America is blessed in every way. Yours is the strongest and wealthiest, most intelligent and most enterprising, country in the world. No country on earth can compete with you. But do you think, my American friends, that God has blessed you so abundantly for your own sake, for your own comfort and luxury, for your own enjoyment and satisfaction alone? Do you think that God has so wonderfully blessed you because you are his only favorite among all the nations of the world? No, no; God has blessed America wonderfully, not for America’s sake alone, but for the sake of the whole world. He has blessed America to make her a blessing to the world through the power of Christ.
Since I have come to this country your people call me by various names, such as the Moody of Japan, or the Billy Sunday of Japan, and so on; but I don’t like to be called by such great names. I am not such a big man. I know I am a small man, not even worthy of being called a minister of Christ, because I have backslidden and forsaken my Lord for many years. Not only for such reasons, but also because I have my own name I prefer to be called always by that name, even though it be an unknown one. But it you insist on calling me by any other than my own, I have one name by which I should like to be called. That is, a Macedonian. I am like the Macedonian in Paul’s vision. He came from heathen Europe to Asia, and I came from heathen Asia to America; but the object of the coming of these two Macedonians is the same, namely, to implore the help of the Christians for the heathen lands.
Won’t you come and help us? Won’t you, my young American friends, take up the sword of the Spirit, and march out from your own beloved land into the sin-stricken, desolate heathen lands and lay down your lives for the salvation of the billion heathen souls? Do you realize that these billion heathen are all in need of salvation just as much as you were? Don’t you know that the least of these is, in the sight of God, just as precious as the soul of your own mother or father, brother or sister? Do you think that God wants the salvation of your kinsmen only, and not the salvation of these heathen? Oh, I beg and entreat you, my dear American friends, to look upon this billion of heathen souls with the eye of your heavenly Father and the heart of your Lord Jesus Christ, who loved them and died for them. Then you cannot help making a desperate effort for their salvation.
And I believe that if you American Christians will seriously and earnestly take up the great work of evangelizing the world in this generation, and will do the work according to its magnitude, God on his part will surely bless you and your work, and the day of great victory will be at hand.
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE:
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.