AIM OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONS

[s. 27] : The aim of foreign mi ions is not to be confused with the aim of the Christian Church in the world, or of There are the Christian nations of the world. Christian things which it is not the duty of the foreign mi ionary enterprise And we must not confuse the aim of for to do. an easy coneign mi ions with the results fusion because there is no other force so powerful It to accomplish results acce ory and indirect. is misleading also to confuse the ultimate i ues miswith the immediate aims; it is not only Some things can only be leading, it is fatal. Mis secured by those who do not seek them. sions are powerful to transform the face of society, because they ignore the face of society, many good and — — Africa Aim of ClirlMtian and deal with it at its heart. They yield such powerful political and social results, becau they do not immediately concern themselves witifi them. Again, we must not confuse the aim It is of mi ions with the methods of mi ions. an easy thing to select a method with the view to the accomplishment of some given end, and then because the end is difficult of accomplishment, because the method is easy of operation, because its results, apart altogether from the main aim, are good and useful in themselves, it is easy to exalt the method into the place of the end. Having cleared the ground so far, what is the. aim of foreign mi ions? It is a religious aim. It cannot be stated too strongly in an age when the thought of men is full of things, and when the body has crept up on the throne of the soul, that the work is not immediately and primarily a philanthropic work, a political work, a secular work of any sort whatsoever. It is a spiritual and a religious work. Of course religion must expre itself in life, but the mi ionary does not go into the world primarily as trustee of a, He goes as the trustee of His better social life. life Who said of Himself, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood,,”I came that they ye have no life in you.” may have life, and may have it more abundantly.” my flesh, which “The bread which I will give is President I will give for the life of the world.” Seeley’s lectures on Christian Mi ions have the great merit of laying chief emphasis on this predominance of the religious and spiritual character of the aim of mi ions. The aim of mi ions, then, to borrow Dr. George Washburn’s phrase, is to make Jesus Other phraseology Christ known to the world. may be used. We can say the aim of mi ions, world. Or, we can of the is the evangelization say the aim of mi ions is to preach the Gospel And if we understand these terms to the world. in their Scriptural sense, they are synonymous But many persist with the phrase just quoted. in using them at le than their Scriptural value. It makes clear what the aim of mi ions is, to say The aim of foreign mi ions is to make Jesus Chri.st known to the world.: And almost any method, almost any agency, may be recognized as legitimate which subjects As itself with fidelity to this supreme aim. Alexander Duff said in 1854, in the first Mi ion- New York City, “The chief means of divine appointment for the evangelization of the world are the faithful teaching and preaching of the pure Gospel of salvation, by duly qualified ministers and other holy and consistent disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, accompanied with prayer, and savingly applied by the such means, in the grace of the Holy Spirit; providential application of them by human agency, embracing not merely instruction by the living voice, but the translation and judicious ary Conference in circulation of the whole written Word of God, the preparation and circulation of evangelical tracts and books, as well as any other instrumentalities fitted to bring the Word of God home to men’s souls, together with any proce es which experience may have sanctioned as the most efficient in raising up everywhere indigenous ministers and teachers of the living Gospel.” This is fair and broad. It sets out openly a range of mi ion effort that will throttle and restrict no useful mi ionary enterprise, and it Aim of Christian Alaska exalts to a predominant and singular place the supreme aim of making Jesus Christ known to His world. Philanthropy and education will have a large part among the methods of mi ionary work, but they are its methods and not its end. By these and all other agencies the enterprise seeks to plant in humanity the principle of the divine life itself, to live and bear fruit in a you sand fold more social amelioration and intellectual improvement than the mi ionary movement as such could accomplish. This description of the mi ionary aim does not lift from our shoulders the burden of responsibility that we cannot escape, and it does not lay there a burden of responsibility that we can We dare not say that we have done not bear. our duty when we have spoken Christ’s name to the world nor that we have made Jesus Christ known to the world when we have given the world such a proclamation of Christ as would suffice for us who already know Him to take