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
In the presence of these well-known facts, the report of the committee
adds another chapter to the Book of Acts. It gladdens our hearts with
thrilling music--the music of ringing sickle and reaper's song. From all
over this mighty field, from mountain, and savannah, and shore, and
plain, we hear the resonant footsteps of advancing troops--a solid
regiment of converts marching in the army of our Christ and into the
fellowship of his Congregational Church. I want you to notice that this
church which we have planted in the South is just the kind of a church
to take these people and assimilate them, to save them and to preserve
them to their highest usefulness. And why? In the first place, because
it is a church that will take them in. I saw the other day this
inscription over a great arch erected in honor of our Pan-American
guests in the city of Cleveland, "Welcome All Americans." Well, the
Congregational Church has put three talismanic letters over the portal
of every church that it has planted in the South and in the West,
"A.M.A.--All mankind acceptable."
Every convert in our work has cosmopolitan views respecting the
brotherhood of man. This means that one thousand people have seated
themselves before an apostolic communion table. White, black, red and
yellow, side by side in harmony before the broken memorials of the life
of love. The spirit of color-caste is a post-apostolic devil. The most
eminent convert of the evangelist Philip was as black as a middle vein
of Massilon coal. Perhaps that is why they met in the desert and the
spirit compassionately caught Philip away. The purest church and the
purest ray of sunshine are alike--they absorb the seven colors of the
spectrum. When the Creator flung the rainbow like a silken scarf over
the shoulder of the summer cloud, he drew his color-line. Pentecostal
blessings fell at Jerusalem, and have fallen ever since on the
cosmopolitan church.
The second feature of this church that adapts it to ours field is the
open Bible. Every convert is armed with the shining sword--the sword of
the spirit, which is the word of God, like the sword in the hand of the
angel at Eden's gate, turning every way at once.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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