During all the years that I have been
allowed to labor for the heathen, my mind has been
led to contemplate, constantly and intensely, the
obligations of Christian nations towards those who
sit in darkness; obligations arising from the command
of Christ, and the principles of the Gospel.
And I shall, therefore, in this chapter, freely, fully,
and solemnly express the sentiments which have been
maturing in my mind, on the great guilt which
Christians incur in neglecting the heathen.
The heathen world, as a mass, has
been left to perish. And by whom? Not by
the Father of mercies; he gave his Son to redeem it:
not by the Saviour of sinners; look at Calvary:
not by the Holy Spirit; his influences have been ever
ready: not by angels; their wings have never
tired when sent on errands of mercy. All that
Heaven could do has been done, consistently with the
all-wise arrangement of committing an important agency
to the church. The church has been slothful and
negligent. Each generation of Christians has in
turn received the vast responsibility, neglected it
in a great measure, and transmitted it to the next.
The guilt of this neglect who can estimate?
That such neglect is highly criminal,
the Bible everywhere testifies. It says, “If
thou forbear to deliver them that are drawn unto death,
and those that are ready to be slain; if thou sayest,
Behold, we knew it not; doth not he that pondereth
the heart consider it? and he that keepeth thy soul,
doth not he know it?” And shall not he “render
to every man according to his works?” This solemn
interrogation needs no comment. The obvious import
is, If our fellow men are perishing, and we neglect
to do what we can to save them, we are guilty of their
blood. But this testimony does not stand
alone. What does God say to the prophet, who
should see the peril of the wicked, and neglect to
save him by giving him warning? “His blood
will I require at thy hand.” What does
God say of the watchman of a city who should see the
sword come, and blow not the trumpet? “If
the sword come and take any person from among them,
his blood will I require at the watchman’s hand.”
But this is not only the sentiment
of the Bible, but the voice of common sense.
A neighbor of mine is drowning in
the river. With a little exertion I can save
his life, but neglect to do it. Shall I escape
the goadings of conscience and the charge of blood-guiltiness?
A house is in flames. The perishing
occupants, looking from a window, implore of me to
reach them a ladder. I have some little affairs
of my own to attend to, and turn a deaf ear to their
cry. The flames gather around them: they
throw themselves from the window, and are dashed in
pieces on the pavement. Who will not charge me
with the loss of those lives?
To-day, a raging malady is spreading
through the streets of a large city. The people
are dying by hundreds. I know the cause; the fountains
of the city are poisoned. From indolence, or some
other cause, I neglect to give the information, and
merely attend to my own safety. Who would not
load me with the deepest guilt, and stamp me as the
basest of murderers?
Both Scripture and common sense, then,
concur in establishing the sentiment, that if our
fellow men are perishing, and we neglect to do what
we can to save them, we are guilty of their blood.
But if this doctrine be true, its application to Christians,
in the relation which they sustain to the heathen
world, is irresistibly conclusive and awfully momentous.
The soul shudders, and shrinks back from the fearful
thought: If six hundred millions of our race are
sinking to perdition, and we neglect to do what we
can to save them, we shall be found accountable for
their eternal agonies.
If such a charge is standing against
us, we shall soon meet it. The day of judgment
will soon burst upon us. Let us look, then, at
the subject candidly, prayerfully, and with a desire
to do our duty.
The conditions on which the charge
impends are simply two: that the heathen world
are sinking to perdition, and that we are neglecting
to do what we can to save them. If these two
points are substantiated, the overwhelming conclusion
is inevitable. It becomes us, then, to look well
at these points to examine them with faithfulness
and with honesty.
Is it true, that the heathen world
are sinking to perdition? As fast as the
beating of my pulse, they are passing into the world
of retribution, and the inquiry is, What is the doom
they meet? Do they rise to unite with angels
in the songs of heaven? or sink in ceaseless and untold
misery?
Certain it is, that they are not saved
through faith in Christ; for “how shall they
believe in him of whom they have not heard?”
It is also clear that God, in his usual method, does
not bestow the gift of repentance and eternal life
where a Saviour is not known. “It pleases
God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that
believe.” Those who are saved, are said
to be “begotten by the word of truth” “born
of the word of God.” As the heathen nations,
therefore, are not furnished with the appointed means
of salvation, it follows inevitably that, as a mass
at least, they are sinking to perdition. They
are the “nations which have forgotten God,”
and “shall be turned into hell.”
