"But," says one, "I am opposed to fickleness and change." Ah! indeed; does it betray fickleness to leave a church to become a missionary? Did God favor fickleness and change when he prevented the permanent location of the apostles in Palestine, by a voice from heaven, and by violent persecutions? Did the Saviour favor fickleness in his last command? When a presidency, a professorship, or a more prominent and influential church is offered you, then speak of fickleness—the excuse may possibly be in place; but never, never in place, while untold millions of our race are dying for lack of vision, and our commission reads, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature."
One pastor excuses himself, by saying, "The attachment between me and my people is very dear, and this attachment gives me great influence with them." I reply, Was not the attachment very dear between the apostles and the disciples at Jerusalem, and also between Paul and the converts at Antioch, and at Ephesus? What language of affection and solicitude can equal that of Paul for his converts? He calls them his "joy and crown"—the "little children for whom he travails in birth, till Christ be formed in them." He says to them, "I live, if ye stand fast in the Lord."
And had not the apostles great influence in the churches in which they labored? Had not Paul and Barnabas great influence in the church at Antioch? Did not the church love and respect them, and hang in breathless silence upon their lips, and look upon their departure as an irreparable loss? Yet, though entwined into the hearts of the people, and possessing every advantage to instruct them which intimate acquaintance and unbounded influence could give, the Holy Ghost, notwithstanding, said, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul."
Attachment is your plea; but the spirit of the Gospel is a spirit of self-denial, and requires us not only to forsake church and people, but also father and mother, brother and sister, son and daughter, and to hold our own lives loosely. Those persons to whom attachment is strongest, and who can't be spared on that account, are the best fitted for missions.
You plead the influence which you possess with your church and people. This, instead of being a reason for remaining at home, is a powerful argument for going abroad. In that very influence you possess an advantage and qualification for the missionary work, which very few missionaries enjoy. It is greatly to be lamented that the church has but little acquaintance with her missionaries. It was not so in primitive times. On this account there is room for the question to arise, Whether there ought not to be less of the home minister for life, and the exile for life; a narrower gulf between the two, and more passing and repassing, as the apostles were wont to do; a breaking up of caste, grade and condition among ministers, as regards various fields—a more literal compliance with the precept of "going into all the world, and preaching the Gospel to every creature." Be this however as it may—for there is much that can be said on either side of the question—it is most certainly true, that the pastor possesses one very great advantage: that by going to the heathen he can wake up, in one church at least, the spirit of doing good—the enterprising and benevolent spirit of Christ and his apostles. He may take with him, as helpers, some of its most intelligent and active members, and call forth the contributions and enlist the prayers of those who may remain.
It seems, that nothing less than such means as the separation of pastors for the work of missions, can avail to awake the slumbering churches, and to lead them to begin in earnest to seek the salvation of the heathen; to feel that the work presses upon them individually, and demands all their energies and their personal enlistment. For it is a sober and humiliating fact, as I have had some opportunity of judging, that there are few churches comparatively, in our land, who seem to have drunk deeply into the missionary spirit. There is need, therefore, of a movement on the part of pastors, to arouse the churches from their guilty slumbers.
A pastor possesses much influence with his church and congregation. The Lord then has given him five talents, and he can easily make them ten: by going abroad he can benefit his church perhaps as much as by remaining their pastor, and, at the same time, be the instrument of saving many heathen souls. "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth;" and "he that watereth shall be watered also himself." God's blessing distils upon the liberal soul, and the liberal church. The performance of duty is attended with the Saviour's smiles and a rich reward. Who does not see, that a pastor could in no way so effectually awaken in his church a spirit of benevolent feeling and action, as by exhibiting it in his own person; by rising up, and going forth to the heathen, urging a part of his flock to accompany him, and the rest to sustain him in the field? Who doubts, that by such a course he would do more to arouse the pure and active religion of Jesus Christ and his apostles, than he could possibly do in any other way; that he would give an impulse to his church in favor of primitive piety and practice, that should add vastly to its strength, its glory and its numbers, and be felt in all time to come. Let not the pastor, then, excuse himself from the missionary work, because he has acquired influence in his church and congregation; for that very fact is a powerful argument for going abroad.
For the same reason, no one can excuse himself because he fills a post of vast importance. He is the pastor of an influential church, a president of a college, a professor in a theological seminary, the editor of a religious paper of immense circulation, or the secretary of some society: his station is one of vast responsibility, and he imagines that he is therefore excused from becoming a missionary. But was not Jerusalem an important place? more prominent, compared with other cities of that time, than any city in the United States? And yet all the apostles, except one, were required not only to leave that city, but to go without the limits of Palestine. Was not Antioch as important as Boston or Philadelphia? Yet Paul and Barnabas were not suffered to remain there.
Besides, is not the work of a missionary a difficult, important, and responsible work? The Holy Spirit thought so in apostolic times. When a man was needed to preach to Cornelius and his household, a man of no less ability and influence than Peter was chosen. When a man was called to go to Antioch, Barnabas was sent, a man of great piety and influence. And when two of the five preachers at Antioch were called to go to the heathen, the Holy Ghost did not choose Simeon, or Lucius, or Manaen, but said, "Separate me Barnabas and Saul;" the men of the greatest ability, experience, piety and wisdom. Thus the Holy Spirit seemed to declare that the work of a missionary required greater talents, more mature wisdom, and deeper piety, than the work of a pastor in the largest and most influential churches.