for the consolidation of England's power.”
The missionary must never lose this crown of glory in India. He must hold it most precious and strive to add to the glory which he thus reflects upon his Faith in that land.
Chapter VIII.
Missionary Organization.
Thorough organization of any work is essential to its highest efficiency. The Missionary Department of the work of the Christian Church should, therefore, be well organized. As missionary effort expands, grows in intensity and increases in power, it must find a growingly efficient organization in order to adequately express itself and to attain further growth.
1. A thorough Missionary Organization at home is the first requisite in order to highest success. Thus only can the missionary work abroad be maintained and fostered; because, by this means only can missionary ardour be kindled in the churches. A Church which is not adequately marshalled for activity in heathen lands will soon become self-centred and will easily forget the claims, if not the very existence, of the heathen.