It is unnecessary to enter into the
inquiry, whether it is possible, in the nature of
the case, for a heathen unacquainted with the Gospel
to be saved. It is sufficient to know the FACT,
that God has ordained the preaching of the Gospel
as the means of saving the nations; and that there
is probably no instance on record, which may not be
called in question, of a heathen being converted without
a knowledge of the true God and of his Son Jesus Christ.
But the consideration, solemn and
conclusive, which needs no other to corroborate it
or render it overwhelming, is the character
of the heathen. Look at their character, as portrayed
by the Apostle Paul in the first chapter to the Romans.
Read the whole chapter, but especially the conclusion,
where he describes the heathen as “being filled
with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder,
debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, back-biters,
haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors
of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding,
covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable,
unmerciful.” This description is not understood
in Christian lands, neither can it be; but missionaries
to the heathen, who are eye-witnesses of what is here
described, place an emphasis on every epithet, and
would clothe every word in capitals.
The character of the heathen is no
better now than in the days of Paul. It is worse.
It is impossible that such a state of society should
remain stationary. A mortal disease becomes more
and more malignant, till a remedy is applied; a sinking
weight hastens downwards with continually accumulating
force; and mind, thrown from its balance, wanders
farther and farther from reason. It is thus with
the disease of sin, the downward propensities of a
depraved nature, and a soul revolted from God.
Besides, Satan has not been inactive in heathen lands.
He has been aware that efforts would be made to save
them. And night and day, year after year, and
age after age, he has sought, with ceaseless toil
and consummate skill, to perfect the heathen in every
species of iniquity, harden their hearts to every
deed of cruelty, sink them to the lowest depths of
pollution and degradation, and place them at the farthest
remove from the possibility of salvation. It is
impossible to describe the state of degradation and
unblushing sin to which the nations, for ages sinking,
have sunk, and to which Satan in his undisturbed exertions
for centuries has succeeded in reducing them.
It is impossible to give a representation of their
unrestrained passions, the abominations connected
with their idol worship, or the scenes of discord,
cruelty and blood, which everywhere abound. I
speak of those lands where the Gospel has not been
extended. Truly darkness covers such lands, and
gross darkness the people. Deceit, oppression
and cruelty fill every hut with woe; and impurity
deluges the land like an overflowing stream.
Neither can it be said, that the conduct of the heathen
becomes sinless through ignorance. From observation
for many years, I can assert that they have consciences that
they feel accountable for what they do.
Will, then, God transplant the vine
of Sodom, unchanged in its nature, to overrun his
paradise above? Will he open the gates of his
holy city, and expose the streets of its peaceful
inhabitants to those whose heart is cruelty, whose
visage is scarred with fightings, and whose hands are
red with blood? “KNOW YE NOT, THAT THE UNRIGHTEOUS
SHALL NOT ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN?”
Where, then, is the hope of the unconverted heathen?
If there were innocent heathen, as some men
are ready to imagine in the face of God’s word,
and in the face of a flood of facts, then indeed they
might be saved without the Gospel. But this mass
of pollution, under which the earth groans, must disgorge
itself into the pit of woe. We cannot evade the
conclusion, painful as it is, that the millions of
this world of sin are sinking to perdition.
The American churches have peculiar
advantages to carry abroad the Gospel of Christ;
and ability in such an enterprise is the measure of
our duty. “If there be first a willing mind,
it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not
according to that he hath not.” “To
whom much is given of him will much be required.”
And to determine whether Christians in the United
States are doing what they can to save the
heathen from their awful doom, the second point of
inquiry proposed, it is necessary to look at their
unparalleled advantages.
It may be said then, that Christians
in America are not trammeled in their efforts to do
good by any governmental restrictions, or ecclesiastical
establishment. The remark is trite, but no less
true, that the genius of our free constitution is
eminently propitious to call forth energy and enterprise.
And the remark applies with no more force to worldly
matters, than to the business of doing good. The
religion of Christ courts no extraneous influence,
and is dependent for its power on no earthly aid.
Under our free government, uncontrolled, unrestrained
and unsupported, it is left to exert its own free and
native energy. We can plead, therefore, no arbitrary
hindrance of any kind in the work of propagating the
Gospel. And we can carry the Gospel, too, disconnected
from any prejudicial alliance with political interests.
