_Witnesses unto the Uttermost Part of the Earth_
The breadth of the Christian's vision is exceeded only by its height,
and his influence is coterminous with nothing less than the human fabric
of which he is a part. By faith man penetrates into the heaven of
heavens and reaches the very presence of God himself, a privilege and
duty which belong not to a favoured few but to the race.
_Too low they build, who build beneath the stars,_
is a truth of universal application. But just as the stars must not
limit man's vision as he gazes up, neither must the horizon limit his
vision as he looks abroad. Christian energy is not doing its full work
unless it aims at touching the uttermost part of the earth. That which
is recorded in Acts 1: 8[31] tells of an abiding principle and not
merely of a historic fact. Our Lord is speaking through that group of
representative men who witnessed His Ascension, to all who become his
followers. Not the Apostles alone but all Christians are destined to be
His witnesses "unto the uttermost part of the earth." It is only to be
expected that those who have the power to explore the secrets of the
divine Being, will also have this lesser power of world-wide influence,
which after all, great as it is, is infinitely less aspiring than the
former. The same faith that enables us to love and serve our Lord in
heaven, equips us to love and serve the men of the remote parts of the
earth. To have the former is to be heir to the latter.
Men who imbibe this principle and make it part of themselves are said to
have missionary spirit. But it cannot be too strongly insisted that this
spirit is not something over and above the common Christian character;
for it is not a possession which we are to claim simply because we are
bidden to do so, spurred to it by the "icy purity of the law of duty."
The missionary spirit is inherent in Christianity. Even though Christ
had never said, "Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the
nations,"[32] even if He had not assured His followers that they were to
be witnesses "unto the uttermost part of the earth," it would have made
no practical difference in the final issue of Christian truth. The
Church would have been missionary just the same--S. Paul, S. Augustine,
S. Columba, S. Francis Xavier, would have striven for the Gospel's sake
none the less boldly, none the less zealously. The missionary is not a
missionary because of a few missionary texts in the Bible. He is a
missionary because he is a Christian. All Christ's commands are
invitations, which merely put into concise language what the heart
already recognizes as its privilege and joy. The missionary
commission[33] is the Church's charter, telling all men of her right to
dare to make Christianity coterminous with humanity, arresting the
attention of those to whom the missionary is sent rather than acting as
the sole motive power of the missionary; from it we get definite
authority, and so a measure of inspiration, but we do not rest upon it,
as though it were by an arbitrary fiat of God that a Christian were
converted into a missionary.[34] The latter term tells of one aspect of
the Christian character, that is all. Whoever accepts Christ's
Christianity--the redundancy is necessary--forthwith becomes a
missionary.[35] Andrew needed no injunction to seek Peter; he did it
because, being a follower of Christ, he could not help it. And if he had
refrained, he would have ceased at that moment to be a disciple.
Christians, whether considered individually or corporately, who are not
missionary in desire and intention, are Christians only in name, getting
little from and contributing nothing to the religion of the Incarnation.
If the foregoing contention be true, the definition of "missionary"
stands sadly in need of revision. A missionary is an honourable title
not to be reserved only for those who work for God in the waste places
of His vineyard, but the coveted possession of every Christian who
strives to bear a wide witness, as well as deep, to Christ among men.
Missionary service is a _personal_ thing; it cannot be deputed to
another any more than it can have something else as a substitute for it.
Contributing money in order that others may be maintained in their
missionary undertakings, does not exempt the donor from personal
service himself. Every Christian is bound to strive to deepen and widen,
by the force of his personality in Christ, the Kingdom of God. Of course
there is a narrower and a wider missionary spirit. The latter is reached
by faithfulness to the former, here as well as elsewhere effective
breadth beginning in depth. All missionary power begins (as well as
ends) in that unconscious witness[36] which the Christian character
bears to Christ. So infectious a thing is God's truth, that to receive
it is to spread it.
