062. THE DECREE OF GOD THE GREAT ENCOURAGEMENT TO MISSIONS'

THE DECREE OF GOD THE GREAT ENCOURAGEMENT TO MISSIONS’

Fathers And Brethren :—I count it a great and undeserved honor that I am called to preside over the meetings of the American Baptist Missionary Union. My predecessors in the chair have been men greatly revered and beloved, and I shrink from the attempt to follow them. Two things, however, give me encouragement. The first is that in becoming your president I enter into the heritage of many prayers, past and present, for the officers and servants of the Union. The second is that I know I may rely upon your kind and cordial co-operation.

Both the place and the time in which we meet should give us stimulus and hope. The star of Christ’s empire has been taking its way westward, and in this meeting the Missionary Union holds its first session in the Mountain States. Herein it asserts its claim to the boundless continent, and makes tributary to missions the invention, the commerce, the resources of these rising commonwealths. Never before have we met so near to the setting sun. It is a proof that Baptists new and old, east and west, recognize their oneness in Christ and their common obligation to make our whole land a missionary to the whole world.

What a time is this! We stand at the end of the first century of Baptist missions. One hundred years ago we were a feeble folk both at home and abroad. But God put into the heart of William Carey the impulse to carry the gospel to the heathen, and missions have been our salvation. "There is that scattereth and yet increaseth." While we have accomplished more in the foreign field than any other American evangelical denomination, our growth at home has also been more rapid than that of any other. We enter upon our second century with numbers and wealth marvelously increased. We have material resources of which the fathers never dreamed. Have we the liberality and the faith to use these resources aright? This has been the test question of the last twelve-month. Until this year, in spite of the fact that God had given us twice as many converts as any other Society could show, more than one other Society could point to contributions twice as great as ours. In our centennial year we have sought to rectify this great deficiency. Our million dollar enterprise was simply our effort to make our gifts to God correspond more nearly to God’s gifts to us. It is a wonder that we have succeeded so well; how well, the Chairman of the Centennial Committee will inform you; enough for me to say that we have with God’s help given more than we ever gave before; we have added ninety-one per cent, to the contributions of the preceding year; we have paid our heavy debt; we have secured funds for a considerable enlargement of our work. We have proof that God is with us. We are encouraged to believe that temporal prosperity will not be permitted to ruin us, and to trust that God will give us a liberal heart so that our great gains may be made a means of promoting the progress of his kingdom. The alternations of hope and fear through which many of us have passed during the last few months have suggested to me the subject to which I would lead your thoughts in this opening address. I have felt that we must build our hopes on something more solid than money and more permanent than popular excitement. Financial panic may sweep away our wealth; transient bursts of enthusiasm may be succeeded by comparative apathy. The grounds of our hope are not in man but in God. I wish to point you this morning to one of these permanent grounds of hope, and I state as the theme of my remarks: The Purpose of God to give the World to Christ is the great Encouragement to Missions.