This is the free, disencumbered, and unshackled condition
in which the Gospel is permitted to have free course
in our beloved land; and it is a talent put into our
hands to be improved.
Again, no country possesses such advantages
of education as the United States. In no land
is knowledge so generally diffused throughout the
different grades of society, and in no land do such
facilities exist for acquiring a thorough education.
Schools, colleges and seminaries, are open equally
to the high and to the low, to the rich and to the
poor; and only a good share of energy is required,
to rise from any grade or condition of society, to
eminence in general learning or professional study.
The general intelligence of the community is such,
that nothing but disinclination can prevent
men from being acquainted with the wants of the world,
and their duty to evangelize it; and the facilities
for fitting themselves for the work are such, that
nothing but criminal delinquency can hold back a very
large army from entering the field. This is an
immense advantage committed to the American churches,
for propagating the religion of Christ. It is
another very precious talent committed to their trust,
which if they fail to improve, they treasure up guilt.
Again, the American churches possess
a great advantage in the facilities so generally enjoyed
for accumulating wealth. The road to comfort and
to affluence is open to all; and notwithstanding all
reverses, the remark, as a general one, is still true,
that the prosperity of the United States of
the whole mass of the people is altogether
unexampled, and that enterprise is vigorous and successful.
In the greatest strait, how much retrenchment has
there been in the style of living? And as we look
into the future we see, (God’s providence favoring,)
that wealth is destined to flow in upon the land like
a broad and deep river. Look at the extent of
territory, bounded only by two rolling oceans; and
at the resources which from year to year are developed varied,
unnumbered, and inexhaustible. If then unto whom
much is given, of them will much be required, what
may not God justly demand of American Christians?
Another advantage which the American
church possesses, is the Spirit which has been poured
out upon her from on high. God has been pleased
to bless her with precious revivals. The Holy
Ghost has come down frequently and with power, and
gathered in multitudes of souls. What God has
wrought for the American Zion has been told in all
lands, and every one applies the Saviour’s injunction,
“Freely ye have received freely give.”
One great reason, perhaps, why the blessings of the
Spirit are not now more richly enjoyed, is the neglect
of Christians to make this return, and to labor gratefully
for the destitute and the dying. It was expected,
and justly too, that the land of apostolic revivals
would be the first to imitate the apostles in the
work of saving the heathen. A failure to do this
may bring a blight upon the churches, if it has not
brought it upon them already.
Surely, if there is a nation on earth
to whom are intrusted many talents, ours is that nation.
Our ability is not small. We must come up to a
high measure of Christian action, before it can be
said with truth, that we are doing what we can
to save our ruined race. The United States, a
nation planted by God, enriched by his providence,
nourished by his Holy Spirit, and brought to the strength
of manhood in this solemnly momentous time of the
nineteenth century, seems to have committed to her
in a special manner the work of the world’s
conversion. Who knoweth but that she is brought
to her preeminent advantages for such a time as this for
the interesting period preceding the latter day glory;
and now if she prove herself unworthy of so lofty
and responsible a trust, and neglect to put forth
her strength to usher in the glorious day, deliverance
will break out from some other quarter, but she, like
a third Babylon, may sink in the bottomless abyss.
An immense responsibility rests upon us. O that
God would give us grace to act worthy of our trust to
do what we can for a dying world!
Let us inquire, then, Do we pray
for the heathen as much as we ought? Were one
duly impressed with the condition of perishing millions,
certainly no less could be expected of him, than to
fall on his knees many times a day, and to lift up
his cry of earnest entreaty on their behalf.
Filled with the love of Christ, and having distinctly
and constantly before his mind the image of millions
of immortal souls dropping into perdition, surely
he could not refrain from an agony of prayer.
Under such a sense of the wants and woes of our perishing
race, a sense true to facts, he would have no rest.
But what prayer has actually been
offered to the Lord for benighted nations? Is
it not a fact, that many professed Christians do not
remember the heathen once a day, and some not even
once a month? Let the closet, the family altar,
and the monthly concert testify. Prayer-meetings
for the heathen how thinly attended! what
spectacles of grief to Jesus, and to angels!
And if that prayer only is honest which is proved to
be so by a readiness to labor, give, and go, there
is reason to fear that few prayers for the heathen
have been such that Christ could accept them, place
them in his golden censer, and present them before
the throne.
