The Possibility of Evangelizing the World Within a Generation as Viewed by Leaders in the Church

In 1818 Gordon Hall and Samuel Newell, missionaries of the American Board in India, issued a burning appeal to Christians. It appeared as a pamphlet entitled "The Conversion of the World: or the claims of Six Hundred Millions, and the Ability and Duty of the Churches Respecting Them. In it they maintained:" It is the duty of the churches to send forth preachers in sufficient numbers to furnish the means of instruction and salvation to the whole world. . . . As to the number of preachers, the same reasons which prove the duty of sending one, equally prove the duty of sending as many as are requisite to fulfil the command of Christ, to preach the Gospel to every creature. If we send half a dozen missionaries to a country where there are as many millions of souls, we are too apt to imagine that we have discharged our duty to that country — we have sent them the Gospel. The fact however is, we have only sent the Gospel to a few individuals in that nation. . . The thing that Christ commands is to preach the Gospel to every creature, — not merely to a few individuals in every nation."

One of the most impressive appeals ever sent by the missionaries to the Church at home appeared in 1836, and was entitled "The Duty of the Present Generation to Evangelize the World: An Appeal from the Missionaries at the Sandwich Islands to their Friends in the United States." All the members of the mission united in the opinion that "the present generation can preach the gospel to the heathen. The men are already educated. Other means are ready. God requires it as a present duty. . . . The world has long been under the influence of this scheme, of committing the heathen to the next generation."

In 1858 during the time of the greatest revival the American churches have ever known, Dr. Joel Parker, one of the leading pastors of New York, preached a sermon on "The Duty of the Present Generation of Christians to Evangelize the World," in which he said: "It is the duty of Christians to evangelize the whole world immediately. The present generation is competent under God to achieve the work. There are means enough in the power of the Church to do it. There is money that can be counted in millions that can be spared without producing any serious want. There are men enough for the missionary work. If ten thousand should leave us for heathen shores in the course of a twelve-month, going out in companies of from ten to fifty, they would scarcely be missed from our country. The Church, we have reason to believe would even be strengthened by it. Such a revival of Christian zeal would be the means of converting ten times that number."

The Earl of Shaftesbury, in an address given at the conference on missions held in Liverpool in 1860, speaking of the condition of the world, said: "Do consider, that at this moment the numbers of those who do not believe in the name of our Lord are ten, twenty, perhaps thirtyfold, those to whom the knowledge of salvation has been administered. Recollect, that though the state of things be so, the world has been for eighteen centuries in this condition; and, during the latter part of these centuries, it has been in the power of those who hold the truth, having means enough, having knowledge enough, and having opportunity enough, to evangelize the globe fifty times over."

Dr. Joseph Angus in 1871 preached a notable sermon before the Baptist Missionary Society on "Apostolic Missions: the Gospel for Every Creature." It has been printed and given a wide circulation. In this sermon Dr. Angus expressed the opinion that "if the Christian Church will give itself to this business of preaching the Gospel, it has wealth enough and men enough to preach it, in the next fifteen or twenty years, to every creature. All we need is a 'willing mind' — a Pentecostal spirit of prayer, and faith and zeal."

The words of Simeon Calhoun, uttered many years ago, still ring with confidence: "It is my deep conviction, and I say it again and again, that if the Church of Christ were what she ought to be, twenty years would not pass away till the story of the Cross will be uttered in the ears of every living man."

At the General Conference of the Protestant Missionaries of China, held at Shanghai in 1877, the adopted report of the Committee on Appeal to the Churches contains the following weighty statement: "How long shall this fearful ruin of souls continue? Ought we not to make an effort to save China in this generation? Is God's power limited? Is the efficacy of prayer limited? This grand achievement is in the hands of the Church. . . . We want China emancipated from the thraldom of sin in this generation. It is possible. Our Lord has said, "According to your faith be it unto you.' The Church of God can do it, if she be only faithful to her great commission.

