Ross, E. A. The Changing Chinese. The Century Company, 33 East 17th Street, New York. $2.40.
Dennis, James S. Christian Missions and Social Progress (3 volumes). Fleming H. Revell Co., 158 Fifth Avenue, New York. $6.25.
Dennis, James S. Commerce and Missions (A Pamphlet). Laymen's Missionary Movement, 1 Madison Avenue, New York. 5 cents.
Goucher, John F. Growth of the Missionary Concept. Eaton & Mains, 150 Fifth Avenue, New York. $0.75.
CHAPTER II
THE CHALLENGE OF A GREAT TASK
One of the best tests of the measure of a man is in his relation to great forces and opportunities and tasks. A small man will either be unconscious of their presence and significance, or will be overwhelmed by them, and therefore inactive or inefficient. On the other hand a man who is really alive will rejoice that it is given to him to relate himself to life's greatest forces and opportunities and tasks.
It would be difficult to conceive of any combination of human and divine energies, of golden opportunities and inspiring tasks, comparable with those centering in the world-wide propagation of Christianity. In our day more men are undertaking with relentless courage the whole program of Christ than ever before, notwithstanding its immensity, its bewildering complexity, and its taxing difficulty. The first long step toward a solution of the missionary problem is this willingness to face the total issues involved without reserve and without fear.
The following pages present a condensed and swift survey of the unfinished task of the Church of Christ. The size of the task is sketched in its bold outlines. In this chapter is heard the cry that is flung out across the world to every Christian man. It is a cry of neglect and need, of urgency and crisis, the united voice of multitudes among whom the forces of the new age are battling for mastery. The limits of the chapter make it impossible to discuss many important features of the missionary task, such as the social evils of the non-Christian world, the inadequacy of the vast religious systems to meet the deepest needs of mankind, the strength of the customs of centuries, and many more. The reader is referred to the books listed at the close of this chapter for a discussion of these elements of the problems. These pages will give but a glimpse of the task but enough surely to strike a high note of summons to every man to whom Christ is indispensable to make Christ known to all other men in the world to whom he is also indispensable.