The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1882-10-07
DR.. HIPS Address.
a Noble Picture Of Apostolic Charity


sion OF the American Board Thursday night:
In the presence Of one who was in the active
and successful service of his Master when l,
mere boy, first had my mind drawn toward the
Saviour, / may we'll remember the admonition
OF the wise Hebrew: Speak young man, If
there be need of thee, yet scarcely if thou art
twice aFked.N (Laughter) l was recently
reading an article by the Rev. DR.. Hopkins in
the Princeton Review. read it with great
interest and with grsat delight; and | said to
myself, s'Surely this must lba something that
he wrote years ago for q man who has gone he-
years of eternity cannot write with with this
Yigor OF youth" daughter and applause.)
But | have learned this evening that ii is not
SO, but there is sense in which we may see
that the water that flows from the word of
Christ yelling up within man is to eternal
life. (Applausel And after the strength with
which he has spoken / may recall another OF
the sayings Of that same wise Hebrew: what
shall a man do that cometh after the King?
(Laughter.)
But this is too solemn a place for personal
complimentieven to q man so revered!and below
ed. That little prayer meeting of three or four
students under The hay stack there in Williams
tornl where our venerable friend so long pre-
| sided, and was so successful as teacher of
| youth, has borne wonderful illus ration of
theltrath of the promise of own Lord that where
TWO or three are gathered together in His
name, there is He in the midst of them For
it is nothing less than the power of God unto
the salvation Of men shat has made that little
prayer-meeting bring forth such wonderful
Tesults-a small part of the fruits of which we
have been beholding during the present
week.
DIR. Hopkins has given us some Of the mo-
tives which might operate to induce man to
support the efforts OF the American Board. /
think thai those motives might be drawn from
every conceivable department Of human
thought and action For it seems to me that
| thA fnhorg Of tbA Raard md Of ifc
missionaries and the contributions of the
! churches during the last fifty or seyenty-fye
| years, have illustrated remarkably another say
| ing OF the Saviour. Seek ye first the King
dom Of God and His righteousness, and all
these things shall be added unto you These
! labors were begun from the pure love of Christ
| and the love of the souls for which Christ died,
| but they have brought in abuAdant fruits OF
| other kinds. The labors CT the missionaries
have served commerce, by introducing new
raw materials to the manufacturer and new
| sources of the supply of these materials
! to the trader. They have aided
commerce by elevating the savage into con-
/ sumner OF the manufactured articles of civilized
| life, thus opening new markets to oar men Of
commerce. They have done that for commerce
which she herself never could have done, be-
/ cause, merely acting upon commercial max
| inns, she is blind to her highest interests: and
| were she not guided by the spirit of God, she
| woald succeed onlykin ruiaing herself. CoA-
| merce acts upon selfish principle and destroys
| and impoverishes the nations with whom she
comes in contact The mere trader goes out
and carries TO the heather the vices and the
diseases of the so-called civilized world and
brings destruction upon them. Mere COM
merce depopulates the Sandwich Islands; but
| the missionary goes there, saves the scattered
| remnant. lifts these islands into the kcommuni-
| ty OF civilized and Christian nations, and opens
| new sources of commerce that have really re-
| paid to the mercantile and manufacturing
classes OF the civilized world all the money
that has ever been spent in the mission.