. . Standing on the borders of this vast empire, we, therefore — one hundred and twenty missionaries, from almost every evangelical religious denomination in Europe and America, assembled in General Conference at Shanghai, and representing the whole body of Protestant Missionaries in China — feeling our utter insufficiency for the great work so rapidly expanding, do most earnestly plead, with one voice, calling upon the whole Church of God for more laborers. And we will as earnestly and unitedly plead at the Throne of Grace that the Spirit of God may move the hearts of all, to whom this appeal comes, to cry, — 'Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?' And may this spirit be communicated from heart to heart, from church to church, from continent to continent, until the whole Christian world shall be aroused, and every soldier of the cross shall come to the help of the Lord against the mighty."

Professor Samuel H. Kellogg, of the Western Theological Seminary, after he had been for years a missionary in India, wrote: "I have been profoundly interested in the suggestion that has been thrown out of late in several quarters — that the Church of Christ should make it its business to see to it that the Gospel is carried to all the world before the present generation shall have passed away. That the Church of Christ as now existing on the earth has the full ability, both in men and prepared this appeal was composed as follows: Mr. A. Wylie, of the British and Foreign Bible Society; Rev. L. H. Gulick, M.D., of the American Bible Society; Rev. A. Williamson, LL.D., of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland; Rev. C. Douglas, LL.D., of the English Presbyterian Church; Rev. C. Goodrich, of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions; Rev. G. John, of the London Missionary Society; Rev. M. T. Yates, D.D., of the Southern Baptist Convention; Rev. J. H. Taylor, M.D., of the China Inland Mission; Rev. J. W. Lambuth, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South; Rev. E. H. Thomson, of the Protestant Episcopal Church; Rev. S. L. Baldwin, of the Methodist Episcopal Church; Rev. J. V. N. Talmage, D.D., of the Reformed Church; Rev. J. R. Goddard, of the Baptist Missionary Union; Rev. C. R. Mills, of the Presbyterian Church; Rev. B. Helm, of the Southern Presbyterian Church; Rev. D. Hill, of the English Wesleyan Mission; Rev. F. F. Gough, of the Church Missionary Society; Rev. R. Lechler, of the Basel Mission; Rev. C. P. Scott, of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel; Rev. W. N. Hall, of the Methodist New Connection, England; and Rev. R. Swallow, of the United Methodist Free Church, England. money, for this work, no man can doubt. And if she has the ability, who can doubt for a moment that it is her bounden duty? Is the Church of Jesus Christ, so rich to-day in gifted men and almost boundless wealth, with almost every door in all the world thrown open to her in answer to her prayer, is she prepared to take the responsibility of putting off the kingdom?

Dr. R. G. Wilder, who had been a missionary in India for thirty years, in an editorial which he wrote while he was in charge of The Missionary Review said: "Those dear brethren who seem to think and argue that some minds are too ardent on this subject, that this work must be prosecuted for generations and centuries and ages yet to come, before we can expect its completion, overlook the fact that thousands of heathens have been fully enlightened and won to Christ within the current generation who never before heard a word of Gospel truth; [and] that if a sufficient Christian force were enlisted the whole 800,000,000 of heathens might have been as thoroughly evangelized as these thousands, in the same period of time."

In 1887, Dr. Judson Smith, Secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, in emphasizing the present opportunity of the Church, said: "What hinders the immediate effort to plant the Gospel in every nation and island and home in all the earth within the next few decades? Nothing but the faltering zeal and purpose of the mass of Christian believers now on the earth. That precisely is the critical question. Are we, the Christians of to-day, awake to these facts and responsive to the claims of this glorious work? Do we understand that this vast responsibility rests upon us? That it is possible now, as never before in the world's history, to preach the Gospel to all the nations? And do we mean, God helping, that this work shall be done ere we die? This is the deep significance of the hour to this generation."

In an address at the Centenary Conference on Foreign Missions, held in London in 1888, Dr. A. Sutherland, Secretary of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Church in Canada, expressed his belief that "the power latent in the Churches, if properly utilised and directed, would be amply sufficient for the speedy evangelisation of the world."

