The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1886-11-17
(From the London Christian.)
The Churches and Missions.
BY DE. OSWALD DYKES.

ltS prospects, should like to say q few
words; partly for encouragement, partly,
too, for warning. This is the outstand-
ing fact in the religious history of our
country and much of its interest GEN.
tres in the question Is this, which is the
latest, likely to prove also the last of the
Church efforts to fulfil her mission? In
other words, Is the present movement
likely to retain its force until every por-
ton of the human family has heard the
tidiDgs of salvation :.
How striking is it that the Christian
nations which, amid the decay of faith,
have retained the keenest evangelical
sympathies, are precisely those at whose
feet lie spread the widest and most prom
Using portions of the non Christian world
England, that is, and America, with their
all-embracing commerce and their all
conquering language? Especially nota-
bic are those exigencies, whether of war
or trade, which have providentially
forced these two States into closer con-
tact than any other with those ancien'
strong people in the further East that
are to-day the homes and bulwarks of
the gospels chief rivals among the faiths
of the world-with india with Burmah,
with China, with Japan. Southern Asia
is the stronghold of modern heathenism :
and Southern Asia has at this moment
become the scene of photographic be-
twixt Christianity and the leading his
torical religions of mankind--a grapple
into which the Christian Church has been
flung in large measure through no choice
of her own. but which, it is plain, can be
closed only by the survival of the fit
test" Events are hurrying on a crash
of creeds that may convulse Asia from
the Persian Gulf to the Yellow Sea, and
offer Christianity an opportunity the like
of which she has not seen since Oonstan-
tine the Great.
But while ancient civilizations are
changing shape beneath the action of new
solvents, ancient barbarisms, long hidden,
are being sought out, and through the
allied powers of commerce and the Cos
pei are yielding to civilization: notably
in Africa, that new-feund sister among
the continents.
Weighing all the facts, does not the
impression force itself on the mind that
now, at length, in the end of the ages,
by thousand converging lines of Provi-
dence, the Lord Jesus, who is Head over
all things, is summoning his Church to
her final and supreme effort, and that He
intends her fervor in the cause of mis-
sions to increase " till each remote nation
has learned Messiah's name? True,
the Church's day to preach to every crea
ture has been the same from the begin.
ming. But every duty does not press
with equal urgency at every time. Our
forefathers had their special work to do,
and we have ours. Ours is to spread the
message. To this the times are calling
us. The globe grows manag9ably small
1t grows one. A strange, unifying pro
cess is going on, binding long,sundered
peoples. As space and time are practi
cally lessened and intercourse gets closer,
there comes wiping out of alien usages,
an assimilation OF men everywhere to the
same prevailing type. Must not all this
hasten time when one religion, too,
shall everywhere prevail? Can any man
doubt what religion that will be?
But if the work is to be done, and
quickly done, one thing grows every day
more clear; the present pace is far too
slow. We need to be told that we are
doing but bagatelle of what ought to
be done and already there are voices
that tell US SO. With our present expen-
diture of men and money we are making
no Roadway. A recent pamphleteer has
even published the startling statement
that, relatively to the heather population
of the globe, we are losing ground
Through mere increase by birth.rate, and
the saving OF life effected by Christian
influence restraining wars, arresting pes
thence, or relieving famine, the vast
heather population, it is said, are grow
ing far faster than we are converting
them, 80 that the number of non. Chris
tians now alive is alleged to be vastly
greater than when your own Cary issued
his famous Inquiry" exactly one hun
dred years ago. All we have done, then,
it seems, has failed to keep pace with the
growth of the heather world. At this
rate we shall never convert the heather.
The moral is that we should do ten times
more. Everything is ripe for a SUPP enc
sustained effort all along the line. 1t
will cost much, but it has to be made.
All who study the subject come to but
one conclusion-that if the enormous and
multiplying swarms Of human beings who
know not Christ are ever to hear his
name-indeed, if they are not, within a
measurable time, to choke the earth with
the spiritually dead-Christian at home
q Il