_As one lamp lights another nor grows less,
So nobleness enkindleth nobleness_.
"Ye _are_ the light of the world;" "Ye _are_ the salt of the earth." And
it is that part of the character which easily, simply and naturally lays
hold on Christ, that first sheds God's light abroad and becomes the
preservative element of society.
It is further noticeable that the sphere of Christian influence as
alluded to by our Lord in the Sermon on the Mount, corresponds with the
sphere of witness-bearing marked out by Him in His parting words before
the Ascension--"Ye are the light of _the world_;" "Ye are the salt of
_the earth_;" "Ye shall be witnesses unto the uttermost part of the
earth." To recognize the fact that the Christian life is the most
invincible and the most permeating influence that the world can ever
know, is an enormous incentive to consistency and zealous devotion.
Christian character is the only force which a man can both leave behind
him, and take with him when he comes to die. Nothing can withstand it,
and nothing can check its career. It is bound to impress all that it
touches, and it touches everything--"the world," "the earth." It is not
too much to hold that unconscious influence always exceeds conscious
influence, the latter reaching the zenith of its effectiveness only when
it has been transformed, by constant use, into the former. It is in the
home that the Christian begins that witness-bearing, which is destined
to reach so far.
But the widest missionary spirit is inclusive. It is not a substitute
for home work, any more than public life is a substitute for family
life. The former is the extension of the latter. The disciples of the
first days reached the uttermost part of the earth through Jerusalem and
all Judaea and Samaria; while the disciples of these latter days must
touch the bounds of the world through the parish, the diocese, the
Church of the nation. Nothing, no matter how fine and striking it may
be, can take the place of loyalty to the duties that are nearest at
hand. Church life may be conceived of as a series of concentric circles,
the innermost of which representing parochial relations, the next
diocesan missions, then domestic, and the outermost circle foreign
missions. Power to traverse the large circumference comes from
faithfully treading the round of those that lie within, beginning with
that next the centre. The only way to have power and to serve abroad is
to live a deep full life at home, and, let it be added, the only way to
have large power and to serve at home is to cast the eye far abroad and
wind the interests of a whole world around the heart. And the spiritual
force of the foreign mission field is no lying index of the spiritual
condition of the home Church; it tells the tale as truly as the pulse
reports for the heart. It may be perfectly true of every other society
of men that mere concentration is the secret of power, but it is not so
with the Church. Any ecclesiastical unit, be it parish, diocese,
province, or national Church, which is content to feed itself on rich
spiritual food, without regard for the rest of the world, will sooner or
later be filled with disease and die. However specious a form
self-contemplation may assume, it inevitably ends in ruin, for it leads
to isolation; and what is isolation but the most awful and irretrievable
of catastrophes? The only true independence is that which is the fruit
of interdependence. A given Church may have all the appearance of
life--there may be popularity, large property, handsome equipment and
other signs of outward prosperity--but within there is nothing but
death. It is just as wrong and just as fatal to hold aloof, on any plea
soever, from the common life of the entire Church at home and abroad, as
it is to cut ourselves off from the Church of the past by a denial of
fundamental truth. The former, quite as much as the latter, is a
departure from Apostolic Christianity, and so merits the opprobrious
name of schism.
It is a strange but inflexible spiritual law, that those who aim at
anything short of the best according to their conception, as God has
given them light, will sooner or later come to grief. It is merely a
matter of time. The hope of Christianity lies in its boldness. The
Church is strong when she is daring, and only then; her strength rises
and falls with her courage--victory is faith.[37] What an inspiration to
every parish, the lowliest and poorest as well as the numerically strong
and financially rich!--the uttermost part of the earth is within the
reach of its influence: ay, more than that, is in need of its prayers
and its labours. Work for foreign missions is the climax and crown of
Christian life, not a sluggish tributary to it. And a parish will be in
the vanguard of God's forces or far in the rear, according as it rises
to its responsibility in this direction or not.
