last word of all religion. The gospel of Christ will then be summed up in one supreme definition: "No man hath seen God at any time; but the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth, He hath revealed Him."

CHAPTER XVI

MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE

THE parable of the Seeking Shepherd may be said to contain the germ of all missionary enterprise. Its dominant note is that if men are to be brought into the fold of God, they must be sought. They are both unwilling and incapable of seeking the fold for themselves, as the lost sheep is. A general declaration of ethical truth, however lucid and persuasive, is of no avail. Were it argued, for example, that the wide publication of the Gospels was sufficient in itself to impregnate the whole world with Christian ideas, the immediate retort would be that truth needs something more than publicity before it can be generally accepted. It needs to be enforced by living examples and the enthusiasm of the living voice. We are apt greatly to exaggerate the influence which literatures and their authors exercise upon the world. There is nothing that men in general regard with such complete indifference as books. Declarations of truth, whether made on the forum or in the press, rarely touch more than a few scattered units of society. If the great mass of human creatures are to be affected by these declarations they must be importuned to listen. Hence truth never succeeds on any large scale without the spirit of active propaganda. It is not the Koran which explains the triumph of Mohammed, but the propagandist fire which he kindled in a multitude of ardent followers. Certainly it is not the Gospels which first drew attention to Christ, since His Church had already taken firm hold upon the world long before the Gospels were gen

erally known. The real source of triumph lay in the energy of individuals who went out to seek the lost, everywhere compelling men to listen by the novelty of their message and the enthusiasm of their lives. It is this truth which makes Christ's picture of the Seeking Shepherd the fertile inspiration of all missionary enterprise.

Christ appears on two occasions to have organized His followers for deliberate missionary effort. In the first instance He sends forth the Apostles only, and the peculiarity of their mission is that they are not to "go into the way of the Gentiles," nor into any city of Samaria, but to the "lost sheep of the house of Israel." In the second instance we find a significant alteration of plan. It is no longer the Apostles alone who are sent, but seventy disciples specially selected for the work. The limitation of the mission to the children of Israel is withdrawn; these later Evangelists are to go "into every city and place whither He Himself would come." This is in accord with the wider view of His mission which possessed the mind of Christ after His visit to the pagan populations of Tyre and Sidon. The question naturally suggests itself, Why did not Christ remain among these pagan populations who had received Him with a joyous alacrity never manifested by His own countrymen? The answer is that such a decision would have manifested a spirit of resentment against His own countrymen which Christ was incapable of feeling. The more bitterly the Pharisees were opposed to Him the more necessary did it seem to affirm His claims in Jerusalem, which was the very citadel of Pharisaism. The man of heroic temper inevitably chooses a difficult course in preference to an easy one. Danger in itself is a powerful element of attraction. Moreover, Christ foresees that the hour will soon come when He Himself will be withdrawn, and this makes it the more necessary that His

followers should have some preliminary exercise in the sort of work which will devolve upon them at no distant date. Hence the second mission is organized upon a wider scale than the first. It is meant as a reply to the Sanhedrin who are already devising His death. To the seventy members of the Sanhedrin Christ opposes seventy disciples filled with the spirit not of hatred but of love, moved by the instincts not of obscurantism but of catholic charity. They are, so to speak, the Sanhedrin of the New Kingdom-a Sanhedrin of saints. Two by two they go forth, filled with guileless enthusiasm, the advance guard of an innumerable army which has never since ceased to carry on its conquering propaganda.

It is clear that these missionary enterprises were among the most deliberately organized of all Christ's acts. Indeed it may be claimed that nowhere else do we find any evidence of deliberate organization at all. Christ did not think it necessary to leave any working plan for the establishment of His Church. His institutions are limited to two-baptism and the Lord's Supper. His doctrines themselves were not reduced to axiomatic form, nor was any effort made to preserve them in writing. Apparently nothing was more remote from the mind of Christ than that which is the first instinct in the minds of all great teachers and reformers, viz., to organize firmly doctrines and institutions which shall be their perpetual memorial. But the sending out of the seventy is prefaced by very definite instructions. There is put into the hand of each a code of conduct and behavior drawn up by the Master Himself. How deeply impressed Jesus Himself was with the importance of this step we may judge by two incidents. In what were almost His dying moments His mind goes back to the first missionary journey of the Twelve, and He says to His sorrowing disciples, "When I

sent you without purse and scrip, and shoes, lacked ye anything?" In the last recorded speech of all, before Jesus vanishes for ever into the heavens, His mind is still glowing with the ardor of the propagandist: "Go ye unto all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." If from such suggestive incidents anything can be deduced, it is that the thought dearest to the heart of Christ was missionary enterprise.

What was the nature of this code of instructions placed in the hands of these first missionaries? If it be, as we take it to be, the one deliberate attempt of Christ in practical organization, it must needs be regarded as a statement of principles. What were the principles which Christ enunciated as indispensable not merely to this particular mission, but to all similar enterprises conducted in His name throughout the ages?

The document commences with a prologue stating the grounds on which the work is undertaken, and one significant detail of the new organization in relation to the disciples themselves. "The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few," says Jesus. The capacity and readiness of mankind in general to receive the new truth is thus taken for granted. Nothing that has happened by way of blind prejudice and envenomed opposition has shaken Christ's belief in the good qualities of human nature. Men are ripe for the harvest; they are as corn ready to fall before the sickle. God has taken care to sow the Divine seed in human hearts; it is for man now to gather the first fruits. Amid a thousand debasements human nature in general remains virtuous. It has its roots in God, and the surprising fact is not that man is so bad, but that he is so good. He who sees nothing but the gross depravity of human nature is disqualified for all missionary enterprise because he is destitute of hope. Faith