THE KING’ S BUSINESS
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when she forgot it, she failed. This is the church’s shame—shall we say crime?— that since the Master’s final command for world evangelization was given, twenty centuries have struck on the clock o f ages, more than sixty generations have lived, suffered, sinned, died, with an aggregate population o f ten to twenty times the present number o f the human race. This great number have perished, not only unsaved, but unwarned. For such a state o f things the Christian church has no apology. Standing òne day in front o f the moun tains o f Moab and casting my eyes over them into that great region west o f the Jordan, I was informed by the missionary who stood by my - side that among the fifteen million Mohammedans in that region he ,was the only Protestant mis sionary. Think o f it—one missionary among 15,000,000 o f people! I was woe fully impressed with the small handful of American missionaries in Cairo, that great capital of the Egyptian empire with its teeming Mohammedan population and-its great Mohammedan University with 12,000- students preparing to be Mohammedan priests. It seemed to me, on looking over tlie ground, as though the Christian Church was simply playing at missions. I had a similar impression as the result of a careful view of Missionary effort in Jerusalem and Palestine. Should we not think o f all these things when considering a field for our Christian activity ? It was such a consid eration that led William Borden, that rich, gifted, Christian man, when looking for a field jn which he could do most for Christ, to choose the great Mohammedan world as that field. T o that splendid Christian hero it was the darkest and the neediest field, therefore he chose it. Standing with uncovered head, one day last May, by the side of the grave of this young Christian hero, in Cairo, Egypt, I sent up a prayer similar to that which I saw on thè grave stone of David Livingstone, in Westminster Abbey: “All I can add in my solitude is, May-heaven’s rich blessings come down on every one, American, English, or Turk,
Then, think, in the second place, o f the command o f the Master, Go ye into all the' world, and preach the gospel to every creature” The comtnand is go, not stay. W e shall have to give account at the last day not only o f why we-did not go, but why we stayed at home. The Duke of Wellington was once asked by a young clergyman, who knew the Duke had been, in India, if by reason o f the condition of the people it was not useless to preach to them. The Duke replied, “ Look, sir, to your marching orders, which arc, Go, preadh the gospel to every creature.” WHERE IS THE NEED? Where, think you, lies the greatest call to labor for the Master—in these enlight ened,' civilized countries where the streets and homes are ablaze with gospel light, and where on almost every corner the gos7 pel is; proclaimed? Or in darkest Africa or Inland China, or West o f the Jordan, or in Mohammedan lands where gospel ignorance is as dark as Egyptian midnight ? Do you know that since Matthew 28 :19 was spoken by our Lord, that after these twenty centuries since the uttering of that parting commission there are now in-rthis day 25,000 different districts in-the non- christian world, every one o f them con taining 25,00(1 individuals who know not Christ nor the gospel. ; All these 25,000 districts are unoccupied by a single mis sionary; no one is offering to supply them in the name of Christ. When in our coun try one out o f every four persons is a member o f a Protestant church, and when if every one o f us did his duty he would only have to preach the gospel to three or four in this land o f ours -does it not seem that tfiese 25,000 parishes each of 25,000 members would be more of an appeal, more o f a calf to the disciple of Jesus Christ for a field o f evangelistic effort ? A t the beginning o f this age there stood the cross, and from its shadow the disciples -of Jesus launched out to plant that cross in every soil, - and to cause its ensign to - wave in every breeze. And so long as the church continued-this work, she prospered;.
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