biglam/hmd_newspapers huggingface dataset:
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-09-20

THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
ON MISSION WORK.

On Sunday the Archbishop of Canterbury preached
a sermon at St. James's Church, Dover, and selected
"Mission Work" as the subject of his discourse. His
Grace took his text from the 37th of Ezekiel, Ist and
2nd verses. He urged upon the congregation the
necessity of encouraging missions wherever they were
wanted. If they examined the chapter on which he
had founded his discourse through, they would see
that the immediate application of the two prophecies
of Ezekiel pointed to the restoration of the Jewish
people to their own land, and their revivi-
fication, after the deadness of captivity. In
the continent of Araerica there were still some savage
races, yet both north and south recognised the name of
Jesup Christ. They commonly spoke of the Eastern
Church, forgetting how many different bodies there
were included in the name—Armenian, Coptic, Syrian
and Chaldean, all calling themselves Christian, but
who had been trodden down by Mahomedan con-
querors, and who were looking to them for a better
knowledge of the Lord and Saviour. There were
three hundred millions of idolaters in India, and
nearly the whole of Africa was still given up to
savage brutality and ignorance. The Arab carried
with him his Mahometanism, and the Englishman
would surely carry with him his Christianity, so that
heathenism must in the end come down. On January
1 of this year the Bishop of Madras wrote that in his
diocese 30,000 new converts had professed the Christian
faith during the very short period between the begin-
ning cf the famine and the time he wrote; but those
were only like a drop in the ocean. No folly was
greater than that of those who said, "Do your work
at home, and let the distant heathen take care of him.
self." No roan who loved Christ, or who interested
himself in his work, confined himself to Christ's work
at home. The deadest parishes for spiritual life in
this country were those where there was no zeal for
spreading the Gospel elsewhere. Those who stirred
up a spirit to spread it in distant lands did so because
they felt and appreciated the blessing of the Gospel of
Jesus Christ in their hearths and homes. They should
endeavour to spread the Gospel both by acts of self-
denial and prayer, and by earnestness in their work
for Christ, preaching the salvation of the whole world,
and exhorting all to be in readiness for the Redeemer's
coming. •