Mr. Eugene Stock, the Editorial Secretary of the Church Missionary Society, writing in 1896 on the evangelization of the world in this generation, gave the following considerations, among others, bearing upon the possibility of the undertaking: "Some reader may urge, it has never been done yet. No one generation has been actually evangelized. True; yet that is no proof of its impossibility; and the fact that past generations of Christians failed to accomplish their task, or rather, never tried (except perhaps in the first century, and even that is very doubtful), is no reason why we should shrink from ours. 'Give ye them to eat,' said Christ to His disciples; and if ever there was an impossible task. He gave them one then; yet it was accomplished. But that was a miracle, urges our imaginary friend. Well, if it be allowed for argument's sake that the day of miracles in the material world is past, most assuredly the day of miracles in the spiritual world is not past; nay, we are in the very noon of it. Yet perhaps we undervalue that development of even material things which daily tends to make material miracles less necessary. Half a century ago, who would have dared to predict that within much less than that time we should be able to communicate in a few minutes simultaneously with New York and Constantinople and Cape Coast Castle and Johannesburg and Fuh-Chow? The daily and hourly cablegrams from all parts of the world are so much a matter of course, that the Secretary of State for the Colonies, when, on a memorable recent occasion, he received no news from South Africa less than twenty-four hours old, went off at midnight to the office of the Telegraph Company to ask what had happened to the wires. This is but a single illustration. The world is shrinking fast in respect of distances to be covered. And God has flung open door after door that had been closed for centuries; so that what was utterly impossible when the Church Missionary Society was founded is perfectly feasible now."""

At the Lambeth Conference of Bishops of the Anglican Communion, held in London in 1897, the report of the Committee on Foreign Missions, composed of fifty-six bishops, contains the following words regarding the missionary movement among students: "Your Committee observe with gratitude to God that a very large number of students in universities and colleges throughout the world have realised so keenly the call to missionary work that they have enrolled themselves in a Student Volunteer Missionary Union, and have taken as their watchword 'The Evangelization of the World in This Generation.

The Bishop of Newcastle, in the paper which he presented at the Church Congress in England in 1898, gives the following facts pointing to the possibility of the world-wide proclamation of the Gospel within our day: "When I consider the obligation, not of clergy alone, but of the whole Church, to 'make disciples of all the nations;' the extraordinary development of civilization which has made all nations accessible within this century; the enormous wealth accumulated by Christian nations of the earth; the wonderful results given to the earnest labours of a comparatively few men and women (samples, surely, of what awaits the labours of an awakened Church); the growing appreciation within the last generation of the duty and blessing of evangelizing the world, as is illustrated by the growth of the income of the Church Missionary Society in thirty years from £153,921 to £331,598, with a corresponding increase of staff, and by the upgrowth within a few years of this remarkable movement amongst students in various colleges which has led to a study of missionary literature and of missionary problems, and to offers of personal service beyond all former precedent, — I am compelled to say that I think the watchword presented to us by the Student Volunteer Missionary Union, and as authoritatively explained, to be justified by our Lord's command, and by the careful consideration of the facts of the world's progress."

Dr. Jacob Chamberlain, a missionary of the Reformed Church in India, appealed thus to the delegates at the Bombay Decennial Conference in 1892-3: "'Christ for India and India for Christ, — let that be our enthusiastic shout, backed up by enthusiastic deeds, and by God's blessing, we will bring revolted India into Christ's Kingdom within the lives of those now born."

The Bishop of Mombasa, writing at the close of several years' missionary work in Western India, expressed his conviction that "there are Christians enough in India to evangelize all her peoples and constantly to make the Gospel known in all her villages, if but God's Holy Spirit come upon them for the work, and the Lord's Hand provide the means for those who preach the Gospel to 'live of the Gospel,' as He surely will. The Christians know the languages. They know the caste system. They are just what the Lord has need of. Oh that one and all would 'yield as alive from the dead,' and that the Lord would take them by thousands and by thousands for the evangelization of India! So in China, so in Africa, and elsewhere. The Lord take hold of the Christians of the soil for a 'Sanctuary and for a dominion!'"

Dr. J. C. R. Ewing, the Principal of the Forman Christian College at Lahore, India, has expressed the following opinion: "I regard the idea of the evangelization of the world in this generation as entirely Scriptural. There is not a hint in the Word to lead us to adopt the popular theory that it is the Church's task to strive generation after generation to gather out the few. 'The Gospel to every creature' — that means to every man and woman living now. It is the fault of the Church if from amongst the present rising generation any advance to old age without hearing of Christ and His salvation.

