The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889Various
Religion
The American Missionary — Volume 43, No. 12, December, 1889
Various
Congregational churches -- Missions -- Periodicals; Home missions -- Periodicals
And I take it that in no one of the Christian agencies known to us are
these three methods so wonderfully unified, so inseparably united, as
the home and the church and the school are in the work of the American
Missionary Association. They are one and the same. They are
indissoluble. The long experience of this Association through this half
century of specialized work does fit it, as the report has said, to give
an almost commanding opinion in regard to the method of the work to be
pursued among these very distinct classes. From the field as well as
from the office, and from the experience of those longest at work, we
learn that the school finds its ultimate aim only in the church; that,
as a Christian agency, we are to work with the school only as a means to
the end of building up that body of Christ on the face of the earth
which is known by the name of his church. I do not see how the
separation to any extent of school and church work can fail to break the
unity of administration and hinder the progress of this gloriously
on-going work.
I have just one word to add in regard to the reflex influence of this
church work upon the home churches. My brethren, there has been a great
dearth in candidates for the ministry until very recently. It strikes me
that there is no such object-lesson in all our land, inviting men to
consecrate themselves to the noblest of purposes, as the heroic ministry
of this Association. It needs the heroic element to attract young men.
It needs something which is very plainly worth their while to live for
and to work for and to consecrate their energies toward, in order to
attract them from the allurements of business and material progress
to-day. The Indian service of the British Government, and even the
service of the great commercial companies, have that element of heroism
in it them which has attracted the very best brain and brawn of the
English race to India. So it seems to me we will have to hold up these
great organizations, which reach down to the hard places of the land,
which occupy places that require men to man them, in order to recruit
the ranks of our ministers. A man needs to know that he will have to be
all the more a man to be anything of a minister now-a-days, to attract
him into this great work. And this heroic type of Christian ministry and
of Christian manhood and womanhood, shown in the half century of this
society's work and existence, is to my mind one of the great attractions
upon the best, the strongest, and the most consecrated of those men and
women who devote their lives to the service of the church.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account