USA > North Carolina > A history of the development of the Presbyterian Church in North Carolina, and of the Synodical home missions, together with evangelistic addresses by James I. Vance and others > Part 9
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The same principle holds to-day. The different denom- inations have done much in possessing the land for Christ, as has been seen from a perusal of these pages, the Pres- byterian church in North Carolina has done a good part, but we cannot fail to be impressed with how little we have done in comparison with what we ought to have done and what we could easily have done. Such reflections are sad, but instead of becoming discouraged thereby, we should be determined to put forth more and better directed efforts to overtake the destitutions in our own land and reach out to other lands, too. Let no one imagine that the work .is done, that we can rest on our oars, for in the great State of North Carolina there are now ( 1907) still counties in which we have no Presbyterian church, and there are still several counties in which we have only one church. Besides all this, it is estimated that there are 600,000 white persons over the age of ten years within this State that do not belong to any church, that make no profession of Christianity, and when you add to this the large number of professors who are probably still un- converted and the still larger number of colored people who are out of Christ, it will be seen at once that there is much land still to be possessed.
When we think of this vast army marching down the
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rough pathway of time to eternity's shore and who have -- not made Jesus their friend, and take into account our boasted and real wealth, our splendid opportunities for carrying and sending the Gospel to them, and especially when we consider that these are not only men and women with souls, but are our own kith and kin, we stand amazed and appalled at 'the spectacle and wonder how we can be so apathetical and take things so easy, but let us not stand by and do nothing, but go ourselves and send others before it is too late. It is too late to reach the thousands who died without Christ, it is too late to possess some of the land for our church, the former opportunities are gone and the latter have in many cases been taken by our sister churches while we stood by and offered resolutions, re- viewed minutes, tried cases, appointed committees and such like. It is now time to awaken and to work. There are splendid opportunities still offering, and doors still open. Do we not hear the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" Let us answer, " Here am I; send me." Unless this call is heard, there is another message with which we are much concerned, and that is: " Son of man, I have made thee a watchman to the house of Israel. . Hear the word at my mouth and give them warning from me. When I say unto the wicked, thou shalt surely die and thou givest him not warning the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at thy hand."
God is calling yet ; shall we not go?
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السلاح
9
REV. JAMES I. VANCE, D. D.
EVANGELISTIC AND MISSIONARY ADDRESSES,
BY
REV. JAMES I. VANCE, D. D., REV. WILBUR CHAPMAN, D. D., REV. S. L. MORRIS, D. D., REV. WILLIAM BLACK.
УПРИчасти СМА этт-Б.НDAy.
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FOREWORD.
History is written, not only that we may be made ac- quainted with the facts, but that, knowing them, we should be able to make some practical use of them, such for ex- ample as imitating the noble examples, avoiding the mis- takes, and of correcting in ourselves what has been seen defective in others.
Trusting that the study of the history contained in this volume may have been thus beneficial to you, and with a desire to assist you in making application of these facts, this brief volume of addresses is added.
This fact, that the Presbyterian church has been slow to use the evangelistic arm of the church, is made clear as we have gone over the record of its work for more than one hundred years. It is clear that our denomination has suffered from this neglect, and equally clear that, where- ever and whenever this important work has been faith- fully done, there has been a wonderful blessing attending.
In the Bible, God says: "And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and some EVANGELISTS and some pas- tors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Yet, notwithstanding this plain teaching, that evangelists are God-given agencies, our church has not only made very little use of the same, but has looked upon the evangelistic office as a sort of secondary one, and the work done by EVANGELISTS as superficial and questionable, and the man undertaking to exercise the gift, as a sort of self-appointed agency, whereas in truth, the EVANGE- List has equal DIVINE authority with apostles, prophets and pastors.
