Of this class, Philip, Barnabas, Apollos, Timothy, and Titus are
examples in Scripture--men having no permanent, local charge, but
commissioned to preach and administer the ordinances of the Gospel
wherever the Spirit and providence of God might call. These men were
engaged, for the most part, in work analogous to that of our foreign
and home missionaries--preaching the Gospel where it was not already
preached, organizing churches, and supervising them in their incipiency
while yet feeble and struggling. It is probable, also, that at times
their work resembled that of those men called, in a narrower sense,
evangelists--men engaged in assisting pastors and churches in special
services for the promotion of revivals of religion. Possibly, Barnabas,
when sent by the church at Jerusalem to labor in the great awakening at
Antioch, may be conceived as acting in such a capacity, as also Timothy
when left in Ephesus by Paul to hold in check certain heretical
tendencies in that city (Acts xi. 22-24; 1 Tim. i. 3, 4). Evangelists,
therefore, may be considered under the following classifications:
I. FOREIGN MISSIONARIES.--In considering the question of duty to enter
the foreign field, the first inquiry necessarily relates to
qualification, since without this no mere desire or emotion in regard
to the work can have any weight. As among the more obvious requisites
for the missionary work the following may be mentioned: 1. _A sound
body._ Most of our mission-fields are in the East, in an enervating
climate, and under conditions such as severely test the vigor of the
physical constitution. No person already enfeebled by disease or
seriously predisposed to disease should venture into the foreign field,
as the probabilities would all be against his ability to labor there.
On this point, it is obvious, skilled medical advice should be sought.
2. _Common sense._ The practical administration of the affairs of the
mission, temporal as well as spiritual--its building, its finances, its
business contracts and relations, the whole management--usually falls
upon the missionary, and requires large practical tact and sagacity. In
a new field he has no reliable advisers and must depend on his own
judgment in deciding on all the temporal concerns of the mission. In
the older fields, while some of the business cares may be devolved on
native helpers, he must still move among the native churches as a
practical and influential adviser, guiding their affairs, settling
their difficulties, and correcting their mistakes. An unpractical,
visionary mind, however scholarly and brilliant, is obviously unfitted
for such a position. 3. _Facility in learning to speak in a foreign
tongue._ A foreign language, and most of all an Oriental language, is
difficult to acquire, especially so as to use it readily and fluently
in common speech. Some men of good abilities have here failed in the
foreign field, and, though useful perhaps in other departments, have
never been effective in preaching. There should be, at least, an
ordinary aptitude for language sufficient to ensure that with
persevering effort the man will be able to master and use the
vernacular of the people. 4. _Power as a preacher._ Preaching, among
the heathen as elsewhere, is the grand means of evangelization, and the
conditions of power in it are everywhere essentially the same. The
missionary must be "apt to teach," with a ready command of his
faculties for argument and illustration, and a mastery of the art of
putting things. In the conversational method of preaching in heathen
lands, he is often obliged to meet in popular argument acute and
profound reasoners, when his defeat before the people might prove a
serious check to the Gospel. 5. _Faith, energy, and perseverance._ At
these outposts of Christianity a timid, wavering spirit, faint-hearted
and irresolute, will be sure to fail. Courage, determination, energy,
alone will achieve permanent results. Carey and Judson waited years
with unfaltering confidence for the first convert, and without
substantially the same elements of character no man will succeed in
pioneer work.
In deciding on the qualifications of a young man, however, it is to be
remembered that he is as yet, in many respects, undeveloped, and
qualities now present only in the germ and tendency will often in the
actual work reveal themselves in marked power. Abroad, as at home,
circumstances and emergencies develop the man. No young man, therefore,
may hastily dismiss the question of a personal call to the foreign
field on the ground of disqualification. Rather, he should carefully
study his own character, and seek counsel of those best fitted to judge
his capabilities, that in deciding a question of such moment he may act
deliberately, with a full and impartial view of all the considerations,
and with a clear conscience, always recognizing the danger that
unconsciously to ourselves our selfishness is likely to magnify the
reasons adverse to a missionary life and underestimate the force of
those in favor of it.
