Reformed

doubt, the outbreak of the Reformation "isolated of the the English Church as well as kindred continental Churches. bodies from the vast system with which they had been bound up.' "They were thrown suddenly on their own resources. But little by little, with the return of strength and the opportunity of reflection, the sense of this duty re-awaked among the Protestant Churches. Denmark established the first mission in Hindostan,' and also in Greenland, Germany. Holland laboured earnestly in Java, Amboyna, Formosa. Germany, in the missions of the United Brethren, showed an unrivalled pattern of wisdom and self-devotion over an area extending from South Africa to Labrador. I will not now seek to recount the efforts made through the Missionary Societies of our own country to wipe away the of Engreproach of past indifference in this the prime of Christian works of mercy. But I would ask you to compare the present state of British India with its aspect a century ago; to look abroad on the work which has been done during the same period in America, Australia, New Zealand, and Africa,

fashion them into means of offence and defence. . . Within the citadel a vigorous spiritual life, which gave evidence of its existence chiefly in sacred song and music, was not lacking. But the notion of winning the world to the Gospel, and of the moral expansion of the Protestant principle according to its different aspects, had almost disappeared."Dorner, H. Prot. Th., II. 99.

1 Grant, B. L., p. 185. Guericke, Kirchengesch., III. 374.

2 Having later among its missionaries (from 1751-1798) that truly excellent man, Christian F. Schwarz. A general history of Protestant Missions was first brought out by Wiggers, Hamburg, 1856, in 2 vols.

land.

Present

aspect of

Is it

and to say whether we can see in it only the expiring embers of a faith all but extinct, incapable of further effort or enthusiasm. Do we not rather mark in it the signs under God's blessing of a revival, pure, and fresh, and heartfelt, of a primitive zeal such as has ever stamped the leading eras of Christian advance? Though much, very the work. much remains to be done to consolidate the empire of Christ even in the regions where His name is named, there is still ground in past and present effort for the highest expectations of success. not so that in these latter days the truest seal of missionary devotion has not been withheld in the constancy of an entire Church, as also of individual Christians? Witness the blood-stained cliffs of Madagascar! Witness the island of the South Pacific, which so lately saw our English Bishop Patteson close with a martyr's death the life of an Apostle! Happier in this his meed than Xavier himself. "If," said that faithful servant of Christ, "I should happen to die by the hands of the heathen, who knows but all of them might receive the faith? For it is most certain that, since the primitive times of the Church, the seed of the Gospel has made a larger increase in the fields of Paganism by the blood of martyrs than by the sweat of missionaries." Surely Mission work will be found the true Crusade of the nineteenth cen

1 See Dryden's Life, p. 174, ap. Grant, p. 179.

able con

now juncture of

circum

tury. It is not for nought that Christianity, once Favourthe civilizer and creator of modern Europe, puts forth its plastic power to re-mould the stances. religions of the world, and summon to one common shrine the aboriginal races of the earth. It is true that many such tribes, the sad survivors of the infancy of our race,' have perished as by an unseen law, and are perishing at the first touch of civilization. The Church of Christ but plants itself on their forgotten graves. Yet, if indeed we believe in civilization as the vocation of mankind, and in nations as specifically gifted for this work, how vast is the future now open to Christian enterprise! For the soul and source of all real civilization we hold to be Religion. Colonization and conquest, intercourse and trade, are its pioneers, and to each of the dominant sections of the Christian world may perhaps, in the Divine councils, be reserved a separate portion of this common work. Each of the three Families of Probable

field open to each of

the lead

1 "Quant aux races sauvages, ces tristes survivants d'un monde en ing divienfance, à qui l'on ne peut souhaiter qu'une douce mort, il y a presque sions of the Christian dérision à leur appliquer nos formulaires dogmatiques, fruit d'une church. réflexion de vingt siècles."-Renan, Questions Contemporaines, p. 361.

