22 Sermon Illustrations on Missionary Work

One day, Mr. Wilfred Grenfell, medical missionary to Labrador, was guest at a dinner in London together with a number of socially prominent British men and women. During the course of the dinner, the lady seated next to him turned and said, "Is it true, Dr. Grenfell, that you are a missionary?" Dr. Grenfell looked at her for a moment before replying, "Is it true, madam, that you are not?"

I believe, sir, we are on the eve of a general engagement. Now, sir, borrowing the allusion, will you permit me to marshal the Christian army on those principles of union I have endeavored to sustain? Let, then, our Bible societies, with their auxiliaries, be a line of forts established along the enemy's frontier as bulwarks of defence; let them be military magazines well stored with spiritual weapons and gospel ammunition, general rallying-points for the whole army, and strongholds from whence our missionary riflemen may sally forth on the enemy. Let our sabbath schools be military academies, in which the young cadets may be trained for the battles of the Lord. Let the tract societies be as so many shot-houses for the manufacture of that small but useful material. Having thus, sir, disposed of the outworks, let us endeavor to arrange the army. Suppose, sir, for example, we begin with the Methodists; and as they are said to be tolerable pioneers and excellent foragers in new countries, and active, withal, I propose that we mount them on horseback, and employ them as cavalry, especially on the frontiers. And as our Presbyterian brethren love an open field, and act in concert, and move in solid bodies, let them constitute our infantry; let them occupy the centre in solid columns, and fight, according to Napoleon's tactics, in military squares, ever presenting a firm front to the enemy. Our Baptist brethren we will station along the rivers and lakes, which, we doubt not, they will gallantly defend, and win many laurels in the lake warfare. Our brethren of the Protestant-Episcopal Church shall man the garrisons, inspect the magazines, and direct the batteries. But, sir, we want artillerymen. Whom shall we employ? The light field-pieces and the heavy ordnance must be served. I propose, sir, that we commit this very important department to our brethren of the Dutch Reformed Church; and, sir, may they acquit themselves with a valor worthy their ancestors, when the proud flag of De Witt swept the sea, and the thunder of Van Tromp shook the ocean. And now, sir, the army is arranged. We have one great Captain, the Lord Jesus Christ, whose orders we are all bound to obey. Our standard is the cross, and "Onward!" is the watchword. Let us give no quarter: we fight for death or victory. At the same time, let us preserve our original order. United in spirit and design, let us be distinct in movement. Let not the cavalry, infantry, and artillerymen mingle in one indiscriminate mass. Let each keep his proper position, adopt his peculiar uniform, act under his local colors, and fight in his own peculiar manner. Thus we shall act with consistency and vigor, without discomposing each other, or disordering the ranks. Let a strict religious discipline prevail throughout the camp; for we must not suffer that shameful reproach,—that we recommend to others what we practise not ourselves. Accordingly, let us, like the soldiers of Oliver Cromwell, read our Bible, and pray twice a day in each of the tents.

— G. C. Cookman

The missionaries to the Dyaks of Borneo, in making their calls not infrequently are seated in a position of honor in a native hut underneath a huge cluster of skulls, the war trophy of the head-hunting Dyaks. Rev. H. L. E. Luering writes in the London _Christian_ that the natives believe that the courage of the slain enemy enters his victor’s soul if the head of the dead man is in his possession. So the heads are cut off and placed in loose rattan receptacles and smoked over a slow fire, and polished and strung up like great bunches of grapes, and guarded with a jealousy greater than is accorded any other possession. They represent just so much of the owner’s self--his own soul--and to lose a head would deprive him of just so much strength and courage.