The nature of the missionary work and the manner of its prosecution I
shall not here consider: these will be found very fully presented in
the work of the late lamented Rev. M. J. Knowlton, D.D., _The Foreign
Missionary,_ and in that of Rev. Dr. Rufus Anderson, entitled, _Foreign
Missions, their Relations and Claims._ The position of a missionary is
in some respects one of great delicacy, and requires on his part the
most careful circumspection. Here may be mentioned: 1. His relation to
the Missionary Board at home. Charged with the administration of the
funds entrusted to them by the churches, the Board must of necessity
exercise a certain measure of supervision and guidance in the conduct
of the foreign work. The exact line of demarcation between the
authority of the Board and the independence of the missionary in
directing movements is not always easy to discover, and without a
spirit of gentleness, forbearance, and concession the most serious
complications may arise. In the expenditures of the mission, also, the
keeping and rendering of an exact account are of the utmost moment, so
as to avoid even the suspicion of wastefulness or malappropriation. The
rule of Paul is here, as in all financial trusts, the only safe one:
"Being careful of this, that no one should blame us in this abundance
which is administered by us; for we provide for what is honorable, not
only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men" (2 Cor.
viii. 20, 21[1]). 2. His relations to the native pastors and churches
are also of great delicacy. In the older missions the work of the
missionary is largely that of general supervision of the native
churches. But in this the missionary may not exercise an arbitrary
power. He is not a bishop with authoritative episcopal power,
subjecting the pastors under control and ignoring the independence of
the churches. Rather, his power is moral, and his work is to train the
churches and pastors for the independent exercise of their respective
functions. He should, therefore, carefully guard against an arbitrary
spirit or any methods of procedure which could militate against the
just independence of pastors and churches. It is a distinguished proof
of the high character of the noble men who have gone out as
missionaries that, while in these and other respects their relations
are of such delicacy, difficulties between them and the home Board have
so rarely arisen, and the churches they have trained so fully exemplify
in their character, organization, and working the simplicity and
independence of the churches of the New Testament.
II. HOME MISSIONARIES.--Most of these are pastors of new or feeble
churches, and their position differs from that of ordinary pastors only
in the fact that their support is derived in part from some missionary
organization, and that they are under consequent obligation to render a
report of their work to the body which thus aids in sustaining them.
Some of them, however, are engaged in purely itinerant ministerial work
in the waste places of our cities, or in newly-settled or unevangelized
parts of our country, visiting from house to house, preaching as
Providence may give opportunity, organizing Sunday-schools, and forming
churches. Few positions demand more force of character, soundness of
judgment, intellectual ability, indomitable energy, and
self-sacrificing devotion. Among the men occupied in this work are some
of the noblest and most devoted servants of Christ. Their duties,
however, being in most respects the same as those of ordinary pastors,
do not need here a separate treatment.
III. REVIVALISTS.--In all ages gifts have been bestowed specially
adapted to the awakening and conversion of souls. These gifts may not,
and sometimes do not, fit the man for the pastoral office, but as
supplementing a pastor's gifts they are often of high value. The
revivalist may not always possess the learning and teaching power of
the settled pastor; he might perhaps fail in the qualities essential to
the continuous guiding, organizing, and governing of a church; but in
power to make vivid the truths and impressions already received by the
people, to develop hitherto latent conviction, and to press men to a
definite and avowed religious decision, he may be specially gifted.
Some pastors eminent in teaching and pastoral qualifications lack the
awakening power, and thus it is often true in the spiritual work that
"one soweth and another reapeth." In such cases the revivalist comes as
a reaper, with special gifts for ingathering, where the long and
patient toil of the sower and cultivator has preceded him and has
already prepared in the souls of the people the ripening spiritual
harvest.
1. The relation of the evangelist to the pastor, in special religious
services, is always one of great delicacy. The most frank understanding
and cordial co-operation between them is of the highest moment. Much
care, therefore, should be taken not to encroach on the prerogatives of
the pastoral office, or to lessen the estimation in which the pastor is
held by the people. There is sometimes danger of this. The sermons of
the evangelist, limited as they are in number and frequently repeated,
not only have the attraction of novelty to the people, but are often
spiced with a fulness of anecdote and delivered with a freedom and
force which the pastor's cannot possess, by reason of the different and
wider range of subjects which he must discuss and the far heavier and
more extended draft made on his resources. The less thoughtful hearers
will contrast what seems to them to be the comparative dullness of the
pastor with the freshness and spice of the evangelist, and the pastor
unjustly suffers. Among the converts also there is often a special
attraction to him who had been the immediate agent in their conversion,
while the long and patient toil of him who had probably prepared the
way for that final step is overlooked or disparaged. Plainly, it is the
duty of the evangelist to recognize and hold in check these tendencies,
and to strengthen in every possible way the pastor's position in the
convictions and affections of the people. He may thus render his work a
permanent blessing in the churches by making it the means of cementing
the relation of pastor and people.
