15 Sermon Illustrations on Evangelism and Missions

GOOROOS.—About the year 1820, a number of persons were found in a few villages near Dacca, in India, who had forsaken idolatry, and who constantly refused to render to the Brahmins the customary honors. They were said also to be remarkable for the correctness of their conduct, and particularly for their adherence to truth. They were the followers of no particular leader, but from their professing to be in search of a true Gooroo or teacher, they were termed Sutya-Gooroos. It was said that they had derived all their principles from a book which was carefully preserved in one of their villages.

Some native Christians resolved to visit the sect of whom they had heard so many remarkable particulars. The singular book from which their principles were derived, was exhibited to the visitors. It was much worn, and was preserved in a case of metal resembling brass. Whence it came no one could tell. On examination, it was found to be a copy of the first edition of the Bengalee New Testament, printed at Serampore in 1800. This copy of a part of the sacred volume seemed to have thus prepared many inhabitants scattered through ten or twelve villages, to receive religious instruction from missionaries, who afterwards labored among them with success.

# 6). Miscellaneous Conversions.

It is related by Dr. Henderson, that during his travels in Northern Europe, he was detained for a time in Copenhagen. While there, he states that he employed himself in translating the tract entitled, "The Great Question Answered," and that the circulation of this tract had been traced as the source of all the Bible Societies in Russia, Sweden, and the neighboring countries.

# DENT SPIRITS.

the little family, except the husband and father, who was from home. When he returned to his little interesting family what a sight met his eyes!—enough, it would seem, to curdle his blood, and change the man to stone! There lay the mother and her five little ones—from ten years of age down to infancy—stretched upon the floor, swimming in blood, and all dead! Oh! what desolation was there?

In the year 1877, Col. Robert G. Ingersoll made an extended tour of the Pacific coast. He spoke in several of the larger cities, and at length arrived at Portland. There was in the city a certain missionary to the Chinooks. He could not afford a ticket to the lecture, and was greatly disturbed at what he read concerning it. Yet he felt a strong desire to meet Colonel Ingersoll, and a common friend procured a meeting between them.

There was a moment of restraint, relieved by the greater ease of Colonel Ingersoll, who began the conversation by inquiring concerning the work of the missionary. A little mirthfully he questioned him about the advisability of exporting religion, of which there might not be any surplus at home, and inquired, somewhat doubtfully, about the wisdom of a man giving his life to a hopeless task in attempting to teach a small and vanishing tribe things of which we ourselves have perhaps less knowledge than we suppose.

The answers of the missionary, however, interested Colonel Ingersoll. He inquired about the “Chinook jargon,” that mongrel speech, made of English, Canadian French, Chinook and other Indian words, picked up from several tribes, and all softened and modified to suit deficiencies of pronunciation; the _r_ changed into _l_, after the Chinese manner, and the grammar “made by chopping up words with a tomahawk.”

How could a man preach in a language where one word had to serve as noun, verb and adjective? How could a man of education make himself understood in a language with only four parts of speech and some fragments? How could he tell the story of Peter’s denial in a language which, having only one word for all manner of feathered things, and no verb for the act of crowing, made it necessary for the speaker to imitate the act and sound? How could he tell that Peter swore, in a language that had no verb “to curse,” but had plenty of oaths inherited from traders in various tongues? How could he impart any idea of sacred things in a polyglot of slang?

The missionary told him the story of his work--how he preached as best he could in the poor, meager speech of the people, meantime teaching the children English, encouraging them in useful arts, fighting the vices of civilization as they made inroads among the people, and doing what he could for them as adviser and friend. It was hard work, and not very encouraging, but it was worth doing, and he was happy in it.

In telling his story thus, encouraged and led on by a man trained and skilful in cross-examination, the missionary unconsciously disclosed many of the hardships and privations which his work entailed upon him. Possibly, and indeed probably, he had not thought of them seriously as hardships, and therefore he related with telling simplicity the stories of long journeys by canoe and on horseback, of nights in the open, of poor and sometimes revolting food eaten in savage company. There was no word of complaint, nor even the least expression of regret, except for books and papers and magazines missed.

