missionary movement, and the organized, systematic operations of missionary societies. The assumption is, that the secular laborers who go as volunteers into the foreign field, will be men and women of the true Christian spirit of self-sacrifice, and that, in addition to their personal labors—as conversationists, exhorters, "Bible-readers," tract-distributers, exemplars-in diffusing the knowledge of Christ, they will sustain. the regular preacher and missionary, wherever found. As we have shown above, this was emphatically the manner in which Christianity was propagated at the beginning. "Commencing generally with the large cities, it was carried forward, not so much by organized missions, as by ordinary social intercourse. It became powerful as a popular element, prevailing most among the lower classes, but by means of slaves and women, it had penetrated, as early as near the end of the second century, every order of society."* All classes of men were personally occupied in the work of spreading the gospel. There will be none the less need of trained missionaries; and those who are to be supported by the churches, as special agents for the higher departments of missionary labor, must be selected and approved. Christians must have organizations through which to act to the best advantage; yet Christianity is not an organization, but is itself organic; it molds, appropriates, organizes whatever agency comes within its reach, and uses this for its own ends. Why should it not, then, appropriate for its missionary service the migratory, colonizing, cosmopolitan tendencies of this age? Nay, what were this, but to reproduce both the spirit and the method of primitive evangelism? Why should not one, any one, go any whither upon Christ's errand of good news to men-not waiting to be sent, but bearing his light as a Christian, and helping the appointed missionary upon the field just as he would help a pastor at home? We are sure that progress in the world's evangelization must lie largely in this direction; in getting back to the first principles of the New Testament, that Christians, as such, are * Hase, History of the Christian Church, p. 54. vested by Christ himself with all prerogative and power for the promulgation of the gospel, and that the obligation to this work rests primarily and always with the whole unorganized body of believers. Since writing the above, we have met with views quite similar, where one would hardly look for them, in the correspondence of a distinguished divine in that branch of the Presbyterian Church which makes a zeal for its own organization and its ecclesiastical boards almost a test of orthodoxy. The late Dr. J. W. Alexander, in one of his familiar letters published by Dr. Hall, propounds these queries touching existing church and missionary machinery. "1. Whether we do not sometimes account the engine, (board or scheme,) as almost apostolic, and essential to church progress. 2. Whether it is not probable that God will allow all our present enginery to decay, with the circumstances which reared it? 3. Whether the conversion of the world will not result, under God, from an action more individual, more cheap, and more flowing from great affections in every church, and every member of it? 4. Whether such is not the New Testament missionary work, as we read it in Scripture?" Such is the New Testament missionary work, as we read it in Scripture, and such must be our missionary work in action, if we would hasten-nay, if we would ever accomplish, the evangelization of the world. The characteristic feature of primitive evangelism is individual spontaneity in distinction from concentrated organization. Dr. Addison Alexander, in commenting upon Acts viii, 4, remarks: "As in verse 1 the writer said that all except the twelve were scattered, he now says that all who were thus scattered preached the word. Some would infer, from this, that none but preachers were expelled; but it is far more natural to understand the verse as referring, not to preaching in the technical or formal sense, but to that joyful and spontaneous diffusion of the truth, which is permitted and required of all believers, whether lay or clerical, ordained or unordained." This "joyful and spontaneous diffusion of the truth," invites all who love Christ and his cause. The strength and success of designated missionaries must be in "great affections toward their work in every church, and every member of it." Their highest culture, their individual preparation, will still be needed, and all the more needed for the wisest direction of the means and agencies of evangelization when a spontaneous movement of uncommissioned volunteers to every missionary field, shall multiply these agencies a thousand fold. If missions are to grow, we must come back to the true seat of responsibility for the evangelization of the world-its perpetual obligation upon the disciples of Christ, as such; and when this shall again be felt, as it was felt in the beginning, we shall witness a Christian crusade before which the powers of darkness will flee, astonished and confounded. The spirit and method of primitive evangelism will finish the work which modern organization has prepared. Are there not peculiar reasons for such a movement as this in the review of hopes and discouragements suggested by the Jubilee of the American Board? Is not the way prepared for it? Does not the work linger for lack of it? Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Lyman Beecher, then a veteran, was wont to kindle the enthusiasm of missionary assemblies with his magnif icent pictures of the millenium. The day of the Lord seemed just at hand. The grand drama of the Apocalypse was in its closing act, and the curtain was just falling upon the doom of Anti-Christ to rise upon the perfect peace and glory of the Redeemer's reign. And yet, to-day, a son of Lyman Beecher stands battling with sin in a central city of Christendom, foul with pagan crimes and profligacy, the fountain of social corruption for the land, the foster mother of that accursed traffic in human flesh which makes pagan Africa the hunting ground of Christianized America! his The old man, happily unconscious of the change, still weaves gorgeous dream of the millenium, while others toil with conflicting hopes and fears. But is it, after all, a dream? When the Declaration of Independence was signed, John Adams wrote, "This day will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America; to be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival, commemorated : as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty, from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward, forevermore. You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this declaration and to support and defend these states. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of light and glory; that the end is worth all the means; that posterity will triumph in that day's transaction, even though we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not. The furnace of affliction produces refinement in states as well as individuals. I submit all my hopes and fears to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly believe." Shall our faith fall behind his? Nay, though the night yet lingers, we take up the song of faith and hope— "A night full of stars! O'er the silence, unseen, The footsteps of sentinel angels, between The dark land and deep sky are moving. Is heard ARTICLE VIII. THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND CO- ONE year ago we had occasion to invite the attention of our readers to the matters in dispute between the controlling party among the New School Presbyterians and the American Home Missionary Society. Since that time, action of a decisive character has been taken. In the resolutions of the General Assembly, passed at its meeting in Pittsburg, the question of continued coöperation, so far as the denomination, as such, is concerned, has been settled; and although multitudes of individuals, with churches not a few, will, in all probability, still hold fast to old friends and to the voluntary system, yet the broad and comprehensive coöperation of past days is, obviously, at an end. Nothing now remains but the slow working apart of the two denominations which have longest clung, and with so much of mutual affection, to the principle, of the systematic and organic subordination of denominational interests to those of the kingdom of heaven. The Assembly has determined that hereafter, for itself, the latter must be merged in the former. The importance of this decision is not likely to be overestimated. Happily, the process of separation, which it sanctions and ordains, promises to be achieved without the pain and shame of outrageous conflict, and with as much of charity and of dignity as the infirmities of human nature would ever allow us to anticipate. These old friends are parting, not, indeed, without mutual censures; that could not be; but with no abiding bitterness, and more in sorrow than in angerwords of blessing, even, mingling sometimes quite touchingly, amid complaints and rebukes. God give to us all more and more of that spirit of brotherly love, which is a spirit of wisdom and a sound mind; that even if we must withstand each other to the face, we may do it without unchristian acrimony. |