The oldest missionary of the Canadian Presbyterian Church in India, Rev. J. F. Campbell, has written as follows: "Looking at it, then, as coolly and unconcernedly as we can, we are convinced that, whatever may or may not have been the case before, the professed people of Christ now living have it in their power within one generation to give every responsible human being the chance of intelligently accepting Christ as his Saviour from sin, if he is willing. All that is needed is that those who are called Christians, and with their lips acknowledge Him as true Teacher and rightful Lord, really believe His words in their inmost hearts and yield themselves to His service accordingly."

Rev. S. M. Zwemer, F.R.G.S., a Reformed Church missionary in Arabia, in writing about his own field, which is one of the most difficult lands in the world to evangelize, says: "At the Student Volunteer Convention in Cleveland [in 1898] I felt, and feel now, that Arabia could easily be evangelized within the next thirty years if it were not for the wicked selfishness of Christians. As I looked over the vast audience I said to myself, With one hundred of these men willing to endure hardness, and $100,000 to send them out, God could shake the very pillars of Mohammed's temple and bring glory to His Son by wrenching back Arabia from the grasp of Satan."

Rev. Christian Borchgrevink, M.D., who has labored for over thirty years in Madagascar under the Norwegian Missionary Society (Stavanger, Norway), gives his opinion regarding the evangelization of his part of the world field: "I would not regard it as impossible to evangelize in this generation the Southern two-thirds of Madagascar if the progress of Christian effort is proportionate in the next thirty-three years to what it has been during the past thirty-three years, during which period of time my missionary society has been laboring in that island. The Northern one-third of Madagascar has no Protestant mission within it, but the Jesuits intend to keep this field exclusively to themselves. I fully believe that the half a million inhabitants in the Northern one-third can also be evangelized in this generation if a sufficient number of missionaries go thither."

For twenty years Rev. G. A. Landes has worked in Brazil as a missionary of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. The following is his estimate of what would be required to evangelize that great field: "There is no other country in the world where the difficulty of reaching the people is so great, owing to the immense territory over which they are scattered. However, notwithstanding this difficulty, I am of the opinion that the mass of the people in Brazil could be evangelized within this generation by a great enlargement of the agencies at present employed by the missionary societies. To evangelize Brazil in this generation it would be necessary to augment the present ordained missionary force by 120 more ordained missionaries including their wives, and that the present teaching force be increased by 200 good Christian teachers. With this new army of workers, guided by God's Word, Spirit, and Providence, I believe a knowledge of the Gospel could be given, in this generation, to the mass of the people in Brazil.

Rev. Sydney L. Gulick, missionary of the American Board in Japan, giving considerations showing why Japan can and should be evangelized in this generation, says: "The Gospel easily can be preached to every person in Japan within the next thirty years if the Christians of America and Great Britain determine to do it and use common sense in doing it. Every door is open. The millions are ready to listen and multitudes are eager to know of this religion of the West. Japan is in a formative stage; old thoughts and customs are rapidly passing away. No generation in Japan in the past has ever been so plastic and open to the Gospel as the present one. Unless we give it Christianity it will grow up without any specific religious instruction. Surely these are strong enough reasons for evangelizing Japan in this generation."

Dr. J. D. Davis, one of the oldest missionaries in Japan and one who for years labored with Neesima in the Doshisha, gives the following statement on the subject: "The duty and responsibility of the Church to 'preach the Gospel to every creature' within one generation is very clear. The doors are open; the Bible is ready in the language of most of the nations; the world is narrowed; it can almost be said, there is no more sea. Distance is being annihilated on sea and on land. The Church possesses numbers sufficient to furnish and support the workers necessary. There is machinery enough; there are wheels enough. It is only needed that the Spirit of God shall move within the wheels. Thousands or tens of thousands of 'volunteers' cannot do this work unless the Church itself is aroused to send them and sustain them and their work with its prayers and money. The Church has had to wait for the doors of the nations to be opened, for the world to be narrowed, for the Bible to be translated; but the Church has no need to wait even one day for the factor which is lacking to accomplish this work in one generation. God waits to give it; Christ is ready to baptize all hearts with the 'Holy Ghost and with fire,' so that all selfishness will be consumed with love, and all money will be melted and reminted and stamped with the image and superscription of Christ. Were this done, the unchurched and unsaved millions of the so-called Christian nations would be won to Christ and the unconverted millions who have never heard would hear the Gospel within one generation."