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In the failure of the Presbyterian church to make full use of this most important office, in our use of the pas- toral office almost to the exclusion of other agencies, is . one explanation of its comparatively small numbers com- pared with two other churches in our State. Not only so, but in failing to use the evangelistic office together with all other helps, much desirable territory has been taken possession of by other denominations, and our church thereby practically excluded, souls have gone into eternity from whole counties, without hearing one word about Christ and His blessed salvation, from our church.
Perhaps the greatest loss to our church is the evangel- istic and missionary spirit and the great reflex benefit that always comes to the faithful church in doing evange- listic and mission work. Shall we not awake, and arise and go and do this great work?
These addresses are, therefore, sent forth, with the earnest hope that every one who reads them may be filled with a holy enthusiasm for the salvation of souls, may be able to see the importance of keeping a large supply of evangelists always in the field, not only in foreign, but in our own lands, and above all, that every pastor and every member may see that, filled with this missionary spirit, there are splendid opportunities for doing this work, in every community, and seeing the opportunities, seize them and use them at once. Every pastor can and should be both a pastor and an evangelist, and an evan- gelistic pastor will be sure to make members with the true evangelistic and mission spirit throbbing within their hearts.
Use every gift, ministers, elders, deacons, Sunday- school teachers, private members, all have them. Make your life count, your money, your musical talent, your life, your all. USE IT FOR THE MASTER, NOW.
IF MY COUNTRY WERE HEATHEN. BY REV. JAMES I. VANCE, D. D.
In the opening chapter of his letter to the Church at Rome, the greatest of missionaries says: "I am debtor."
He announces his obligations, he proclaims his liabili- ties, he declares his indebtedness, he tells us what he owes. He is heavily embarrassed. But it is not the fact of debt that distresses him. He is not worried for fear he may be unable to meet his obligations. It is anxiety lest somehow he may shirk payment that stirs him. Having announced the fact that he is in debt, he names his credi- tors. "I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Bar- barians." How can he owe these people anything? He has never had any financial transactions with them. They do not know him, and he does not know them. They have never heard of him, and he can refer to them only by their nationality. To people with whom he has had no business dealings and no commercial correspondence and not the remotest personal contact, Paul says, "I am debtor."
Having named his creditors, he tells how he proposes to meet his obligations. "So as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel." Paul proposes to pay his debts by preaching the gospel. It is a strange method of debt-paying. It is rather an airy way of facing one's creditors. It is somewhat emotional. It is altogether too sentimental a plan of cancelling indebtedness. "Paul, you would better get down to a cash basis." Paul, how- ever, has full confidence in the currency he proposes to use. He is not afraid that it will go to protest. He has
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no fear that it will be rejected or even questioned. He says, "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth."
Stranger than the list of creditors and stranger than the proposed method of payment, is the ground of obliga- tion. Paul is in debt because he has been blessed. We regard debt as the sequence of disaster or as the result of limitation. Paul has incurred debt by riches receive l. He is a debtor to preach the gospel because he has re- ceived the gospel. He owes Christ to others because he has Christ himself. He must not be selfish. What Christ is to him, he can and would be to every human life. Paul has no right to sit still and enjoy the blessings of redemption, while others are in need of that which he can give.
This is a brand new kind of obligation. It is an un- heard of sort of debt. It is the Christian view of privi- lege. It is this conception of obligation that makes the Christian church a missionary church.
THE CHURCH IS MISSIONARY OR NOTHING.
Every Christian is a debtor. He is involved. Having announced, in the opening chapter of this his greatest epistie, the fact that he is in debt, Paul proceeds in the following chapters to discuss the great doctrines of Chris- tianity-atonement, justification, adoption, sanctification, election, assurance-until in the eighth chapter he is ready for a great conclusion. What do these doctrines amount to? This: "Therefore we are debtors." Then he continues the discussion until in the fifteenth chapter of the epistle he is making the practical application of doc- trine to duty and says: "Their debtors they are."
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The Christian's debt is fact, argument, conclusion, ap- plication, all.
