CHAPTER V
SOWING IN THE EVENING
IN THE Student Volunteer Convention at Des Moines, Iowa, there was a motto set up high on the platform: “The Evangelization of the World in this Generation.”
When I saw that motto I said to myself, “This is the very objective, so far as our country is concerned, we are now determined to attain.”
We cannot wait until the next generation, which will have its own work to carry on. The evangelization of the world must be the work of this generation, and I believe that if the church of Christ at the present day is really resolved to accomplish this great object, it can surely be done in this generation. You have heard from the missionaries returning from all parts of the world what wonderful openings there are everywhere on the mission field. Not only in Japan, but in China, in Korea, in India, in Africa, in South America, and in all other heathen lands the doors are widely thrown open for the Gospel message. The call from the heathen lands for missionaries is now so loud and urgent that, if the churches will really awaken to their opportunities and responsibilities, they cannot help making a desperate effort for the immediate evangelization of the whole world.
You have already heard those loud and urgent calls from the foreign field through your own missionaries. Of course, they can represent to you satisfactorily the condition of the heathen land where they are working themselves. But if you could hear directly from the heathen themselves, their need and their cry for your help, you would perhaps get a better and keener idea of the urgency of such calls. You know I come from a heathen land. And at one time I was a heathen myself, and am still the subject of a heathen country. So I ought to be better qualified to represent the heathen people, and to furnish you with first hand information about the real situation of the heathen world at the present time. And moreover, I believe I have a right to represent not only my own heathen land, but also the whole world. Because, though I love my own country very dearly, yet my Christian heart is a little too big to confine itself to my own country alone. I love China, I love India, I love Africa, just as much in regard to the salvation of their souls as I love the salvation of my own people. I always feel that if God wants me for a missionary in Africa, I am more than ready to start at once. In our Christian love there are no national boundaries or racial distinctions.
Thus representing the whole heathen world, I wish to make my humble appeal to my Christian friends in America. Now may I be permitted to speak plainly, freely, and unreservedly, though in deep humility, how we of the heathen lands feel about foreign missionary enterprises?
While thanking you from the bottom of my heart on behalf of my heathen brethren for what you have already done, and are now doing, for the evangelization of our benighted land, yet I cannot refrain from asking, “Why can’t, or why won’t, you do more for the evangelization of the whole world? Do you think that you have done, and are doing, enough? Are you satisfied with the result you have already attained? Are you really trying to fulfill the last command of our Lord, ‘Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature,’ according to your ability or talents given from above? Are you earnestly endeavoring to carry out that idea of ‘The Evangelization of the World in this Generation’?”
Suppose in the last great European war America had sent out only a few hundred thousand soldiers to France to fight with the Germans,—do you think you could have beaten that country and saved the world? Though the American soldiers may have been ever so brave and gallant individually, yet what could a few hundred thousand Americans do against millions of Germans and Austrians? But you sent two millions, and were going to send more millions, to fight the Germans. You not only spent a few millions of dollars, but several billions. You not only gave up your men, but you gave up your white bread and butter, your meat and sugar. You deprived yourselves of comfort and luxury. You did not think any sacrifice too great for gaining your object. In a word, you made the beating of Germany and the saving of the world the supreme effort of your nation. This was doing the work according to its magnitude, and you gained your object.
Now turn your eyes to the work of your foreign missions, which is the same as conquering the heathen lands for Jesus Christ. Do you think conquering a whole heathen land for Christ is a smaller work or easier task than conquering Germany? What is the heathen force of the world at the present time? Taking the whole population of the world as sixteen hundred millions, only a little less than six hundred millions can be counted as the Christian population, and that, of course, including several hundred million Roman and Greek Catholics; and the rest, more than one billion, are among the so-called heathen population of the world. In Japan and Korea we have eighty million heathen; in China, four hundred million; in India, three hundred and thirty million; in Africa, one hundred and fifty million; and in all countries taken together the heathen population of the world is over one billion. Now your foreign mission work is to evangelize this heathen world. For this purpose, how strong an army of Christian soldiers have you despatched? How many missionaries have you already sent out? Are you doing this work of world evangelization according to the magnitude of the task?
I know your missionaries. They are brave soldiers. They are gallant fighters individually, and they are faithful even unto death for the cause of their Lord. But what can this handful of a few thousand missionaries do against the gigantic mass of a billion heathen? Do you think they can evangelize the whole world in this generation? No, no; this is not doing the work according to its magnitude.
I know the American people, and I love them, because I was converted by the ministry of an American teacher, and was brought up by the American missionaries. I regard America as my spiritual fatherland. I feel perfectly at home in this country. Moreover, I admire the true American spirit. When once that American spirit is roused up, and you are determined to gain any object, you always get it. Why won’t you send out, not only a few thousand, but a few hundred thousand, Christian soldiers throughout the length and breadth of the whole earth to fight with the Devil? Why won’t you sacrifice once more your boys and girls, for this great conflict of Christ and his enemies? In this war girls are just as good a fighting force as boys, if not better. Why won’t you once more give up your white bread and butter, your meat and sugar, and deprive yourselves of your comfort and luxury for the cause of Christ? Why don’t you spend, not only a few millions, but billions, or tens of billions, of dollars for this great work of world evangelization? In a word, why won’t you make this foreign mission work, which is the fulfilment of the last command of Jesus Christ, the supreme effort of the Christian churches in America, instead of treating it as a mere appendix to your work at home?
America is blessed in every way. Yours is the strongest and wealthiest, most intelligent and most enterprising, country in the world. No country on earth can compete with you. But do you think, my American friends, that God has blessed you so abundantly for your own sake, for your own comfort and luxury, for your own enjoyment and satisfaction alone? Do you think that God has so wonderfully blessed you because you are his only favorite among all the nations of the world? No, no; God has blessed America wonderfully, not for America’s sake alone, but for the sake of the whole world. He has blessed America to make her a blessing to the world through the power of Christ.
Since I have come to this country your people call me by various names, such as the Moody of Japan, or the Billy Sunday of Japan, and so on; but I don’t like to be called by such great names. I am not such a big man. I know I am a small man, not even worthy of being called a minister of Christ, because I have backslidden and forsaken my Lord for many years. Not only for such reasons, but also because I have my own name I prefer to be called always by that name, even though it be an unknown one. But it you insist on calling me by any other than my own, I have one name by which I should like to be called. That is, a Macedonian. I am like the Macedonian in Paul’s vision. He came from heathen Europe to Asia, and I came from heathen Asia to America; but the object of the coming of these two Macedonians is the same, namely, to implore the help of the Christians for the heathen lands.
Won’t you come and help us? Won’t you, my young American friends, take up the sword of the Spirit, and march out from your own beloved land into the sin-stricken, desolate heathen lands and lay down your lives for the salvation of the billion heathen souls? Do you realize that these billion heathen are all in need of salvation just as much as you were? Don’t you know that the least of these is, in the sight of God, just as precious as the soul of your own mother or father, brother or sister? Do you think that God wants the salvation of your kinsmen only, and not the salvation of these heathen? Oh, I beg and entreat you, my dear American friends, to look upon this billion of heathen souls with the eye of your heavenly Father and the heart of your Lord Jesus Christ, who loved them and died for them. Then you cannot help making a desperate effort for their salvation.
And I believe that if you American Christians will seriously and earnestly take up the great work of evangelizing the world in this generation, and will do the work according to its magnitude, God on his part will surely bless you and your work, and the day of great victory will be at hand.
“Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.”
THE END