Since such is the case, what wonder
is it that a million and a half of Christians in the
United States should be so inefficient? Inefficient,
I say, for what do this million and a half of professed
Christians accomplish? By their vows they are
bound to be as self-denying, as spiritual and devoted,
as though they were missionaries to foreign lands.
If we should send abroad a million and a half of missionaries,
we should expect that, under God, they would soon
be the instruments of converting all nations.
But what, in fact, does this vast number of professed
Christians or in other words, of the professedly
missionary band of Jesus Christ, accomplish in
the narrow limits of the United States? O, there
is a deplorable lack in the churches, of the deep
devotion and missionary character of our ascended Saviour.
Again, Do we give as much as
we ought to evangelize the heathen? It would
perhaps be a liberal estimate to say, that a million
and a half of professed Christians in the United States
give, on an average, year by year, to save the heathen,
about twenty-four cents each, or two cents a month.
There are other objects, it is true, that call for
contributions; but put all contributions together,
and how small the amount?
The Jews were required to give to
religious objects at least one-fifth of their income.
One-fifth of the income of a million and a half of
Christians at seven per cent., supposing them to be
worth on an average five hundred dollars each, would
be ten and a half millions of dollars. This is
merely the income of capital of which we now speak.
A fifth of the income from trade and industry would
probably double the amount, and make it twenty-one
millions. Is anything like this sum given by American
Christians to support and propagate the religion of
Jesus? What Christians have done, therefore,
is by no means a measure of their ability.
To see what men can do, it is necessary
to look away from Christians, to those whose ruling
principle is a thirst for pleasure, for honor, and
for gain. How vast a sum is expended at theatres on
fashionable amusements and splendid decorations not
to mention the hundreds of millions sunk by intemperance,
and swallowed up in the deep dark vortex of infamous
dissipation! Men are lavish of money on objects
on which their hearts are set. And if the hearts
of Christians were set on saving the heathen,
as much as wicked men are set on their pleasures,
would they, think you, be content with the present
measure of their contributions?
Look, too, at what men can do who
are eager in the pursuit of wealth. Under the
influence of such an incentive, railroads, canals,
and fortresses spring into being, and fleets bedeck
the seas like the stars of the firmament. Money
is not wanting when lucrative investment is the end
in view. Even professed Christians can collect
together heavy sums, when some great enterprise promises
a profitable income. They profess, perhaps, to
be accumulating money for Christ; but, alas, to what
a painful extent does it fail of reaching the benevolent
end proposed! Worldly men accomplish much, for
their hearts are enlisted. Professed Christians,
too, accomplish much in worldly projects, for their
minds become engrossed. What then could they
not accomplish for Christ, if their feelings were
equally enlisted in his cause? They might have,
in serving Christ, intellects as vigorous, muscles
as strong, and this advantage in addition, a God on
high who has vouchsafed to help them.
Take another view of the case.
The child that is now sitting by your side in perfect
health, is suddenly taken sick. Its blooming cheeks
turn pale, and it lifts its languid and imploring
eyes for help. You call a physician, the most
skillful one you can obtain. Do you think of expense?
A protracted illness swells the bill of the physician
and apothecary to a heavy amount. Do you dismiss
the physician, or withhold any comfort for fear of
expense?
Your child recovers, and becomes a
promising youth. He takes a voyage to a foreign
country. The ship is driven from her course, and
wrecked on some barbarous coast. Your son becomes
a captive, and after long anxiety you hear that he
is alive, and learn his suffering condition; and you
are told that fifty dollars will procure his ransom.
I will suppose you are poor, have not a dollar at
command, and that the sum can be raised in no other
way than by your own industry and toil. Now, I
ask, how many months would expire before you would
save the sum from your hard earnings, and liberate
your son? But what is an Algerine dungeon?
It is a heaven, compared with the condition of the
heathen. In the one case, there are bodily sufferings;
in the other, present wretchedness and eternal agonies.
I once fell in company with a man
of moderate circumstances, with whom I used the above
argument. He promptly replied, “It is true.
Three years ago I thought I could barely support my
family by my utmost exertions. Two years since,
my darling son became deranged, and the support of
him at the asylum costs me four hundred dollars a
year. I find that with strict economy and vigorous
exertion I can meet the expense. But if any one
had said to me three years ago, that I could raise
four hundred dollars a year to save a lost world,
I should have regarded the remark as the height of
extravagance.”