The considerations mentioned by Dr. S. H. Wainright, Principal of the Southern Methodist College at Kobe, Japan, should not be overlooked: "May we hope to evangelize the world in the present generation? "We cannot give a negative answer, for no man has a right to set limitations to the power and resources of God, nor can anyone say concerning the possibilities of human faith, thus far thou canst go, but no farther."

Dr. Samuel A. Moffett, a Presbyterian missionary in Korea, indicates the conditions on which that country might be evangelized in our lifetime: "Korea can be evangelized within a generation; but in order to accomplish it there is needed an added force of forty thoroughly qualified missionaries of enthusiastic, victorious faith in God and His message. It would also be necessary to have on the home field a Church willing to send them and to stand back of them in prayer, led by pastors who will influence their people to appreciate the privilege as well as the duty of the Church to perform its God-given office of world-wide evangelization."

Dr. John Ross, who has been working in Manchuria for nearly thirty years as a representative of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, writes: "It was largely overlooked formerly — I am not sure that it is fully understood yet — that in the work of making the Kingdom of God coextensive with man God and man are 'fellow-workers.' In the spiritual as in the material harvest man must perform his share or no grain will be garnered. As soon would we expect to see ripe grain walk into the farmer's yard as to see the Kingdom of God planted in the world without human labor. To secure the material harvest man was ordained to do so in the sweat of his brow. To secure the spiritual harvest the 'laborers' are commanded to go 'into all the world.' God will do His part, He will not do man's. The world would have been evangelized a thousand years ago had the Christian Church done its duty. And God will do His part any year in the 20th century if man will but do his."

The Chinese Recorder contains an appeal by Rev. J. C. Garritt, a missionary of the Presbyterian Church, from which the following is taken: "China for Christ in this generation. Why not? . . . In this generation what doubt is there that China will be swept irresistibly into the stream of the world's competition? The West will not wait till a later generation. Why should the Church wait till a later generation? . . . How splendidly equipped the Church is to-day to win not China only, but the world for Christ in one generation! What resources are at the command of the nations that the Church does not possess? Worldly power and prestige certainly do not count for as much as the power of the Maker of the world, by whom and for whom all things were created and in whom all things consist! If the world has money the Church does not lack. If the world has men, brains, wisdom, the Church has men, talents, prudence. If the world has agents to watch for, report, and take advantage of opportunities, the Church has her agents too. . . . God is on our side, and His infinite power, wisdom and grace can never fail. . . . Church of the living God! Take this one word, IMMANUEL, and plant the standard of the cross in every land under the sun!

Dr. Griffith John, writing after nearly half a century of experience in China as the representative of the London Missionary Society, asserts his belief that 'it is possible to evangelize the world in this generation if the Church will but do her duty. The trouble is not with the heathen. A dead Church will prevent it, if it is prevented. Why should it not be accomplished? God will have all men to be saved and come unto the knowledge of the truth. The resources of the Church are boundless. Let the will of the Church be brought into line with the will of God, and nothing will be found to be impossible. May God grant it!

Dr. A. P. Parker, a missionary of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in China, writes: "The idea of the evangelization of the world in this generation is reasonable. The plan is perfectly feasible. There are men enough and there is money enough in the Protestant churches of Europe and America to do the work. It can be done. And it ought to be done."

Rev. James Jackson, Principal of the Kiukiang Institute in China, gives his opinion as follows: "Our responsibility surely is to the men of our own generation. No Christian will venture to say that our Lord has laid upon His Church an impossible task, or that it is His will and purpose that generation after generation of men should pass away into the unseen world without the opportunity of hearing and embracing the way of salvation, the knowledge of which He has entrusted to his Church and for the spread of which He has made His disciples responsible.