And it is not the fact of debt that should distress him, nor the fear that he may be unable to meet his obliga- tions that should worry him, but anxiety lest he may somehow shirk his responsibilities that should stir him.
The Christian is debtor to people he has never seen. They do not know him and he does not know them. They have never heard of him and he can refer to them only by their nationality. His creditors are Greeks and Bar- barians, people of culture and people without culture, people of China, of India, of Africa, of the islands of the sea, all people of any land who have never heard the gos- pel and who do not know of Christ.
The only way the Christian can pay his debt is with the gospel. He need not be afraid that it will be re- jected. It is what the world most needs. It is the cur- rency with which God meets his obligations to mankind ; and if the mighty God could cancel his debt to the human race with the gospel, surely it will pay mine to my fellow man. If it was sufficient to make eternal payment of the liabilities of Jehovah, I need not fear it will go to protest when offered in payment of my obligations.
My debt was contracted in the same way as Paul's. I am a Christian. Some one or many made it possible for me to hear the gospel. It was not because I deserved it. I had done nothing to merit such a favor. It is all of grace. I do not know why I was born in a Christian instead of a pagan or heathen land. I do not know why I was born in a Christian home, with parents who belonged to the church and whose first care was that I should know and love their Saviour. You do not know why that little daughter whom you love better than your life was not born in India, where she might have been a child-
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widow at the tender age of twelve years; or in China, where the birth of a daughter is regarded as a calamity. But somehow I know him, whom to know aright is life eternal. I have a Christian's view of God and man and the world and home and country and heaven, and because I have, I am debtor. Shame on me, if in such a day of grace, I close tightly; on what I have received, and doubling down in stolid selfishness, repudiate my debts !
OURS IS A CHRISTIAN COUNTRY.
Because it is, it is a good country in which to live. The fact that it is Christian, helps to make it a profitable country in which to do business. Because it is Christian, it is a good country in which to bring up children, to have friends, to own property, to follow a trade, to prac- tice a profession. It is far from being perfect, to be sure. There is much that might be better. But the bad is not because of the land's Christianity. It is in spite of it. America has social and civic blemishes because it is not as Christian as it might be. It is the Christianity it has that makes it a land where personal liberty is guaranteed, human life held in high esteem, childhood protected, womanhood respected, home honored, wifehood and motherhood reverenced, and things that are true and beautiful and good celebrated and sought.
Suppose this were not a Christian country. We are so accustomed to it that we are wont to take our Chris- tianity as a matter of course. Suppose this were a heathen country. All countries are not Christian. There are heathen countries in the world. What if America were one of these heathen countries? What changes would take place ? 1
I have never been in a heathen land. I have been in
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some American cities, where Christianity was at low ebb, and where the seething tide of wanton vice and immorali- ty reigned. I have been through certain neglected sec- tions of great American cities where the sodden wretched- ness of human misery rotted in damps of sin whose ig- norance bordered on the night of heathenism. But I have never been in a city where heathenism reigned. I cannot answer the question as well as some missionary who has seen a heathen city ; and seen it not as the passing tourist who sees only its strange shows and curious sights, but who has gone down into its awful decay and breathed its moral stench and come into living contact with its blank, black despair. While I cannot answer the question as well as such a missionary, I can at least give a partial answer, and name some of the things that must go with the loss of our Christianity.
IF OURS WERE A HEATHEN COUNTRY.
The first to go would be the churches. We should have to tear down every Christian church and close every Sunday-school and wipe out every mission. We should have to raze the Young Men's Christian Associations. It would stop the mouth of every preacher and abolish Sunday as a day of worship and as a day of rest. This is the first and most evident change to take place. The churches and all that they stand for must go. This is not all.