Now, I ask, ought not men to feel
as much in view of the eternal and unspeakable agony
of a world of souls, as a parent feels for a suffering
child? God felt MORE. He loved his only Son
with a most tender affection inconceivably
more tender than any earthly parent can exercise towards
a beloved child. And yet, when the Father placed
before him, on the one hand the eternal ruin of men,
and on the other the sufferings and death of his beloved
Son, which did he choose? Let Gethsemane and
Calvary answer. Can Christians then have much
of the spirit of God, and not feel for the eternal
agonies of untold millions, more than for the temporal
sufferings of a beloved child? But if Christians
felt thus, what exertion would they make how
immense the sum they would cheerfully raise, this
present year, to evangelize the heathen! Feeling
thus, a few of the wealthy churches might sustain the
present expenditures of all foreign operations.
Yet all the American churches combined, feeling
as they do now, fail to send forth a few waiting
missionaries, and suffer the schools abroad to be disbanded.
The truth is, in the scale of giving, the church as
a body (I say nothing of individuals or of particular
churches) has scarcely risen in its feeling above
the freezing point. What they now contribute is
a mere fraction compared with their ability.
Millions are squandered by professed
Christians on a pampered appetite, in obedience to
fashion, a taste for expensive building, a love of
parade, and on newly-invented comforts and conveniences,
of which the hardy soldiers of Jesus Christ ought
ever to be ignorant.
Then, again, some who are economical
in their expenditures, have little conception of what
is meant by total consecration to God. There must
be an entire reform in this matter. Every Christian
must feel that his employment, whether it be agriculture,
merchandise, medicine, law, or anything else, is of
no value any farther than it is connected with the
Redeemer’s kingdom; that wealth is trash, and
life a trifle, except as they may be used to
advance the cause of Christ; and that so far as they
may be used for this purpose, they are of immense value.
Let every Christian feel this sentiment let
it be deeply engraven on his heart, and how long,
think you, would pecuniary means be wanting in the
work of the world’s salvation?
And do we go and instruct the
heathen as we ought? This is indeed the main
point. To pray, formally at least, is quite easy;
to give, is a little more difficult; but to go, in
the minds of most persons, is entirely out of the
question. Satan understood human nature when he
said, “All that a man hath will he give for his
life.” Speak of going, and you touch the
man, his skin and his bones. To go, requires that
a man have such feelings as to begin to act in earnest,
as men do in other matters. Men act in person,
when they are deeply in earnest. In the case
supposed of a sick child, does the mother simply express
a desire that the child may recover? does she merely
give money, and hire a nurse to take little or no
care of it? No: in her own person
she anticipates its every want, with the utmost attention
and watchfulness. When a son is in bondage on
a barbarous coast, does the father merely pray
that his son may be redeemed? does he merely send
money for his ransom? No: he chooses,
if possible, to go in person and carry the sum,
that no means may be left untried to accomplish the
object he has so much at heart. Men who are deeply
interested in an important matter, where there is
much at stake, cannot be satisfied with sending; they
choose to go themselves. This remark is true
in all the enterprises and transactions of life the
world over.
If then, after all, the measure of
going is the true measure of interest, to what extent,
I inquire, have Christians of America gone to the
heathen? Alas! the number is few, very few.
Look at the proportion of ministers
who go abroad. In the United States the number
of preachers, of all denominations, is perhaps not
far from one to a thousand souls. This is in
a land already intelligent and Christian; in a land
of universities, colleges, and schools; in a land
of enterprise, of industry, and of free institutions,
where the arts flourish, and where improvements are
various and unnumbered; and more than all, in a land
where more than a million and a half of the people
are professed Christians, and ready to aid the ministers
of Christ in various ways. On the other hand,
even if missionaries from all Christendom be taken
into the account, there is not more than one minister
to a million of pagan souls, with almost no intelligent
Christians to assist as teachers, elders, catechists,
and tract distributers; no physicians, artists, and
judicious legislators, to improve society and afford
the means of civilized habits; no literature worthy
of the name; no colleges, or even common schools of
any value; no industry and enterprise, and every motive
for it crushed by arbitrary and tyrannical institutions:
the mind degraded and besotted, inconceivably so,
and preoccupied also with the vilest superstition,
the most inveterate prejudices, and the most arrogant
bigotry. Who can measure the vast disproportion?