2. A young pastor will naturally defer in the arrangements for the
meetings to the judgment and experience of the evangelist, but it is
doubtful whether, under any circumstances, an evangelist should seek
the control of them, or a pastor should concede it to him. Especially
should the pastor maintain the control of those meetings in which
candidates for admission to the church are examined; for here the
pastor, apart from the official duty Christ has laid on him in this
vital matter, has by his acquaintance with the people much better
qualifications for judging character, and is far less likely to mistake
than a stranger. Indeed, the temptation to seek the _éclat_ of a large
accession of converts may enter as an unconscious influence in the case
of both evangelist and pastor, leading to undue haste and neglect of
just discrimination in the admission of members, and resulting in great
ultimate injury to the church. No point, therefore, needs to be more
carefully guarded.
3. The object of the evangelist is the awakening of souls and the
revival of religion; his subjects, therefore, are properly adapted in
their nature and in the manner of their presentation to secure that
result. The range of topics is thus necessarily limited, and the manner
is naturally stimulating and exciting. From this comparative narrowness
in the range of his theme and of his biblical and theological
investigation, there is danger of one-sidedness in his views of truth.
Seeking as he does, also, immediate results, he is liable to fail in
perceiving and estimating at their just importance ultimate results in
the permanent life and power of the church. Measures have sometimes
been adopted in the midst of a religious excitement which the calm
after-thought of the people could not approve, and the result has been
a reaction in the public judgment, condemning the work and seriously
injuring the church.
4. Eccentricity in the evangelist, when it is natural as a part of his
individuality, may possibly be an element of power, at least as
awakening curiosity and calling the people to the house of God, but
when assumed and cultivated with a view to popular effect it is always
unfortunate. Sensational subjects, slang phrases, vulgarisms,
overcolored anecdotes, exaggerated statements, oddities of manner,
though for the moment exciting the attention, and possibly the
applause, of the audience, inevitably in the end react to the
disadvantage of the speaker and his cause; the sober after-thought of
even the irreligious will condemn them in one who is dealing with souls
in the great concerns of religion.
"He that negotiates between God and man,
As God's ambassador, the grand concerns
Of judgment and of mercy should beware
Of lightness in his speech. 'Tis pitiful
To court a grin when you should woo a soul;
To break a jest when pity would inspire
Pathetic exhortation; and t' address
The skittish fancy with pathetic tales
When sent with God's commission to the heart."[2]
The evangelist, perhaps, is in special danger of seeking the temporary
advantage which eccentricity brings, because for the time it gathers
the multitude to his preaching; and, leaving soon, he fails to see the
disastrous reaction which afterward it is sure to bring.
5. Some of the most eminent evangelists have used substantially the
same subjects through their entire career, at each repetition of them
adding to their clearness and force of argument vividness of
illustration and effectiveness of appeal. Rev. Jacob Knapp, whose work
has perhaps been surpassed in extent and power by no preacher of the
present century, adopted this method. The writer was with him in three
series of meetings, the first near the opening of his remarkable
career, the last about thirty years after, near its close, and in each
of these that distinguished revivalist used, for the most part, the
same subjects. But the advance in all elements of power was immense,
especially in the last repetition of his course. Few persons in the
vast multitude which gathered daily for six successive weeks to listen
to this, which proved the closing series of his life, can ever forget
the compactness and force of his reasoning, the graphic power of his
illustration, and the wonderful effectiveness in his application of
truth to the conscience and the heart. He had gathered into that series
of seventy-five or one hundred sermons the richest results of his
life-thinking and experience and had made most of them marvels of
power. This concentration of the whole force of the man on a few
sermons gives the evangelist great advantage in the pulpit and would
seem to be the dictate of true wisdom.
6. In his personal religious life the evangelist, while possessing
great helps, has a possible danger on the side of spiritual pride.
Moving constantly in the midst of revivals, he is liable to forget that
for the most part he is simply reaping where other men have sown, and
that conversion is but the culminating point in a long series of
influences of which his was only the last; and in the grateful
affection of revived Christians and of converted souls, which sometimes
rises to spiritual adulation, he may fail in that genuine humility
which recognizes all spiritual effects as the work of the Holy Spirit,
and may unconsciously assume an air of spiritual superiority painfully
in contrast with his obvious weaknesses. Power with God is thus lost,
and with it, power with men.
There is no ministerial office of higher responsibility or greater
usefulness than that of the evangelist. It has been filled by some of
the noblest and ablest men in the church of God--men "full of the Holy
Ghost and of faith," whose names are fragrant in the memories of
multitudes as heralds of salvation. Ordinarily, only experienced men
should enter it; for it requires a purity and strength of character, a
soundness of judgment, and a largeness of faith and patience, of
practical wisdom and knowledge of men, such as extended experience only
will give.