St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-10-02
MINNEAPOLIS.
MAKING MISSIONARIES.
Formal Opening of the New Mis-
SiOnary Training Institute.

Formal Opening of the New Mis-
sionary Training Institute.
The benighted heather of Central
Africa, the Fiji islands and the slums
OF the great cities will. ere long, be ac-
quainted with the sterling qualities of
MlnneapOlitanS, il the missionary train
ing institute does the work mapped
out for it. This undenominatIonal
enterprise was formally opened
yesterday afternoon at S2S Sixth avenue
south, and studies therein will be begun
this afternoon. 1t is designed to train
the young men and women of the
Northwest for work in the missionary
field, both home and foreign. The eX-
ercises began at 3 o'clock before a
goodly attendance of persons deeply in
terested in the enterprise.
Rev. DR.. Mabie, the president of the
institute, delivered the formal address.
The reverend gentleman explained the
object of the institute, which, that the
Sayiour's command ''to go into all the
world and preach the gospel to every
creature" may be carried out more
thoroughly and efficiently. The spirit
OF the movement will be neither peSSi-
mistic nor optimistic. All cooperation
and all gifts will be welcomed. No
debts will be incurred nor will the in
stitute beg. DR.. Mabie then spoke on
missionary Fundamentals, or the REM
edy for the Worlds Agnosticism," in
part as follows:
The fundamentals of which I speak and
which are the missionary's relations God
ward are these:
detrimental knowledge of God-his progress
sive knowledge of God as personal and real.
Second-His progressive discovery and ap-
prehension of Gods life plan for him.
Third-His Interpretation OF God and GODS
ways to man.
These three conceptions may be simplified
and stated as corresponding to these three
authoritative words of Jesus in the gospels,
Come, Follow Go.
1.-THE first fundamental is that the mis-
sionars be established in the personal, ex
perimental knowledge of God. Intellect
says can not know God, and intellectis
right Agnosticism at least is honest. We
know where to find her. Nor is Agnosticism,
philosophers. Would God it were so. Ra-
tionalism and Superstition are twin sisters.
Atheism says, God can not be known as
PERSONAL; and Catholicism says, No one
can be certain, except as he has priest and
church to tell him, that he is simply IN a.
state Of grace Cardinal Newman fled to
Romansm to avoid Atheism, 'as if a man
did flee from a lion and bear met him,
or went into the house and leaned his
hand on the wall and a serpent bit him.
1t is pure fiction to say that man stands be
tween the two horns of so deadly dilemma;
ImOdestly decline in philosophy, certainly
in Christianity, to be impaled on either one
horn Or the other. Rome reduces the indi-
.vidual to zero, denies the authority Of the in
dividual, Scripture enlightened, spiritual
cousciousness-denies the very actually, II
not the possibility, of Gods authenticating
himself to the individual. This is the ut
ttoN, IL. lew nnr1
offer, whether you look for it in Rome, or in
some of its weak limitations, as in the ritual
istc wing of the church of England, the
High Church Episcopal party in America, or
in the asthetieism which prevails in some
high caste Presbyterian, Methodist and Bap-
fist churches this side of Sirius.
There is no royal road to the knowledge Of
God. God is really known through the love
of the heart. through the submission of the
will, through the choice of the whole man.
Neither sensation nor scientific analysis, nor
hearsay evidence. nor the 1maglnation; not
the aesthetic faculties nor natural affection.
nor logical reasoning nor miracles, nor
miracles of any sort, can reveal God to the
soul OF man. In word, true Christian
enterprise or services are never artificial.
God has a plan for our lives. That plan
involves life lived incident by incident.
Christs plan of life involved naturally and IN
course every event and achievement of his
transeendent mission. My plea is against the
arbitrary, artificial determination of a field
of mission labor, home or foreign, for any,
one irrespective of the certain plan of God
in each missionary life. If, then, I were
asked to name the remedy for the agnostl-
cism of our time in the church and in the
world, should say in word: The multi
piled testimony of the experimental knowl-
edge Of God by those who, presumably, ale
finding their way iuto the place of God, and
who, accordingly, are in position to inter-
pref God TO lost mankind, wherever in
Earth's broad field their mission calls them
and assigns their task. AS an aid to this kind
of equipment this school has been planted.