What mind sufficient to balance extremes so inconceivably
immense? On the one hand a minister to a thousand
souls, with many helpers and a thousand auxiliary influences
in his favor; on the other, one minister to a million
of souls, with no helpers and no auxiliary influences,
finding out an untrodden track amidst unnumbered obstacles,
and penetrating with his single lamp into the dark
and boundless chaos of heathenism. This is the
manner in which Christendom shows that she loves her
neighbor as herself; and in view of it, judge ye,
whether American Christians go as much as they ought
to instruct and save the benighted nations.
We said, that the number of missionaries
to the heathen population is about one to a million
of souls; but let not the conclusion be drawn, that
every million of heathen souls has a missionary.
By no means. The few hundred missionaries preach
to a few hundred thousand souls. The millions
and hundreds of millions of heathen, are as destitute
of preaching as though a missionary had never sailed,
as destitute of the Scriptures as though a Bible were
never printed, and as far from salvation, I was about
to say, as though Jesus Christ had never died.
Men speak of operating upon the world.
Such language is delusive. The present style
of effort, or anything like it, can only operate on
some small portions of the earth. To influence
materially the wide world, Christians must
awake to a style of praying, giving, and going
too, of which they have as yet scarcely dreamed.
The work of going into all the world and preaching
the Gospel to every creature, has scarcely been undertaken
in earnest. And how vain it would be to expect
to make any material impression on the world, as a
whole, when so small a company from all the ministers
in the United States go abroad, and a less number
even of lay members from the vast body of a million
and a half.
The heathen are not lost because a
Saviour is not provided for them. “God
so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.”
The preaching of the cross is “the power of
God and the wisdom of God” both to the Jew and
the Greek. Facts show, that in every nation, however
barbarous and degraded, the Gospel of Jesus has power
to convert, purify, elevate and save. These facts
are irresistible.
Neither are the heathen lost, because
the ocean separating them is rarely passed. For
the sake of gain, men can visit the most distant and
sultry climes. To solve a question of science
or merely to gratify curiosity, they can circumnavigate
the globe, or penetrate far into the icy regions of
the poles. The improvements in navigation and
the extension of commerce have united the two continents
in one. The Atlantic ocean no longer separates
you from Africa, nor the Pacific from China.
The amount of intercourse between the seekers of wealth
from Christian lands and almost every heathen country,
is absolutely immense.
Why then are the heathen left to perish?
There is a lack of earnestness in the church in the
work of the world’s conversion. What does
the present earnestness of the church amount to?
They contribute on an average two cents a month each,
and they find that the pittance of money will more
than suffice for the small number of men: and
then the cry is “More money than men.”
A few men are obtained and then the pittance of money
fails, and “More men than money” is the
cry. A year or two afterwards the supply of men
is gone, and the cry again is reversed. As if,
in repairing the wastes of the New-York fire, the citizens
collect together a small quantity of brick, and then
find they have more brick than workmen. So they
employ a few more men, and then find they have more
men than brick. Was this the rate at which the
ravages of the great fire were so soon repaired?
Was this the measure of their engagedness in rebuilding
the city?
Some derangement takes place in the
Erie Canal: a lock fails, an aqueduct gives way,
or a bank caves in. Is business stopped on the
canal till the next season, because the times are
hard, and it is difficult to obtain money to make
repairs? Some derangement takes place in a railroad:
is travelling postponed till next year? But in
the work of doing good, the reverse of times is regarded
as a sufficient excuse to detain missionaries, disband
schools, and take other retrograde steps. We
coolly block our wheels, lie still, and postpone our
efforts for the world’s conversion till more
favorable times. Men are earnest in worldly matters:
in digging a canal, in laying a railroad, or in repairing
a city; but in God’s work the work
of saving the nations their efforts are
so weak that one is at loss to know which is most prominent,
the folly, or the enormous guilt.
Is it not a fact, that in our efforts
for the heathen we come so far short of our ability,
that God cannot consistently add his blessing.
Can it be that the service rendered by the church as
a body is acceptable to God? It is not according
to that she hath it forms an immense and
inconceivable contrast to that measure of effort which
lies fully within her power. Is it not, then,
as though an imperfect sacrifice were offered to the
Lord a lamb full of blemish? If the
church were weak, and it were really beyond her ability
to do more than she does at present, then God would
accomplish great victories by the feeble means.