When the missionary rose to go, Colonel Ingersoll took his hand warmly, and said, “I thank you for coming to see me. This interests me very much. It’s good work you are doing, it’s good work. And here, take this. I am not a frequent contributor to missionary work, but I like this.”

Into the missionary’s hand he dropt a bright twenty-dollar gold piece.--_Youth’s Companion._

An experience of my own in connection with the Kiang-peh famine in China illustrates the situation on most mission fields to-day. Tarrying in Chinkiang for a few days before proceeding up the canal, I saw considerable of the refugee camp outside the city wall. Altho one of the smaller camps, this one held perhaps forty thousand refugees from up country, all living on the bare and frozen ground, and the most comfortable of them having only an improvised hut of straw matting to shelter them. The tide of relief had not yet begun to flow from America and Europe. Moved by compassion for the suffering ones, Mrs. John W. Paxton made daily rounds to administer what medical relief was possible. One day I accompanied her, and she translated the words of the people. The commonest complaint we heard that morning from these starving Chinese was that they had lost their appetites! On their faces was the unmistakable famine pallor; hunger had driven them hither from their homes--yet they had no taste for food! The tragedy of it was overwhelming. They had no appetite, because they had reached the last stages of starvation, and were dying. They did not want food, for the very reason that they needed it so badly. Heathendom does not want the gospel, because it needs it. Starving for the bread of life, it yet protests no desire for this supreme boon. Heathendom does not desire Christianity for the very reason that it is heathendom.--WILLIAM T. ELLIS, “Men and Missions.”

Great minds that are full of light; great hearts that are full of love--their light will go out into the ends of the earth, and their shining unto the ends of the world.

A recent history of the steam engine says Stephenson knew “that if he could get his engine perfected, the rest would take care of itself.” Certainly! That man who discovered the lucifer match did not have to force it upon poor men, shivering in the cold and frost of winter. When James Watt has an engine that will lift coal out of a mine, he does not have to insist that it be accepted by laborers bowed to the very ground by sacks of mineral. Let Gutenberg get his printing-press, and all these copyists, weary of writing, and the millions of men hungry for knowledge, will greet his printed page with shouts and cheers. Get your seedless orange, and it will take feet unto itself and travel over the world. Get the new palm, the new peach or pear, and millions will stretch out their hands pleading for it. Get Luther--the new Germany will follow. Get Livingstone, and the Dark Continent will soon be full of light. Get your Pilgrim Fathers--the republic will tread closely upon their heels. Get your twelve apostles, and you will soon have a New Jerusalem, a new Antioch, a new Ephesus, a new Rome. Get your new Pentecost for the American churches, and you will have a new era and a golden age of industrial peace and commercial prosperity.

— N. D. HILLIS

During the forty years between 1778 and 1818, the population had decreased from 400,000 to 150,000--nearly two-thirds; so that the Christian enterprise which evangelized the Hawaiians saved a nation from extinction, for in twenty years more, at the same rate of decrease, the Hawaiian Islands would have been an uninhabited waste.--PIERSON, “The Miracles of Missions.”

James Chalmers, the martyred missionary of New Guinea, said:

I have had twenty-one years’ experience among the South Sea Islanders, and for at least nine years of my life I have lived with the savages of New Guinea. I have seen the semi-civilized and the uncivilized; I have lived with the Christian native, and I have lived, dined and slept with the cannibal. But I have never yet met a single man or woman, or a single people, that your civilization without Christianity has civilized. Wherever there has been the slightest spark of civilized life in the Southern Seas, it has been because the gospel has been preached there; and wherever you find in the island of New Guinea a friendly people, or a people that will welcome you, there the missionaries of the cross have been preaching Christ. (Text.)--_Missionary Review of the World._

The Hawaiian Islands are among the greatest of the marvels of missionary success.

During the five years ending June, 1841, 7,557 persons were received into the Church at Hilo, constituting three-fourths of the whole adult population of the parish. When Titus Coan left Hilo, in 1870, he had himself received and baptized 11,960 persons.--PIERSON, “The Miracles of Missions.”