Up the Kongo we went. One day Mr. Lapsley, my comrade, was sick with fever. As we attempted to land, we saw women catching up their babies and running to the jungle and men getting arrows to shoot. I stood over Mr. Lapsley and called, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” and asked them if we could sleep there for the night. “To-morrow we go away,” I said. “No. Go away; go away,” they cried. So we started for the other side and landed on the sandy bank. We got out the tent and had Mr. Lapsley carefully moved into his bed. Walking up and down the river bank we could hear the excitement on the other side. At twelve o’clock at night it still was going on. At two in the morning, those people had not retired; nor had I. So we said, “In the morning something will happen.” Coming outside early, as we looked across the river we saw one of their war canoes filled with men starting up-stream, and then another. I ran to the tent and said to Mr. Lapsley, “Those people are coming; what shall I do?” He was there sick with fever, with no chance of running away. He said, “There is nothing that we can do.” He meant by this that the Master could do something. I came outside. They had started in our direction. I could hear their war-whoop. Just at this extremity a hippopotamus came. We shot him. Then the thought came, why not offer them this meat? They were crazy for meat. I waded in the water to my waist and beckoned to them, calling out: “Come this way, all of you. Don’t be afraid.” The nearest canoe approached me as I was wading in the water, and I surprized the first man by saying, “Leave your spear.” The next canoe load that followed I turned the hippopotamus over to, and then they began with their long knives to cut it up and fight over it. I went into the tent and told Mr. Lapsley that we were saved. It was no surprize to that servant of God. He was so near to the Master always that he believed He would save us.--WILLIAM SHEPPARD, “Student Volunteer Movement,” 1906.

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Rev. Egerton R. Young, a missionary among the Indians of Canada, tells of an obdurate old man whose heart had been touched by the missionary whose ministrations had brought his child back to health:

He attended an open-air meeting standing at first a quarter of a mile off. At the next meeting he drew a bit nearer, then nearer still. Six weeks later he was among the circle kneeling at the foot of the cross, making his confession. “Missionary,” he said, “I was a fool, but now I have got the moss out of my ears, and the sand out of my eyes, and I see clearly, and I hear all right. I am so glad I came.”

Was it not of such scenes as these that the prophet was thinking when he wrote, “The eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopt.” (Text.)

See SACRIFICE FOR RELIGION.

MISSIONARY TESTIMONY

Mr. Darwin was not regarded as a Christian, but he had the greatest respect for good in Christianity, and was candid enough to acknowledge it. This is the way in which he answered some shallow critics of foreign missionaries:

They forget, or will not remember, that human sacrifice and the power of an idolatrous priesthood; a system of profligacy unparalleled in any other part of the world; infanticide, a consequence of that system; bloody wars where the conquerors spared neither women nor children--that all these things have been abolished, and that dishonesty, intemperance, and licentiousness have been greatly reduced by the introduction of Christianity. For a voyager to forget these things is a base ingratitude; for should he chance to be at the point of shipwreck on some unknown coast, he will most devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary may have extended thus far.

Whitefield found himself in the presence of what seemed an urgent and overwhelming call to preach. Here were the Kingswood miners, a community ignorant, vicious, forgotten, who, beyond all others, needed the care and teaching of the Christian Church, and yet were left completely outside, not merely of its agencies, but even of its very remembrance. When Whitefield was setting out for America some wise and keen-sighted friend said to him, “If you have a mind to convert Indians, there are colliers enough in Kingswood.”--W. H. FITCHETT, “Wesley and His Century.”

If all Christians had the willing zeal of these poor South Sea islanders, the world would soon be converted to Christ:

On one occasion Mr. Williams explained the manner in which English Christians raised money to send the gospel to the heathen, and the natives of Raralonga exprest great regret at not having money that they might help in the same good work of causing the Word of God to grow. Mr. Williams replied: “If you have no money, you have something that takes the place of money; something to buy money with”; he then referred to the pigs that he had brought to the island on his first visit, and which had so increased that every family possest them; and he suggested that, if every family in the island would set apart a pig for causing the Word of God to grow, and, when the ships came, would sell the pigs for money, a large offering might be raised. The natives were delighted with the idea, and the next morning the squeaking of the pigs, which were receiving the “mark of the Lord” in their ears, was heard from one end of the settlement to the other.--PIERSON, “The Miracles of Missions.”

