The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-09 00:00:00

MR. GLADSTONE ON FOREIGN MISSIONS.

At a meeting held at Penmaenmawr in further-
ance of the objects of the Society for the Propa-
gation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts—

Mr. GLADSTONE said—There was a time when I was
myself not an inactive agent, though, perhaps, less active
than others, in promoting and assisting the council and
the operations of the society in London. Other and ruder
demands upon my time have long ago thrust aside what
were the occupations of a period now passed by thirty
years, but the goodwill that I entertain towards the society
remains the same, and my recognition of its usefulness
certainly grows from year to year. (Cheers.) I think that
in all parts of the country, particularly in all places
which have a relation to the commercial centres of British
industry, it is very desirable that we should consider the
peculiar work and function that seem in the counsels of
Divine Providence to have fallen to England. Here in
this little island that we inhabit, inferior in population to
so many countries,-inferior in size to every considerable
country of the world—yet in two particulars excelling
them all—excelling them in the extent of its colonial set-
tlements and likewise in the vast extent of its commercial
operations ; by your labour, skill, and energy ; by the
invincible and resistless tendency to expansion which
seems to be a property planted in this race beyond all
other races in the world—you are continually putting forth
in foreign lands agencies which are the source of great
wealth and power to this country, but which likewise
have another aspect. There is not a single commercial
adventure which is undertaken in a foreign land—not a
single ship despatched, whether with emigrants or with a
cargo to the remote parts of the earth—that does not, apart
from the fulfilment of the designs and obligations con-
nected with the immediate purpose of the voyage, entail
another sot of obligatiOns also. You are possessed of other
treasures besides the treasures that material industry can
produce, and of those treasures it is your duty to make
partakers the people with whom you enter into relations
respecting the goods and concerns of this life. It may be
that in those times the faith of many has been shaken. I
think that all must bo sufficiently cognizant of what is
going on in the world of thought and discussion at least
to be aware that the period in which we live isa period
•of crisis for the Christian religion. But at the same time
the strong conviction, I think-, remains in our minds, our
understandings, and our consciences, that Christianity con-
tinues to be that which it has been heretofore, the great
medicine for the disease of human nature, the great con-
solation for its sorrows, the great stay to its weakness, the
main and only sufficient guide in the wilderness of the
world. Somehow or other, oven those who may upon in-
tellectual grounds be questioning many of its details, yet
scarcely venture to impeach The Church and the religion of Christ aro very old. They
its moral authority and power.
have endured for eighteen centuries. In the course of
those eighteen centuries they have encountered many
dangers. Many have been the times when timid hearts
took fright, and when the unstable man anticipated to be
overthrown. There were times in the early periods of
the Church when a Pagan reaction threatened to over-
flow the territory that had been gained by the Gospel.
There were times when superstition threatened to put out
the light. There were times when the revival of Pagan
learning threatened to seduce and draw away the whole
Christian intellect of the world from the light of the Gos-
pel and from the worship of the Saviour. Therefore, do
not let us suppose that the trial which has come upon this
laig_aoit ais something
ethi‘n,gnwe
thathol believeth," we are told, "shall notly new and unheard of. Only let us
make haste." Let us abide the issue. Let us see what
all these objections and difficulties come to. But while
wo aro so abiding the issue, do not let us neglect or
forget the duty of the day, to cope with oven untold diffi-
culties. This Gospel it seems to be the especial function
of Englishmen to carry throughout the world, for I say
have positively no right
relations with those parts of
that it is almost an elementary truth, almost a truism, to
lay down this doctrine—that Christians, individual Chris-
ttoianesn'taerndinatosocialpeople o
and civil Christians
the world which aro not Christian, and decline to com-
municate to them the great treasure which they possess
fin the Christian religion, and without which all other
treasures aro valueless. (Cheers.) Then also there are
the unoccupied places of the earth, those waste places of
the earth which our colonies are gradually taking up.
And hero I cannot but recollect the impression that was
made not only upon me, but also upon a very large and
important meeting nearly thirty years ago, held under the
auspices of the then excellent Archbishop of Canterbury
(Dr. Howley), for the purpose of giving the commence-
ment to a plan for the endowment of bishoprics in the
colonies. A speech was made at that meeting in which,
with great talent and eloquence, and with great fervour
and piety, the responsibilities of this country with respect
to its colonies and commerce were unfolded. The speaker,
having pointed out the means by which we were
creating relations and connections all over the earth,
thou contrastedthe two parts that we must play,
the part of considering merely secular interest
on the one hand, or ',the part of :carrying spiritual
blessings on the other ; and he wound up an animated
appeal by saying that England had to choose in her vast
transactions abroad whether she would be a mere beast
of burden, or whether she would be the evangelist of the
world. (Cheers.) The man who used those words, and
who deeply impressed those who heard him, has since left
the fold of the Church of England. He is now Arch-
bishop of Westminster, according to the title with which
he has been invested by the Pope. I wish I could hope
that where he now is he had a freer course for the propa-
gation of the Gospel than where ho then was. But bo
that as it may, his words were true. It is undoubtedly a
great eucytogement t 9 think of the opercttivno cculected