We must close the public schools. There are no public schools like ours in a heathen land. One of our mis- sionary agencies is the day school. The public schools are not free of faults. It is an easy achievement to criti- cize them, but they are vastly better tlfan the conditions they supplanted, and they are immeasurably better than
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no schools. The preacher who declared the public schools are turning out a generation of "lusty young pagans," said what very few believe and what the facts do not warrant. The public school system is an indirect product of Christianity. We should lose it if ours were a heathen land.
Then the hospitals would go. They do not exist in heathen lands, save as they have been introduced by Chris- tianity. The hospital is one of the missionary enterprises of the church. In India, Dr. Scudder in charge of a hospital to which thousands come to be healed, is doing three men's work. If this were a heathen country, we should have to close our hospitals for cripples, for chil- dren, for the sick poor, for the homeless sick, for con- tagious diseases, and for the manifold diseases and ills to which flesh is heir. We must give up the medical pro- fession as we have it now. Then if a man should fall on the streets, there would be no ambulance to carry him and no cot to receive him. Should your child fall ill, there would be no physician to come with intelligent skill and healing remedies to the little sufferer ; but instead a creature, with wild incantations, to add plague and tor- ture to the already sickness of the body.
Next to go would be the orphan asylums and homes for the aged and friendless, and institutions for the care of defectives and afflicted. We should have to tear down the homes for the insane, where those who have lost their reason find a refuge. All of the aged and helpless people and the defenceless children must be turned out in the storm and left on the streets should ours become a heathen land.
The next to go would be our organized charities, for there is no organized charity in a heathen city. We should have to relinquish the Bureaus of Associated Charities
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with their sane and unselfish work; the charitable socie- ties with their splendid beneficence; the industrial homes and the rescue missions, where the man out of work and the prisoner fresh from serving his sentence may find a helping hand; the Florence Crittenton Homes, where the sinning and outcast may step through a door of hope ; and all those other agencies by which the needy and the worthless are lifted to self-help and set on the road to industry and respectability.
If ours were a heathen land, we should lose the city governments under which we live. It is frequently the ground of just complaint because of existing abuses. but compared with what passes for government in a heathen city, it is as day to dark. We denounce the system of "graft" which obtains to a greater or less extent in many American cities, but the "graft" we groan over is a virtue compared with the shameless extortions and brazen in- justices practiced by the heathen officials of a Chinese city. Civilization with its free institutions, its sense of justice, its respect for law and order is the outcome of Christianity. With an oriental miscalled court of justice and its reign of terror instead of what we have, property values would tumble, trade would suffer irreparable loss and conditions of living would become far harder.
This is not all that would happen, were America to be- come heathen. There are invisible values, more precious even than' those I have mentioned, we should lose. It would take from us our immortal hope and faith in Christ, our Christian experience with all its peace and fortitude. If America were heathen, we should be heathen !
Recently I was shown two photographs. The first was of a man suffering from club foot ! He was terribly de- formed and badly crippled. His deformity was a handi-
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cap that made existence hard and work difficult. The .. second was of the same man, taken three months later, after he had been healed by a Christian surgeon. The deformity was gone. The man stood square and flat- footed on two good feet, and was ready to measure equal with his fellows in the race of life.
That kind of relief is a great boon, and that is a part of the work of missions. Christianity has a gospel for the body. But there is a blessing infinitely more precious. It also takes the deformity out of the soul. It was spir- itual as well as physical hurts the prophet had in mind when he proclaimed the blessings of the gospel age and cried, "Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing."
All this would go, were ours a heathen country. You could not say, "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." You could not pray, "Our Father, which art in heaven." You could not teach the children, "God so loved the world, as to give his only begotton Son."
There is one thing more that would happen should America become heathen. We should have to go to the cemeteries and erase every inscription of hope from the memorial stones over the resting places of our beloved dead. No minister would stand by our side as the clods fall on the coffined dust and say, "But we look for the general resurrection and the life of the world to come." There would be no word of hope and no vision of home. No invisible but real Friend would stand near us in our sorrow and whisper to listening faith, "Let not your heart be troubled. Ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions." We, and our city, and our dead should all be heathen.
