The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1910-04-05
IN THE RELIGIOUS WORLD
What Church Folk Are Think
ina About and Doing
<H HANGING A BILLION MINDS.
TIE international Sunday School Les
son for April 10 is Freely re re
Ceived, Freely Give MALI. 300
10: 10. 4O-42.
Ry WILLIAM T. LII

4 ItiS - q ''H
studded with especial zeal by the more
than twenty million members OF .ie
SUNDAY schoOl the world arOuho oe
cause of the widespread Quickenlns OF
interest in foreign missions. me
story. the sending of the Twelve
marks the beginning of the modern
movement for Observation-Disclosures:
Even now, as then, the immensely anu
ultimate reaches of the project were
not. fully understood.
Gltbly we repeat the teachers IA
miliar words, The harvest is great.
But we do not comprehend. Stated
In present day, u~ntechnlcal
this means tina the minds OF a blil1on
persons must be changed. NO caesar
or Alexander or Napoleon ever essay
ed any task one~-thousandth part as
s~tupendous. This billion persons
omprise two-tnirds of the human
race; the other third being nominally
Christian-Greek Catholic, Roman
Catholic, Protestant, HISTORIAN, COP
tic, Armenian, etc.
Unable to comprehend a billion, we
must seek for some partial analogy
which we can grasp. Consider the
intensity, the cost and the methods,
OF the recent British elections, design
ed to alter the opinions Of a few NIL
lions Of men upon merely political
issues. Increase the Importance or
the issue q thousand fold, and the
Der of persons needed to swell the
population OF TIL British Isles up to the
requisite thousand million and we
have some faint perception Of what
ID involved in the task first given to
the twelve by Jesus.
The Evil OF the Epigram.
The cock-sureness of the modern
vesterner makes him ready to accept
%jauntily any task without waiting to
discover its magnitude. Jesus saw
that The harvest is great"-how
great. ne alone knew. Men who
think in terms of villages or cities or
States. when moved by imprisoned
missionary O~ratory Especially when
they have shared a banquet with sew
oral hundred other mem, do not hest
tate, airly, to undertake the ~evangeli-
cation OF the world in this genera
ton" They have no conception at
al of what is involved. E~loquence,
eptgrams, pictures, subtle fiat
terry, have moved their emotions: con-
sequently. in their ignorance, they as
sumo that a few more dollars, and q
ynodicum of their excellent brain
power, will do the task. The watch
word Of the Laymen's Movement is,
W can do it. and we will"
The evil of epigrams is that they
usually are not more than half true.
Frankly, it is beyond the might and
millions of the nasSed men of Chris
tendon to win the world for Christ.
That Is a spiritual enterprise, chiefly
NSpSi1oeiI upon spiritual means. OO lie
great leaders, first instruction was,
pray ye the Lord Of the harvest"
The s~elf-confdent church of today
should boast less and think more: de-
vote less time to posing and parading
over missions, and more to praying.
a better form of the ~sef-confdent
motto, w can do it, and we will' is
" can do 1t, if we will Better
yet IS the word of divine wisdom Not
by might nor by power, but my Spirit,
saith the Lord Of hosts Only in
that mood dare the church confront
g world with its teeming myriads and
millions, which is SO much vaster than
most imaginative of us com%prehends.
The Compassionate Heart.
ihe immediate cause for the send
Ing out Of the twelve. as for all mis-
s1ons. was compassion for the crowd.
only great hearts have this quality.
Jesus possessed it supremacy. The
nearer men approach to God-likeness,
the more capable they become of low
Ing the world. 1t is Christianity that
has studied world maps, and made
the pioneer peoples; only heather be-
klnd IN the mass, expressed by the
service of the individual, is a distinc-
lively Christian trait. Only Chris
tianity breaches q w~orld-gospel.
The record say that when Jesus
saw the multitude, he was moved
with compassion for them, because
they were distressed and scattered, as
sheep not having a shepherd An
Old manuscript, says Dr.. James /.
Vance, renders the passage, HE saw
them as sheep with fleece torn off,
bleeding and unable to rise up" This
eye for the needs Of mankind. this
tender shepherd heart. is one Of the
marks Of the Lord Jesus. It should
characterize all who minister in His
name. There have been noble illus
tratlons Of it in certain pastors of
downtown churches. They have
seen their old parfshioners moving
away, and an alien population COM
ing in: but they have not been STAN
peded into seeking better posts for
themselves. Instead. their compass
sion for the multitude has only burn
ed brighter In all kinds of peo-
pie they have discerned the sheer
whom the Good Shepherd loves.