Christianity, and still more imperfectly does it grasp the larger, fuller scope of mission effort as a world-wide plan of social redemption.

This stupendous conception of the religious and social regeneration of the world is, in fact, the Messianic promise of the New Testament. It bears substantially the same relation to the New Testament era that the Messianic idea did to the Old Testament dispensation. It looks forward to a Christian fullness of time, when the great, crowning thought of God in the New Testament shall be revealed. The culminating word of the Old Testament was Messiah." The culminating word of the New Testament is "Redemption." The one was preparatory; the other is its complement, and expressive of its ultimate purpose. As the first was the gradual gift of centuries of divine revelation, so the latter will no doubt be unfolded in the gradual fulfillment of God's advancing plans. The coming of the Messiah was the fruition and bloom of Old Testament promise. A world-wide redemption, or social reconstruction in harmony with Christian ideals, will be the fruition and bloom of New Testament hope. The "missionary spirit," as it is familiarly, and possibly somewhat tritely called, is in reality a majestic sentiment. It is a living, working faith in prophecy. It is an earnest, practical recognition of the reality of God's promises. It is not only enthusiasm for humanity; it is enthusiasm for God. It is, in the experience of the believing Christian, the counterpart of inspired prophecy. It is the response of the heart to the divine meaning of history, the higher destiny of humanity, and the power of the Almighty to vindicate His sovereignty amidst the clouds and darkness of these troubled centuries. It is perhaps the highest tribute which the human heart can pay to Christ as the Master of history and the Ruler of human destiny. It is the logical and full complement of the Incarnation, Sacrifice, and Resurrection of our Lord. A risen Saviour implies a redeemed world; a reigning Lord is the surety of the universal triumph of His kingdom.1

The unfolding of the divine purpose has often revealed a breadth of meaning and a largeness of scope that have been a surprise even to the most alert student of providence. God's plans may seem at first to be running in narrow channels, but as time passes they expand, until at

1 "If, therefore, Christianity be a religion coming from God and designed for the world, it must have for its final magnificent function to benefit peoples as well as persons; not merely to sequester from barbarous wastes occasional gardens, bright in bloom and delightful in fragrance, but to refashion continents; not merely to instruct and purify households, but to make the entire race, in the end, a household of God." -Rev. R. S. Storrs, D.D.

The expansion of the kingdom the crowning promise of Scripture.

last they widen like the sea. It was so in the case of the Incarnation and the Atonement, and it will be so in the case of the universal proclamation of the Gospel and the world-wide extension of redemption. In the light of religious history it is perhaps hardly to be expected that the faith of the Church should grasp at once the scope and significance of missions. The salvation of some individual souls among all peoples of the earth is recognized as the clear teaching of Scripture, and there is a general faith that some will be saved out of all nations; but that the Gospel is to triumph, that the kingdom of God is to advance, and all nations are to be included, is a conception which, it is to be feared, is sadly unreal to the average consciousness of the Church. Christianity is still playing the rôle of John the Baptist crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord." Christendom, like Israel of old, is even yet living in an atmosphere of spiritual unreality. The historic significance of the kingdom is still too dimly discerned.

Mission service is the secret of inspiration and power to the Church.

Nothing is more true, however, than that the devotion and loyalty of the Church to her missionary calling is the secret of her success, the divinely appointed method of her advance both at home and abroad. In this she will find her joy, her inspiration, her endowment of power, her meed of honor, her irresistible claim to the world's reverence, and her final, unanswerable apologetic. It is in fact her raison d'être, her highest and divinely emphasized mission in human history. Devotion to this sublime calling will be her password to an unchallenged place among the most influential forces which sway and mould the progress of the race. Nothing would so fully "vindicate the claim of Christianity to stimulate, to inspire, to lead the world's progress." The reflex influence of this service would fan the graces of the Christian life and make the Church aflame with thoughts and deeds which were Spirit-born and God-given! If the Church could do its work under the stimulus of a faith-quickened vision of a triumphant Gospel and a redeemed humanity, it would feel the pulses of a new life, and cheerfully give itself to sacrifice and toil, which God would quickly and grandly reward. How different is the reality! The great thoughts of Christ are still misinterpreted and limited by the narrow conceptions which many of us entertain of their significance. World patriotism is still a dim spiritual ideal which we contemplate

1 Cf. article by Miss Jane Addams on "The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements," in" Philanthropy and Social Progress" (New York, Crowell & Co., 1893).

with patronizing incredulity. Love of humanity is still cut up into sections and fragments, and has only a partial hold upon our hearts. Service of the race is still regarded as coextensive with service of some contiguous portion of the human family. The one blood, of which God made all men before they were separated by national distinctions, seems to have lost its power to pulsate through our veins, yet the permanent life of mankind flows in that blood. It is humanity which remains while nations rise and fall. He who works for the human race under the stimulus of a generous and sympathetic insight into the splendid ideals of Christ, labors for results which are permanent, beneficent, and divine.