I do not need to do more than remind you of the fact that the very last
words which our Lord has left us according to the two versions of them
which are given in the Gospel of Matthew, and the beginning of this
Book of the Acts, coincide in this. 'You are to be My witnesses to the
ends of the earth. Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to
every creature.' Did you ever think what an extraordinary thing it is
that that confident anticipation of a worldwide dominion, and of being
Himself adapted to all mankind, in every climate and in every age, and
at every stage of culture, should have been the conviction which the
departing Christ sought to stamp upon the minds of those eleven poor
men? What audacity! What tremendous confidence! What a task to which to
set them! What an unexampled belief in Himself and His work! And it is
all coming true; for the world is finding out, more and more, that
Jesus Christ is its Saviour and its King.
This commandment which is laid upon us Christian men submerges all
distinctions of race, and speech, and nationality, and culture. There
are high walls parting men off from one another. This great message and
commission, like some rising tide, rolls over them all, and obliterates
them, and flows boundless, having drowned the differences, from horizon
to horizon, east and west and south and north.
Now let me press the thought that this commandment makes indifference
and silence criminal. We hear people talk, people whose Christianity it
is not for me to question, though I may question two things about it,
its clearness and its depth--we hear them talk as if to help or not to
help, in the various forms of Christian activity, missionary or
otherwise, was a matter left to their own inclination. No! it is not.
Let us distinctly understand that to help or not to help is not the
choice open to any man who would obey Jesus Christ. Let us distinctly
understand--and God grant that we may all feel it more--that we dare
not stand aside, be negligent, do nothing, leave other people to give
and to toil, and say, 'Oh! my sympathies do not go in that direction.'
Jesus Christ told you that they were to go in that direction, and if
they do not, so much the worse for the sympathies for one thing, and so
much the worse for you, the rebel, the disobedient in heart. I do not
want to bring down this great gift and token of love which Jesus Christ
has given to His servants, in entrusting them with the spread of the
Gospel, to the low level of a mere commandment, but I do sometimes
think that the tone of feeling, ay! and of speech, and still more the
manner of action, among professing Christian people, in regard to the
whole subject of the missionary work of God's Church, shows that they
need to be reminded; as the Duke of Wellington said, 'There are your
marching orders!' and the soldier who does not obey his marching orders
is a mutineer. There is a definite commandment which makes indifference
criminal.
There is another thing I should like to say, viz. that this definite
commandment overrides everything else. We hear a great deal from
unsympathetic critics, which is but a reproduction of an old grumble
that did not come from a very creditable source. 'To what purpose is
this waste?' Why do you not spend your money upon technical schools,
soup-kitchens, housing of the poor, and the like? Well, our answer is,
'He told us.' We hear, too, especially just in these days, a great deal
about the necessity for increased caution in pursuing missionary
operations in heathen lands. And some people that do not know anything
about the subject have ventured to say, for instance, that the
missionaries are responsible for Chinese antagonism to Europeans, and
for similar phenomena. Well, we are ready to be as wise and prudent as
you like. We do not ask any consuls to help us. Our brethren are men
who have hazarded their lives; and I never heard of a Baptist
missionary running under the skirts of an ambassador, or praying the
government to come and protect him. We do not ask for cathedrals to be
built, or territory to be ceded, as compensation for the loss of
precious lives. But if these advisers of caution mean no more than they
say, 'Caution!' we agree. But if they mean, what some of them mean,
that we are to be silent for fear of consequences, then, whether it be
prime ministers, or magistrates, or mobs that say it, our answer is,
'Whether it be right to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye!
We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.'