^ Max Mtiller, speaking as a scientific student of the world's religions, said in 1876, in Westminster Abbey: "Every Christian is, or ought to be, a missionary." Do we realize this ? Do we believe it ? Or is it not so, that we look upon the making Christ and His gospel known to all nations as something quite " outside the ordinary course of the service of God — a thing that some men may take up because they are interested in it," but which is by no means obligatory upon all Christians just because they are Christians ? ^
^ We have so far only been playing at the work of winning the world for Christ. We have relied on a campaign of flying columns for the conquest of the world. The call which now rings in the ears of the Churches is a call summoning to a concerted world-wide campaign. The day of playing at this work is past. The day of self-sacrifice is come. What Christianity is summoned to prove is this : to establish its claim to wield the destinies of the world. Is it a living and a conquering energy — or a decadent and a spent force ? In Abyssinia a degenerate Christian Church is yielding day by day converts to Islam. Is that to be the fate of Christianity as a whole? As one surveys the ancient races entrenched in their hoary faiths, and the vast territories still unoccupied and untouched by Christianity ; as one sees the forces of ignorance and superstition and lust massed, presenting a solid front against the progress of the gospel ; and as one looks at the Christian Churches and sees how few they are who feel the call to go forth and conquer the world, and how few are willing to make any sacrifice for the glory of their Lord — then there comes the hesitating doubt : can this task ever be accomplished ? And the question rings in the ear, uncertain of its answer, " Can the world be won for Christ ?" But the question throws us back on God. With Him the answer lies. Can the Church find now, as the Church ever found of old in the day of trial, such new 1 E. H. M'Kim, The Gospel in the Christian Year, 327.
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treasures of power and energy, and vitalizing force, such new revelations of the riches and the glory of God, that it will arise and go forth and conquer, not in its own strength, but in the irresistible might of God ? Therein lies the hope of conquering the world for Jesus Christ. The summons that rings through Christendom is a summons calling the Christian host, if it would conquer, to fall back on God. To the world the task may seem impossible, and its performance a vain dream, but what are Christians in the world for but to achieve the impossible by the help of God! 1
3. No language can go beyond the terms in which the Lord sets forth His absolute power. "All authority," He says, "is given unto me in heaven and on earth." To feel the force of such a sentence, we must remember that He who spoke had been crucified not many days before amidst the mockery of His enemies and the despair of His followers. But now He lays open the eternal issues of that death. Not earth only but heaven is subject to His dominion. All created being has been brought under His sway — angels, and men, and nature. In Him whatever before was most widely separated has found a final unity. The power is given Him. It represents the love of the Father no less than the victory of the Son. It is the pledge of the triumph of the Father's will ; and His will is the salvation of men.
^ If Christians only knew the meaning of the words : " He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit : for apart from me ye can do nothing," then there would be in the Church a mighty, irresistible power which would sweep over every frontier, and possess every land in the name of Jesus Christ. They would realize that all the power of God was working through them, that all the forces of the universe were working for them, that the stars in their courses were fighting on their side, and that against the Church of God, glowing with His omnipotent Spirit, nothing could stand. It was in the power of the ever- present Lord, in the might of the Holy Spirit, that in the early days Christianity won its triumphs. There is no other way, and no other power, through which Christianity will win triumphs to-day. The conquering power will manifest itself when Chris- tians again realize their personal obligation to Jesus Christ. A Christendom in which the followers of Christ are dead to the stirring of personal obligation, in which the mass of Christians 1 Norman Maclean, Can the World be Won for Christ? 16.
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view with indifferent eyes the enterprise of missions, in which only a small fraction of the Christian host take any thought of what the glory of Christ demands — such a Christendom will never win the world for Christ. . . . The work to which the Church is urgently called is to make the faith of Christ again live in the hearts and souls of men. Then will the power come which will win the world for Jesus Christ. Then will that spiritual power which once swept Westward, anon sweep Eastward, until every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.i