Quiet Talks with World Winners

by S. D. Gordon

Just how much that wise woman had in mind I am sure I do not know. I feel very sure she did not refer to the church system of England. But to something far more and deeper than that, of which the church system is only one expression. Where the Bible has gone, and where it has so largely dominated the life of the people, as in England, there has been both a moral regeneration and, mark it keenly, a new mental life. Its touch has awakened the mental powers. There has been aroused and released into activity that spirit of energy which has become the most marked characteristic of the Western world.

These two, the mental life and the remarkable energy, lie at the basis of all our wonderful modern science. And this, in turn, lies at the basis of all our phenomenal development. It is this that makes the West different from the East. The leading nations are Christian nations. The germ of vigorous life is in the Gospel of Christ.

This is the thing the heathen world is knocking so earnestly at our door for to-day. I do not say that they think of it in that way. They are just coming, groping out of the darkness, with eyes blinking and blinded by the brightness of our light. They stretch eager, reaching fingers out toward the light, without knowing much about it. The glare of it has caught them.

And if they are caught, moth-like, and hurt by its flame—if they copy our vile vices, which are no part of our Christianity, but the remnants of our own original savagery cropping out in spite of Christianity—if so, is it surprising? Their eyes are bothered by the sudden change from black darkness to brilliant light.

But there's a deeper asking. Underneath all, the thing they are really asking for, all unconsciously most of them, is that which lies at the root of all our Western progress. They ask unknowingly for the Gospel of Christ, the heart of this precious old Bible. When they get that they will find that it brings the new awakening of mental life and the new aggressive energy that has made us Christian nations what we are.

Returning Our Call.

Will you please remember that their knocking at our door is a direct result of our knocking at their door? They are very polite, these far-away kinsfolk of ours. They are simply returning our call.

The missionary, from Great Britain, and America, and Europe, has been the West's pathfinder in these foreign-mission lands. He has blazed a way into these thick woods, and beaten down narrow foot-paths through them. It's been hard, heroic work. The pathfinder has often gotten his hands and face badly torn by the thick brambly thorn bushes as he pushed resolutely on.

Then diplomacy entered and broadened the roads. And commerce quickly came and beat them down into good hard shape for easy travel. And in turn the missionaries have freely used the broader, better roads.

And now these roads are being trodden by other feet, and in an opposite direction. Along the pathways made by the Church, and made better by diplomacy and commerce, these peoples are coming, coming a-running, to ask us to give them what we have. We received it from Another. He bade us give it as freely as we received it.