The Fundamentals - 1910: Vol.12

96

The Fundamentals doing what she could to take the Gospel to the heathen and thus to hasten the return to earth of her beloved Lord. AN APPLICATION Miss Stayner’s life is more than an illustration; it is an interpretation. For it shows beyond misunderstanding what is the effect upon an open mind and heart of true scriptural motives. Here was a woman who had everything, naturally speaking, to keep her at home, but who deliberately chose to go abroad. Here was one who had faced the question of her responsibility toward the heathen, not emotionally, but calmly, and who finally had gone forth for no other reason than that her Master had commanded her to do so. Here was one who at first had little love for the heathen, but whose heart, in the path of obedience, became filled with compassion for them. And here, finally, was one who had remained steadfast and even praiseful through all her suffering and sorrow because she had learned to serve with her eyes fixed upon Him who is the Coming One. Arid thus the interpretation becomes an in­ spiration. For Miss Stayner’s life and service are a con­ straining call, to all who know and love the Lord, to do as she did, in being wholly obedient to God and in committing all to Him. And it is not too much to say that if Christians should follow her as she followed Christ it would not be long before there would be produced a veritable revolution in missionary methods and results. Then indeed we might hope to see foreign missions turned into an apostolic triumph, where the old figure of speech, “terrible as an army with banners,” would but feebly express what God would make His Church on earth to be. For it is manifest that our Father in heaven has large thoughts toward the heathen, and that He is ready to use His saints in their fulfilment whenever they will allow Him to do so. But it is to be remembered, that this last can only come to pass in the measure in which the followers of Christ are possessed and controlled by those motives which are truly and wholly divine.

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