These are some of the things that must take place. It is no fancy sketch. The best must go. Who would care
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to remain in a city so spoiled? You are saying that life would be intolerable with all these gone. So it would for those who have once tasted the gospel. It is Chris- tianity that makes America a good land in which to live. And America is Christian, because in the march of events there were men and women who felt as Paul did and who said : "We are debtors." "We have received and we must give." It will be kept Christian only by such people. And the cities which are now heathen will become Chris- tian only as those who have heard of Christ recognize their obligation and pay their debts.
THE MISSIONARY MOTIVE.
This is the reigning missionary motive-"I am debtor." No one who dwells in a Christian land and is a bene- ficiary of Christian civilization, whether he believe in the personal Christ or not, can repudiate this obligation, with- out condemning himself at the bar of God and mankind.
A man says to me, "I do not believe in Foreign Mis- sions." I ask him, "Then what do you believe in? If you do not believe in Foreign Missions, you do not be- lieve in Christianity, you do not believe in humanity, you do not believe in philanthrophy, you do not believe in charity, you do not believe in education, you do not be- lieve in character, you do not believe in fraternity. What do you believe in? If you do not believe in Foreign Missions, you do not believe in anything worth believing in." The missionary enterprise is the enterprise of man- kind.
There has been a development of the missionary motive.
There was a time when, in order to incite to mission- ary zeal, it was deemed necessary to pass sentence whole-
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sale on all pagan and heathen religions, and denounce. .. them as utterly bad and altogether false. The compara- tive study of religions has shown us that, while there- is a mighty difference between Christianity and the old-time faiths, nevertheless pagan and heathen religions do pro- claim many noble sentiments and insist on the practice of many admirable virtues.
We are finding, however, that to secure an adequate missionary motive it is not necessary to pass wholesale condemnation on either the heathen world or its reli- gions. There is a higher and a mightier motive. It is that which stirred Paul when he cried, "I am debtor." The fact that I have Christ, a divine Redeemer, puts me in debt to all who have not heard of Him. President Charles Cuthbert Hall, when he returned from delivering a course of lectures on Christianity in India, declared that after coming into contact with the best culture of the East, and after taking into account all that is admirable in the people and in their religion, he came back with a stronger faith in Jesus Christ as the divine Saviour of men, with a more solemn sense of responsibility to preach Him to all men, and with a deeper conviction that He alone can meet the social, civil and spiritual needs of the world.
What is needed is for this conviction of debt to the licathen to take possession of the church. It is not mere- ly the sending out of a few more missionaries. We need to send them and many more. It is not merely the giving of a few more dollars. We need to give thousands where we are giving hundreds. But in addition to all else, there is needed the moving, steady, resistless, cumula- tive momentum of the conviction that every Christian is a debtor and that he can cancel his debt only with the gospel. There need be no fear that the church may do
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too much for this cause. Someone asked Phillips Brooks what he would do were he called to take charge of a church heavily involved in debt, greatly discouraged and rapidly disintegrating. He replied: "The first thing I should do would be to take up a collection for Foreign Missions." The church need not be afraid it will bank- rupt itself in paying its debt to the heathen.
A MISSIONARY HERO.
Several years ago, on the threshold of my ministry, I became pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in Alexandria, Va. On the first Sunday of the New Year, January Ist, 1888, I received into the church a lad of eleven years of age named Frank Slaymaker. He was the first to unite with the church on profession of faith during my ministry in Alexandria. The incident was my introduction to one of the most devotedly Christian fami- lies in the parish. He had a brother, Henry, two years his senior, who was already in the church, and a sister a few years older still. These three with their widowed mother made the household. Mrs. Slaymaker gave her children to the church she did so without reservation. The boys developed in their Christian characters and were active in Christian work. Henry was elected an elder on reaching young manhood.
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