CHAPTER VII

Courage for World Purposes

There have been times when religious leaders had as their greatest good the winning of the martyr's crown. Charles Spinola, as he led forth to the Martyr's Mount a group of over fifty missionaries and Japanese Christians to give up their lives for Christ, said: "I know not to what I can attribute my happy lot, except to the goodness of my Saviour, who wishes to manifest the riches of his mercy upon his unworthy servant." During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there was an "Association of Martyrs," the purpose of which was "to strengthen those who were hourly exposed to a cruel death, by teaching them to consider martyrdom as the highest earthly joy." Under such influence there was little solicitude over what, to most, would seem to be an uncalledfor waste of life.

Such days of forlorn hopes and hairbreadth escapes and dramatic martyrdoms have largely passed. And with them has passed the longing for their particular ideal. It is not enough for a life to be harmless, or even to yield itself in martyrdom; it must be effectual. To see the truth is not enough; that truth must be made prevalent. It does not satisfy to know the cause of social wrong; those causes must be removed. Service must be delivered, and increased happiness in others actually brought about. One mark of a world Christian is, therefore, the passion of a great purpose, the belief that God is glorified in the bearing of much fruit and the ardent desire to make one's life count for the very utmost in world-reconstruction. It is the belief, not only that there are great tasks to be accomplished, but that one must join with God in completing them. Let us see if we cannot enter the fellowship of those who have had great world aims.

Seventh Week, First Day: The Master in World Purpose

I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.-John 10:10.

Only as we ourselves grow can we see the greatness of the life purpose in this verse. As wide as the world, as deep as human nature, as limitless as the unfathomed resources of God is the abundant life Jesus came to bring. And when we pause to think over the content he put into this life purpose, we cannot but kneel in reverence. "Never has a human will been set on ends so lofty and sublime. What object of human endeavor can be compared with the purpose of Christ to redeem human life from the evils that assail and corrupt it, to establish a kingdom resting, not on force, but on the free service of converted wills, to bring it to pass that the will of God should be done on earth as it is done in heaven, to destroy the unbelief in men's hearts and make them the children of the Father in heaven? As the explorer goes out to discover new lands, as the adventurer sets forth to find or build a kingdom, Christ calls his followers to explore the undiscovered treasures of the spiritual world, and to labor for a kingdom of everlasting splendor, a kingdom of truth and righteousness and love, whose builder and maker is God."

Let us who profess to follow him not think that discipleship is summed up merely in correct belief with reference to his person or his mission-centering, that is, on something intellectual. Following Jesus means taking up his program and expanding our narrow grasp of heart and will until we have committed our lives to his great world-transforming purpose. Shall we not learn from him?

Seventh Week, Second Day: Living Up to Christ's Ideal for Us

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto the Father.John 14:12.

Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; and so shall ye be my disciples.-John 15:8.

Not only did Jesus have a great world-purpose, but his aspiration was that the lives of his followers should eventuate in results of eternal value. Are they doing it? Let us turn to one of the most characteristic expressions of the Church for answer.

1 J. H. Oldham, in "The Missionary Motive," edited by W. Paton, p. 32.

Speaking of the organized efforts of the Church in modern times to express the highest type of Christian world friendship, one of our most popular speakers to students said, "Foreign missions are the most effective movement in human history." A professor in the University of Chicago speaks of them as “the most significant and serious of all twentieth century enterprises." The editor of the British quarterly, The East and the West, writes: "The task on which missions are engaged, whether viewed from a spiritual, a moral, or an educational standpoint, is the greatest which men have essayed to undertake." The senior secretary amongst our American foreign missionary boards speaks of this enterprise as "the most profound and difficult problem that is moving over the face of the earth." A much-valued British author holds that "the missionary enterprise is no longer a romance, it has become a great epic—the greatest the world has yet produced."

Those who take the trouble to become informed see this movement promoting democracy, spreading liberty, diffusing education, elevating womanhood, glorifying childhood, healing sickness, improving living conditions, recreating communities, destroying social abuses, overcoming moral abominations, and proving everywhere the power of God unto salvation to every man and nation that believeth. And incidentally, one may note that an impartial witness like Dr. Simon Flexner, who made investigations for the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller Foundation, can state that "there is no organization in the world, either philanthropic or business, which is getting as large returns out of the money it spends as the various boards of foreign missions."

Evidently there are Christians who have dared to work for world results. In nation after nation one may see the silent march of an unseen Power. But this is because world Christians have made great ventures. In these days, when one of the most powerful convictions operating among men is the belief that the world can be made better, shall we not suffuse our minds with the largeness of Christ's expectation for us?

Seventh Week, Third Day: Making Known the Love of Christ

For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that

he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God.-Eph. 3: 14-19.

That men should know the love of Christ, and hence be filled with all the fulness of God-this was the great ideal for men for which Paul prayed and worked. To a great extent the young men and women even of our own country are not only out of touch with Christianity, but do not know what Christianity is. Or else they think they can grasp its significance without serious study, and can comprehend its full meaning in a shallow understanding of love to God and to fellowmen. Read over these verses and realize the immensity of the work that God must do in the hearts of men before this prayer for the youth of our own and other nations can be answered.

From some standpoints it would seem a simple matter to tell about Jesus to those who know him not. A missionary in India actually spent his time in going on horseback through the villages proclaiming his good news. But no Paul Revere's ride through the universe will serve the purpose; no megaphone, however powerful, will accomplish this high end. Far too much is involved in making the message understood. Sometimes it seems almost impossible to deliver a direct and simple message that will find its way home. But now let us read these verses over and over again, making them and the realities for which they stand so vital in our lives that the great attempt with God's help to make them true in others' lives will be the inevitable outcome of rich experience and deep gratitude.

Seventh Week, Fourth Day: A Task of Unrivalled Potentiality

There is one body, and one Spirit, even as also ye were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in all. For the perfecting of the

saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ: till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ. . . . From whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love. Wherefore, putting away falsehood, speak ye truth each one with his neighbor: for we are members one of another.-Eph. 4:4-6, 12, 13, 16, 25.

So far do many of our churches come from the ideal of these verses, that many people are restless with the Church as an institution, and question whether it should figure in a real world program. We remember, however, the place it held in the program of the greatest world Christian after Jesus. In a little more than ten years Paul had established churches in four provinces of the Roman Empire, selecting important centers of Roman administration, Greek civilization, Jewish influence, and large trade. Over a score of churches are mentioned in the New Testament-Antioch, Asia, Babylon, Cenchreæ, Cæsarea, Cilicia, Corinth, Ephesus, Galatia, Galilee, Jerusalem, Joppa, Judæa, Laodicea, Pergamos, Philadelphia, Samaria, Sardis, Smyrna, Syria, Thessalonica, and Thyatira. Certainly one of the very definite proximate aims of this great worker was the establishment of churches. And if you should lay aside the Church as a social institution you would have to bring back something else, not unlike what the Church can be, in order to realize your vision of the Christian social ideal, and to foster that attitude of expectant faith without which visions do not come. The Church needs constructive criticism, but it has potentialities as an institution for human welfare to which we are just awaking.

It is not strange, then, that world Christians of our own day have made one of their most definite of aims, the establishment of self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating churches in every land. But note what really gigantic problems are involved. Instead of creeds which are merely reminiscent of struggles that have been real and valid for the West, the thinkers of these churches must formulate on the one hand what a Christian ought to believe with reference to