in Neither, on the full meaning of the me age. the other hand, are we left to struggle hopele ly under the burden of the world’s spiritual con can not conversion or moral regeneration. vert one single soul; how shall we convert the world? Midway between the position of no responsibility, and of all responsibility, the Church stands, sharing something with God, We sharing also something with the world. cannot sever ourselves from that link of loving sympathy which binds us to its death; we cannot sever ourselves from that link of sympathy which binds us to His life. We are meant to be between His life and its death, channels of the grace and salvation of God. The aim of mi ions is to make Jesus Christ known to the world with a view to the salvation of men for that eternity which embraces alike the time that is to come and the time that now is. We cannot narrow salvation to but one And further we world, this one or the next. must not state the aim of mi ions in purely individualistic terms. Our duty lies certainly to our generation, but it does not stop there. We are bound to preach to every person in the world the Gospel of the only Savior; we are bound also to make known to the world that there is a body of Christ which is His Church, and to gather up all responsive men into visible churches, which shall be outward evidence of the body of Christ, and shall secure to the Gospel an influence and perpetuity which institutions and not individuals must supply. Henrj’ Venn, Dr. Warneck and Rufus Anderson have given proper emphasis to this element in mi ionary policy and duty. We are to establish and foster native churches, self-extending, self maintaining, self-directing, which shall carry out to their own people, whom we may not reach, the me age that has come to them, and which carry down into the generations to shall come after them, the ble ings which we have given them as their own. This is the aim of foreign mi ions, to make Jesus Christ known to the world, with a view to the full salvation of men, and their gathering into true and living churches to which the mi ionary enterprise may commit the larger and enduring Christian duty as it pa es on to “regions beyond.” This is the supreme aim. It is a. just thing to challenge the world to sympathy with mi ions, because of the philanthropic and social results that mi ions achieve, and the heroic spirit; We which they display. 10 But their supreme aim is neither to establish republics or limited monarchies throughout the world, nor to lead Chinese or Hindu people to wear our dre , nor to remodel their social institutions, where these are The supreme already wholesome and clean. aim is to make Jesus Christ known. Any true view of the world must make room for other forces than mi ions. God is King, and so surely as His hand is upon the work of mi ions, it is upon all the great forces that are making the world. We cannot acknowledge that the force of political influence has escaped from His control, that He stands impotent before the commerce and civilization of the world. His hand is upon these things. They play at last into His almighty purposes. They are but part of His influence. They and all the forces of life run resistle ly on to the great goals of God. But these forces are only supplementary to the power that the mi ionary holds in his hands from His pierced hand Who died and rose again, and Who is King of them that reign as kings, and Lord of them that rule as lords. This aim of mi ions should have determining authority. We sometimes allow ourselves to drift into methods of work that presuppose a quite contrary aim. When we lift off the shoulders of a new native church, for example, the burdens that it must bear if it is ever to grow, the act seems like kindne , while it ia fatal to the Church and neglectful of the supreme mi ionary aim. It is easy to slip into indirect conceptions of duty, or to do what God can do through other agencies. Mi ions are to do their own work, and not the work of other agencies 6r other forces. Methods of work, in their proportion and in their perpetuation, should be ruled by the supreme and determining aim of the mi ionary movement. And not alone the method of mi ions, but the spirit of the enterprise should be ruled by that aim. It proposes no promiscuous and indefinite project. It has its own clean-cut piece of work to do. To be sure it is often confused enough in the actual work among men, but the circumstances which confuse it show also how important its clear perception and prosecution are. If this is the aim of mi ions, the enterprise is not a miscellaneous and undefined task. It is a clear and practicable project, well justifying the words of Simeon Calhoun, the “Saint of the Lebanon:” “It is my deep conviction, and I say it again and again, that if the Church of Christ were what she ought to be, twenty years would not pa away till the story of the cro would be uttered in the ears of every living man.” AIMARA LANGUAGE: In Bolivia nearly 400,000 people speak this language. It belongs to the South American family, but has been modified by the Spanish. It is written with Roman letters. 28