Thoughts on Missions

by Sheldon Dibble

Our blessed Saviour and his apostles did not feel inclined to shrink from the more self-denying service, and to shift it upon others. If they had felt so, then we should have continued in a state of darkness, and have known full well the import of present wretchedness and eternal woe.

Let us suppose, for a moment, that the apostles had made the discovery of obeying by proxy the Saviour's last command. But I hesitate to make such a supposition, lest the force of such an immense contrast should make it to be regarded as a caricature upon the operations of the present age. In other words, our efforts to convert the world become so clumsy, slow and inefficient, from a lack of the right spirit and enough of it, in ministers and in the churches, that to impute the same kind and degree of effort to the apostles and primitive Christians, might excite a smile, rather than a sigh; and be deemed an attempt to ridicule what is at present done, rather than an earnest, serious, and solemn expostulation. Such a result I should deplore. But if my readers will believe me to be aiming simply, with weeping eyes and an aching heart, to illustrate with force my own defects and their short-comings in duty, by detecting and tracing out a wrong principle of action, I will venture cautiously to make the supposition.

The words of the last command have fallen from the lips of the ascended Saviour, and the apostles assemble to deliberate how they shall carry them into execution. In the first place, Peter delivers an address. It is an able and thrilling discourse. He seems impatient to wing his way to foreign lands. After the discourse, they form themselves into a society. Arrangements being made, and the machinery being complete, they send forth John to solicit funds. He finds the disciples willing to contribute on an average, after much urging, about twenty-four cents each. A pittance of money is obtained, and then they search for a man. They thought Peter would be ready to go, from the speech he delivered, but he wishes to be excused: he has a family to support. They then fall upon various plans: some think of training up young men to go forth, and others exhort parents to infuse a missionary spirit into their children. At length, however, it is found that one of the twelve begins to feel that he has a call to go—but this would be at the rate of one thousand from the twelve thousand ministers in the United States. This one man is sent forth to "go into all the world, and to preach the Gospel to every creature." The rest of the apostles sustain the various offices of the society, and have charge of important posts in Jerusalem, and in the cities and villages round about. They meet yearly, to deliberate upon the missionary enterprise. Some feel much, and humbly pray, and some say eloquent things about the glorious cause, and tell how they have found a fulcrum, where to place the lever of Archimides to elevate the world.

Now I ask most solemnly, and in a spirit of grief and humiliation, how such a course of conduct would have appeared in the apostles? Would it have evinced a spirit of obedience? Believe me, in early times, a readiness to obey supplied a great deal of machinery. Bring back into the ministers of the present day the spirit of the apostles, and into the churches the spirit of the early disciples, and operations at once would be more simple and more efficient. A backwardness in duty—a disposition, if we do anything for the heathen, to do it by proxy, this is it that makes the wheels so ponderous and encumbered. "The letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." Give us the spirit, and annihilate the notion of operating so much by proxy, and we shall soon see a multitude of angels flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to preach to the nations.

There is no cheap or easy way of converting the world. It is to be feared that some fall into the contrary notion, because they do not wish to believe that all they possess is needed in the work of the Lord, and that there is absolute necessity that they themselves go to the heathen. It is to be feared, that it is for this reason that so many are ready to imagine that the work is to be done by a few men, and a small amount of means. It would seem they expect to form lines of these few men, and encircle the globe in various directions; to place them on prominent points, like light-houses, and leave each with his single lamp to dispel the darkness of a wide circumference. They seem to imagine that nations can be elevated from a degradation many ages deep, and thoroughly transformed, religiously, morally, mentally and socially, by the influence of a few missionaries, scattered here and there on some high eminences of the earth: that a single missionary, under a withering atmosphere, is to be preacher, physician, teacher, lawyer, mechanic, and everything that is necessary in raising a whole community from the inconceivable degradation of heathenism, up to the elevation of an industrious, intelligent, and Christian people.

Neither are the expectations formed by many, of mission seminaries, less visionary. A school, with two or three teachers, limited accommodations and small funds, with all its school-books to make, and the whole literature to form, is expected to accomplish all the work of the academy, college, and theological seminary, and speedily to transform untutored savages into able preachers of the Gospel.

And it is expected, by not a few, of the wife of the missionary—though living under a burning sun, in a house of poor accommodations, with unfaithful domestics, or none at all; that notwithstanding, she will not only attend to the arduous duties of the household and educate her own children, but teach a school among the people, and superintend the female portion of the congregation—a task which a minister's wife in a Christian land, and under a bracing air, does not often attempt.

Now, would it be really a benefit to the church thus to flatter her indolence and her avarice, and convert the heathen with a fraction of wealth and a handful of men? Be assured, God loves the church too well thus to pamper a luxurious and self-indulgent spirit: he will allow no cheap and easy way of accomplishing the work. The object is worth more: worthy not only of the combined wealth of Christendom, but worthy also of the energies, the toil, and the blood if necessary, of the greatest and holiest men. It will not be in consistence with God's usual providence that a victory so noble should be achieved, till the treasures of the church shall be literally emptied in the contest, and the precious blood of thousands and tens of thousands of her ablest and best men poured out on the field. The work has already cost the blood of God's only Son; and the prosecution and finishing of it shall be through toil, self-denial, entire devotement, and obedience even unto death.

Some rules that may be of use in agitating the question of becoming missionaries.

1. Guard against an excuse-making spirit. This is an age of excuses. There is no need of seeking for them; they are already at hand, and of every variety, size and shape. They are kept ready for every occasion. If one will not suit, another may be tried. Be admonished then, that a disposition to be excused is not much different from a disposition to disobey.