He can save by few as well as by many. He would
make the “worm Jacob to thresh mountains.”
But since God has blessed the American church with
numbers, and with great and peculiar advantages, he
requires of her efforts that accord with her ability.
The poor widow’s mites accomplish much; but
the wealthy man’s mites, or the wealthy nation’s
thousands, when she is fully able to give millions;
and her very few sons, when it would even benefit
her to spare a host of her ablest men; what shall
we say of such an offering? The reason why God
blesses the efforts of the American church may be,
that there are some widows, and some others
too who do what they can who honestly come
up to the measure of their ability. For the sake
of these God may add his blessing, just as for the
sake of ten righteous men he would have spared Sodom.
But no very great and conspicuous blessing can be expected
to attend the labors of missionaries, such as the
conversion of China, or of Africa, till the church
begins to pray, give and go, according
to her ability; till she begins to come up to
the extent of her powers in her efforts to save the
heathen. Then, when she renders according to
that she hath, her service will be accepted; it will
be a sweet savor before God; his throne of love will
come near the tabernacle of his saints, and the noise
of his chariot soon be heard among the ranks of the
enemy. The church then, with Christ at their head,
shall go on rapidly from conquering to conquer, till
all nations, tongues and people, shall bow the knee
before him. As soon as the church shall put forth
all her strength so as to render an acceptable service
to God, it is of little consequence whether she be
weak or strong, few or many, the blessing will descend;
the mountains will break forth into singing, and the
trees shall clap their hands for joy; God will come,
take up his abode with the saints, and verify all
that is expressed by “the latter day glory.”
It is plain, then, not only that Christians
come far short of doing what they can to save the
heathen, but that if they would come up to the measure
of their duty they might, under God, rescue the dying
nations from their impending doom. If they would
engage in earnest, pray with fervency and faith, and
prove their zeal by giving and by going, then the
providence of God would not leave a bolt or a bar in
their way, except what might be necessary to test
their perseverance. Let every ambassador of Christ,
and every Christian too, possess the unreserved
consecration of Paul, and manifest that burning zeal
which carried him, as on the wings of an angel, to
preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of
Christ; let every redeemed sinner, minister or layman,
stand ready, not merely to contribute of his substance,
but to traverse with cheerful step the burning plains
of Africa or the icy mountains of Greenland:
then the darkness that now envelopes the earth would
soon be dispelled, the torch of Revelation be carried
to the most distant lands, and its light be made to
penetrate the most gloomy abodes of men; the radiance
of heavenly truth would be poured around the dying
bed of every pagan, intelligence now in to us from
every quarter, not only of individuals, but of nations
converted to God, and the shout of triumph would soon
be heard, “The kingdoms of this world have become
the kingdom of our Lord.”
It seems to be true, therefore, that
the heathen are sinking to perdition; and true, also,
that we might, under God, be the means of saving them.
Shall we not then be found accountable for their
eternal agonies? O Christian, pause and look
at this thought! Look at it deliberately, for
we shall be obliged to do so at the judgment day.
No one can plead exemption from it, unless he does
what he can to save the heathen. O my
soul, how much blood, how much weeping, wailing and
gnashing of teeth, will stand at thy account in the
day of judgment!
I appeal to each one of you, examine
yourselves in the light of this truth. Call up
your prayers, your contributions, and your personal
efforts. Compare what you have done with what
Jesus did for you. I entreat you, open your ears,
and hearts too, to the groans of a dying world.
Listen to the notes which, like the noise of seven
thunders, peal after peal, are rolling in upon your
shores.
“Hark! what mean those lamentations,
Rolling sadly through the sky?
’Tis the cry of heathen nations,
‘Come and help us, or we die!’
“Hear the heathen’s sad complaining,
Christians! hear their dying cry;
And, the love of Christ constraining,
Haste to help them, ere they die!”
Yes, reader, haste to help them.
Confer not with flesh and blood. Meet all vain
excuses with a deaf ear and a determined spirit.
Let pity move you, the love of Christ constrain you,
and a sense of responsibility urge you, to take that
precious Gospel on which your hopes rely, and to carry
it, without delay, to the perishing nations.