There is an immense amount of untutored missionary desire. That is to
say, there are vast numbers of Christians whose hearts burn towards
those who do not know Christ, but there is no man to teach them how to
crystallize desire into prayer and action and let the stream of their
desire run clear and full; there are many others, too, who have a narrow
missionary spirit and who linger in Judaea and Samaria, only because they
have never been shown how it is possible to reach unto the uttermost
part of the earth. The fire is there, but it smoulders for want of fuel.
Men need direction for their missionary aspirations; they need to be
instructed in the work that is being done. We cannot expect people to be
interested in what they know nothing about. If the cause of missions is
presented as an abstraction, and men are urged to give "on principle,"
the gifts that come will be such as cost the givers nothing. And as for
prayers--well, there will be none, for prayers cannot live on
abstractions. The clergy should be the leaders in making the missions of
the Church a living thing; and it is nothing short of a scandal that so
many pulpits are closed to those who wear the title of "missionary." But
whatever be the shortcomings of the clergy, there is no more reason why
Christian laymen should be ignorant of the general features of Church
work in the far West or in China and Japan than that they should be
ignorant of international politics; and there is more reason for shame
on account of ignorance in the former than in the latter case. Once
waken men's interest in the work abroad as a concrete reality, and there
will be stronger prayer, more numerous offers for personal service in
foreign work from the best and bravest, more liberal contributions in
money.
It has already been hinted that not only does the uttermost part of the
earth need Christianity, but that Christianity needs the uttermost part
of the earth. We cannot fully know Christ until all the nations have
seen and believed and told their vision. The Church of God is poor, in
that it lacks the contribution which the un-Christianized nations alone
can give by being evangelized. Just as the speculative East needed in
the first days the practical West to balance its concept of the Gospel,
and _vice versa_, so it is now. Before we can see the full glory of the
Incarnation, representatives of all nations must blend their vision with
that which has already been granted. Every separate stone must be set
before the temple reaches its final splendour. Foreign missions are as
much for the Church's sake as for the heathen's, as much for the eternal
profit of those who are sent as for those to whom they go.
No attempt has been made in these pages to argue as with men who do not
believe in the widest missionary enterprise, for missionary spirit is
not created by argument. Indeed, many an objection is but the instrument
by which persons convict themselves of being Christian only in name.
There is no answer to what they say excepting, "Of course you cannot
believe in missions, because it is evident you do not believe in Christ.
To believe in Christ is to believe in missions, missions unto the
uttermost part of the earth." It would be a shame to appear to apologize
for what is of the essence of Christianity. So we turn away from all
smaller reasoning, to the one great spring and impulse of mission work
far and near. The Christian has to see those whom Christ sees, for the
follower looks through his master's eyes; the Christian has to love and
serve those whom Christ loves and serves, for the follower lives only in
his master's spirit. Consequently, he must see, love and serve unto the
uttermost part of the earth. Being a follower of Christ, he cannot help
it; he does it for the same reason and with the same naturalness that
the sun shines and the rose sheds its fragrance abroad.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] _Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea,
and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth._
[32] _St. Matt. xxviii_: 19.
[33] _St. Matt. xxviii:_ 19, 20.
[34] _The following remarkable phrase occurs in Bp. Andrewes'
Devotions:--Who_ [i. e., _Christ_] _hath manifested in every place the
savour of His knowledge ... by the incredible conversion of the world to
the Faith, without assistance of authority, without intervention of
persuasion._
[35] _The Brotherhood of S. Andrew is nothing more than an organized
effort to fulfil a common Christian duty._
[36] _Cf. Emerson's verses on unconscious influence_:
_Little thinks, in the field, yon red cloaked clown
Of thee from the hill-top looking down;
The heifer that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
The sexton, tolling his bell at noon,
Deems not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse, and lists with delight,
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbour's creed has lent._
[37] _1 John v: 4._