Weekly Watertown leader. [volume] (Watertown, Jefferson County, Wis.) 1908-1909, 1908-07-31

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peace; it's intangible prizes alone are
permanent; its supreme reward is char
acter, the soul, the one asset we can
carry from this world and the one leg
acy which it Is safe to leave to others
COMMERCE AND CHRISTIANITY.
By Rev. B. 8. Storrs, D. D.
Text-"Go we therefore, and teach
all nations. Matthew xviii: 10.
Yes, our missionary work assists
commerce. This Is not our first work,
but it is a work which goes on with
all the propagation Of the gospel over
the earth. For commerce and the
Gospel are in harmony in this, at least,
that the aim Of each Is cosmical, Is
earth embracing; and, 1t may be said
Of commerce, as Of the wisdom of God,
that she "layeth the beams Of her cham
bers in TIE waters and walketh upon
the wings Of the wind" There IS no
tribe so recent or SO ancient, no tribe
80 remote or so degraded, that the
Gospel does not seek it and that COM
merce will not gladly reach out far
for access to it. They go together. The
home Of commerce is on the liquid
bands that separate yet unite and en-
compass the continents; the horizon of
commerce is the rim Of the planet and
nothing less and commerce and Chris
tianity go together, Christianity help
ing commerce. Not that our mission
aries go out for that purpOse-they do
not barter life for gold They give life
freely, that men whom they did not
know, of another language and another
| race, may by and by wear the immortal
crown. But wherever their errand is,
and wherever their teaching is felt,
there the way is opened for a widen
ing commerce. Intensity Of conviction
carries them where the commercial
agent gladly follows, but would not
lead. Who opened Africa, Of which we
heard this morning? Moffat and Liv-
ingstone, Christian missionaries. Who
opened the interior of China? Chris
tan missionaries. Who were first IN
Guinea and New Zealand in the Navi-
gator Islands, now famous in the world
as Samoa, in the cannibal islands of the
Pacific where shipwrecked crews were
slaughtered and eaten? Everywhere
Christian missionaries and the com
mercial agent follows.
l shall not see it; many of you will
not see it; it may be that none Of US
will see it; but l believe that the child
Is now born who will see the time
when commerce and Christianity,
equally earth-embracing in their aims,
and advancing In majestic harmony,
shall possess the whole earth when the
ships Of Tarshish shall be foremost, as
in the prophetic vision, in bringing
their sons from afar, their silver and
their gold with them, to the city Of the
Lord our God; when Holiness to the
Lord shall be upon all the bells Of
those swift horses Of the modern COM
merce whose race-course is the ocean,
which go trampling the waves under
their iron feet; when the revolving
wheels on every railway and Of every
steamship shall have the living spirit
Of truth and Of grace without them ;
when the trumpets Of commerce which
are Weakening the world on every bar
barrie shore to new ideas, to new as
DiratiOns after wealth and culture and
liberty and law, shall carry to all those
tribes the message Of the angel over
Bethlehem, shall carry the mighty story
Of the Son in the world, shall carry the
great argument of tie Pauline epistles,
shall carry the final prophecy Of the
New Jerusalem descending out of
heaven from God, and becoming on the
earth a tabernacle in which God shall
dwell with men. God hasten the
time and unto Him be all the praise