These missions have also been of the great
| est advantage and aid to science, and to sci
| ence in every conceivable department.. They
| have aided astronomy. The missionary sta
| tons have been the stations to which astro-
norncal parties have gone. On the sth Of
| December next, to which the astronomical
| world look forward with such intense longing
| and interest, astronomers will be indebted to
| the missionaries of this Board for many facili-
ties by which the cost of the astronomical ex-
| peditions will be vastly diminished. They
| have served botany in q large way, mineralogy
and geology. They have served especially
| comparative philolOgy by reducing to writing
| many languages never before reduced to writ
ing, and never would have been but for
the labors Of missionaries, giving scholars OF Eu-
rope aid America the opportunity to stay at
! home and study the comparison Of the lam
| guages throughout the world Then they
| bring us through comparativd phi lology to eth
! nology, teaching us to understand what the
I iAu0 uHltg Oh INC fdCo Is anu Wilab Is Tie luil
| and rich meaning of that phrase of the Holy
Scripture-"God hath made of one blood ali
nations of the earth" The effect has been in
thousand cases such as it was upon friend
OF minc-a good Methodist brother-who went
out to the Indians and STAYED two wears among
them. He said TO me afterwards 81 went out
believing that the Indian was an Indian;
| came home knowing that the Indian is a man,
(applause), one of those for whom Christ died =
And this has been the effect of the missions
| rnf Nfal7 tn In Tfdi Int
TO all other savage tribes. Take for example
The story OF Jimmy Beman, who was Fuegi-
an, one OF the lowest of all the inhabitants of
the world, living in country where the snow
5as every month n TIE yeaF and Het Rh an
kind until they reach the age of puberty, and
where there are no honsts or shelter of any
Kind. Yet he, taken to EDgl and, and having
acquired all the habits of civilized life, became
a perfect Christian gentleman and went back
and spent the rest of his life in disinterested
iabors among his fellow Fuegians. The DOW
| er of the Gospel is also shown by the mission
aries labors among the decayed races. Com
neTee grasping after profit and seeking selfish
~ It's own ends, military ambition seeking to
rnie over nations not TO benefit them, have
been the cause of the decay Of the old centres
OF civilization: and might almost say our
most interesting and most successful missions
have been in those centres of decayed civiliza-
ton about the shores of the Lsvant, the cradle
Of the race. They have shown us that that
| SADto uULt4dGlty ID c16l6 Uob 5D6Cau56 us pow
ers are wasted, but simply because it has turn
ed away from the sun OF righteousness the
only force that can give it strength and
growth.
Now, this success OF the Missionary Board
| both among the savage tribes and in these APP
parently worn-out races, has shown that the
| gospel is the only hope of the world. Cap
plause) As nay venerable father i'll God has
SAID before me, you may put to me puzzlfne
questions and am readyto discuss them on
of Ofh nTf Iflan1 xu-ar ~
place; but in saying this / do not mean to say
that no soul can possibly be saved without
taking my special view OF the nature and
authority OF Jesus and throwing himself upon
| Jesus personally and consciously and precisely
in the manner in which do. You 6may ask
| whether We could not live without the light
| or the sun. You may instance for me the salt
| mines in Poland or the tin mines in Cornwall
to show that man may live q sort OF life
without the light of the sun. There is quasi
life that may be lived without the light Of the
gospel, but it is not real full life life worth
living (Appause) That is lived only under
the light OF the Sun OF righteousness. And
the motive which shou d lead us after our
commercial, prudential and scientific reasons
Tor sustaining the American Board is that of
| Which DIR. Hopkins has spoken; the love Of
| Christ. (Applause) Let a man once see the
eternal sanetity OF the moral law. the absolute
| supremacy in his own mind of conSciencs over
4 every other faculty; let him tut once see that
| right is right and to be bowed to and followed
| though the heavens should fall and at any
sacrifice; let him but on se see that nevsrthe-
lee he is poweress before God to follow it,
that. whatever may be the love of God-and
agree that St. John in writing that sentence
| "God IS love- has written the grandest
sentence, not only morally and officially, but
intellectually, that ever was written, Zap
| plaHse) He cannot see how forgiveness of sin
is possible (applanse), and no natural light can
see why the consequences Ct sin are not eter-
! nal to the soul that has once opened to it real
| inward conviction of the sanetity of the moral
| law, of the immortal nature of q PERSONA
| personality, a self-eontaned self-directed be-
| ing that God has In de in His own image;
then there comes sense of hopeless awe at the
remembrance OF past offences. Then if into
/ that mans soul the sense of the love of God in
| Christ is shed abroad by the power of the Holy
Ghost; If he once sees that that sacrifice on Cal
! vary was ali that was needed, that it does not
need our poor metaphysics to say precisely how
| it acted, but that itwas sufficient and accepted
| Of God, and in His eternal and unefriDg wis
| dom it is seen to be sufficient, and that He has
| pledged forgiveness, eternal life and eternal
| blessedness to those who throw themselves I'M
| reservedly upon the proraise-when man has
| seen that, his whole being is filled to overflow
| ing with love, (applause) and he goes forth to
! do works Of mercy and bring forth the fruits of
y -