D. L. Moody told this story of missionary self-sacrifice:

A good many years ago I was stopping in a house in the West, and saw there a bright boy of thirteen who didn’t bear the name of the family he was living with, and yet was treated like one of the family. In answer to my inquiries, the lady said, “He is the son of a missionary. His parents couldn’t educate their children in India, so they came back here. But they had learned the language of India, and they did not feel that it was right for them to stay in this country. Finally, the husband said, ‘You stay here, wife, and educate the children and I will go back.’ The mother said, ‘No; God has used me there with you--we will go back together.’ ‘But,’ the father said, ‘you can’t give up those children. You never have been separated from them since they were born. How can you leave them in this country and go back?’ She replied, bravely, ‘I can do it if Christ wants me to.’ They made it a matter of prayer and put notices in the papers that they were going to leave their children, and asked Christian people to take them and educate them. I saw the notice and wrote that I would take one child and bring it up for Christ’s sake. The mother came and stayed a week in our home and observed everything. She watched the order and discipline of the family, and after she was convinced that it was a safe place to leave her boy, she set the day for departing. My room adjoined hers, and when the time came to start, I heard her pray, ‘Lord Jesus, help me now. I need Thee. Help me to give up this dear boy without a tear, that I may leave him with a smile. Oh, God, give me strength.’ She was helped to leave with a bright smile on her face. She went to five homes in the same way and went back to India, leaving her five children. Some time afterward,” Mr. Moody continued, “I was in Hartford and found a young man busy in the good work of picking up the rough boys of the streets and bringing them to my meetings and trying to lead them to Christ. It pleased me very much and I asked who he was. He was studying in the theological seminary, and I found he was one of those five sons of that brave woman, and all of the five were expecting to return to India to carry on their father’s work.”

In the Peninsular war, for every Frenchman killed there was sent out by England the weight of a man in lead and eight times his weight in iron, not to speak of the cost in blood and treasure. In the Indian wars in this country it has sometimes cost on the average a million dollars to kill an Indian, while an average expenditure of $200 was spent in converting them. There is no lack of money nor means to compass the evangelization of the world within the present century if there were but the spirit of enterprise to dare and undertake for our Redeemer. Talleyrand boasted that he “kept his watch ten minutes ahead of the rest of mankind.” The Christian Church should surpass rather than be surpast by others in her enterprise. The time will come when disciples will look back to this age of missions with as much surprize as we now look back to those days when a learned prelate in the House of Lords, and a defender of orthodoxy too, could calmly argue against sending missionaries to the Orient! or as we contemplate with amazement speeches against the suppression of the slave-trade that have no interest to us except as fossils and petrifactions of an antediluvian era!--A. T. PIERSON, _Missionary Review of the World_.

Edgar Wallace, the war correspondent of the London _Daily Mail_, writes in the highest terms of what he saw of the Kongo Balolo missions. He said in part:

“No battle I have ever witnessed, no prowess of arms, no exhibition of splendid courage in the face of overwhelming odds, has inspired me as has the work of these outposts of Christianity. People who talk glibly of work in the mission field are apt to associate that work merely with house-to-house visitations and devotional services and the distribution of charity. In reality it means all these things plus the building of the houses one visits, building of the church for the devotional services, and the inculcation in the native of a spirit of manliness which renders charity superfluous.

Somebody told me there was difficulty in getting men and women for the missionary work in Kongoland. Speaking frankly as a man of the world, I do not wonder. I would not be a missionary in the Kongo for five thousand pounds a year. That is a worldly point of view, and it is not a high standpoint. It is a simple confession that I prefer the “flesh-pots of Egypt” to the self-sacrifice that the missionary life claims. Yet were I a good Christian, and were I a missionary hesitating in my choice of a field, I would say, with _Desdemona_, “I do perceive here a divine duty.”