I have to some extent followed the far-reaching speculations of the same able mind in estimating the future spread of Christianity. Meanwhile philosophy, it must not be forgotten, has done nothing in this work. "Condorcet," writes De Maistre, "nous a promis que les philosophes se chargeraient incessamment de la civilisation et du bonheur des nations barbares. Nous attendrons qu'ils veuillent bien commencer."-Euvres, p. 130.

2 See Luthardt's remarks, Apolog., E. T., ed. Clark, p. 199.

Christianity,' the Latin or Celtic, the Teutonic, the Greco-Slave, (for in accepting this new element the Greek Church also has found its Rénaissance;) has at least a probable appointed area of labour. Russia may yet subdue the realms of Buddhism and of Confucianism. For Latin Catholicism may remain the Turkish and Persian Orient. The Moslems of the East, it is true, fix their gaze on Constantinople as the centre of their hopes, looking to a restoration of the Caliphate, and with it of their former glory. But surely they lean on a broken reed. For Teutonic Christianity and our own English-speaking race3 lies in store the vast appanage of Hindostan, the continents of Australia and North America, and, as it would seem, of Central and Southern Africa,

2

1 "Throughout the world, wherever the Teutonic is the groundwork of the language, the Reformation either is or, as in Southern Germany, has been dominant: wherever Latin, Latin Christianity has retained its ascendancy."-Milman, L. Chr., I. 8. Protestantism," says Mr. Froude, Short Studies, p. 131, "is Teutonic; Catholicism Latin and Celtic." As to the Greek Church, comp. Dean Stanley, Lect. on Eastern Ch., p. ix. pp. 345, 492, and Neale's Holy Eastern Church, I. 14, 15. 2 See Grant, B. L., p. 285. W. G. Palgrave's Essays, p. 131.

"The spread of the English stock, and language, and literature, over the North American continent, has afforded a distinct and very significant indication of the power of Christianity to retain its hold of the human mind, and of its aptness to run hand in hand with civilization, even when unaided by those secular succours to which its enemies in malice, and some of its friends in over-caution, are prone to attribute too much importance."-I. Taylor, Enthus., p. 271. In the East, the opening of Japan, the adoption, as it is stated, of English as the State language, and the large dimensions of Chinese Coolie migration to America, Australia, and India, tend in the same direction.

progress.

"even all the isles of the heathen." As the final Room for term of human religions, susceptible of a progressive application,' the Avatar of Christianity has still before it a future, which in vastness may overshadow the history of the past."

sion.

standard

tianity.

§ 13. Let us not, then, the creatures of a day, Concluwhose term of earthly life but spans the commencement of an immortal existence, deem that progress slow, that career uncertain. For what shall be No true our standard of measurement? "The blindness of of the rate of progress the greatest men, of the highest races, of wide of Chriscontinents" will not shake our faith, that the Divine purpose revealed in the scheme of our holy Religion shall surely come to pass. There are not wanting indications that, "both in the case of men and of nations, the longest training and the dreariest periods of abeyance of spiritual life are often preparations for its fullest growth." Eras of

1 Comp. Milman, u. s., p. 9; VI. 447.

2 Want of space forbids me to dwell on the symptoms, now happily universal, of the intensive progress of Christianity in our own and other countries. These to some extent compete and interfere with missionary labour. Such are the vast efforts made in England during the last half century, not only by the Established Church, but also by Nonconformist bodies, to overtake, as to spiritual provision, the large and steady increase of population, a task the more difficult from foregone neglect; the building and renovation of churches and chapels; the erection and maintenance of schools, in which the clergy are admitted to have taken so great a share; the growing interest in matters of doctrine and practice often involving much personal sacrifice; not to speak of individual acts of Christian religiousness, the growth of charity answering to the increase of national wealth. In proportion as many of these tasks are remitted to the superintendence of the State, the extensive action of the Church may be expected to fill a larger field.

Hutton, Essays, p. 122.