Mr. Robert E. Speer, Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, in speaking at the First International Convention of the Student Volunteer Movement, called attention to the necessity of a right attitude of mind and heart toward the subject if one would believe in the evangelization of the world in this generation as a possibility. He said: "Our position on the question of possibility will be largely determined by our views of its desirability. If we do not think we want the world evangelized, we will not have to search far before we find it impossible to evangelize it. But if to-night, face to face with our glorified Master, we catch His Spirit, hear His word, and are willing to do His will, and will open our hearts a little to catch that other cry that comes across the seas to-night from every heathen land, I do not think we can refrain from brushing away a great many objections to the possibility of the evangelization of the world in this generation that may now confront our view. . . . This is not a human issue. God is in it. I have said that there is nothing in the world or the Church, except its disobedience, to render the evangelization of the world in this generation an impossibility. . . . It is possible so far as God is concerned. Nay more, it finds its pledge and inspiration in Him. We often talk as though God was not interested in this question. We enumerate our human forces and look over the field to be possessed, and, just as we are hopeful or despondent, say it can or cannot be done. But this leaves out the mightiest force of all. You recall the question said to have been asked Luther by his wife in one of his despairing moods, — a question, I believe, alleged to have been addressed to Frederick Douglass also, by Sojourner Truth, — 'Is God dead?' I repeat it to those of you who doubt and hesitate to-night: 'Is God dead?' If we cannot rely on Him I am willing to surrender the whole question."

Dr. Henry C. Mabie, Corresponding Secretary of the American Baptist Missionary Union, writes thus upon the subject: "I have no hesitation in insisting upon the universal duty in Christendom everywhere of immediate application, without reserve, of all our powers to the evangelization of the whole world. Certainly all will agree that the duty of each generation to its generation is imperative and universal. Then also I believe that the Church has never risen to anything like a comprehension of what God waits to do when His Church will get into line. The surprises of grace, the miracles of converting power, the rapid triumphs of the Gospel would astonish the whole earth if God were really put to the test. The master temptation of the devil is to secure procrastination on the part of the Church respecting the world's evangelization. Of course this temptation should be resisted at every point, and if it were nations would soon be born in a day."

Dr. George Robson, of Scotland, the editor of The Missionary Record in a review of Professor Warneck's paper on "The Modern Theory of the Evangelization of the World," says: "If the Church would realise her relations to her enthroned Lord, if she would duly awake to her opportunities, responsibilities, and resources, and if her resources were more fully consecrated to the service of the Lord, there would be little difficulty, within one generation, in covering the whole open field of heathendom with centres of evangelisation sufficiently near each other to diffuse the gospel over the intervening spaces."

Rev. Alexander MacKennal, President of the Free Church Council, in an address at the International Student Volunteer Conference in London in January, 1900, said: "We seemed to recognize in the beating of the young heart towards that nobler possibility, the motto of which [the evangelization of the world in this generation] is upon this platform before me — I say, we saw in that the indications of something deeper than belonged to the thoughts and counsels of man. For myself, ... I felt first the audacity of the proposal, then the reasonableness of the proposal, and lastly that the confidence of young men and women would carry it into effect I was sure. It seemed to me that the very finger of God was pointing the way and the Spirit of God inspiring the endeavor."

At the London Volunteer Conference the Archbishop of Canterbury closed his address on "Evangelization the Primary Duty of the Church" with the following statement regarding the possibility of the evangelization of the world: "The aim of this Union [Student Volunteer Missionary Union] is that the Name of Christ shall be made known to all the nations of the world within this present generation, that is, that before those who are now living shall altogether pass away, there shall not be one spot upon the earth where the name of Christ, and the Cross of Christ, and the Love of Christ, and the Love of God the Father is not known, whether they will accept it or reject it. We know not how God may bless all the work that we may do, but it is not an inconceivable thing that, as God has within the last generation opened the way, so within the present generation He may crown His work. When we have preached the Gospel to every nation, there will still be Christian work to be done, but, at any rate, it seems now as if we who are now living, the young men amongst us who are now joining this very Union, those who are now studying the great task to which the Lord has called them, shall, before they die, be able to say, The whole race of mankind is not yet Christian, but, nevertheless, there is no nation upon earth where the Christian faith is not taught if men will accept it; there is no place upon the whole surface of the globe where men may not hear the message of God and the story of the Cross if only they are willing to listen. It is brought home to them everywhere at their very doors, and the Church, at any rate, has discharged the primary duty of all her duties: she has made all nations hear the sound of the Gospel, she has made all nations hear of the Love of the Lord and of His great Sacrifice.'"

At the close of the Ecumenical Conference, held at New York in 1900, the General Committee prepared an address to the Church. This address was read at a meeting attended by representatives of missionary societies of all parts of Christendom and was adopted unanimously. It concluded thus: "Entrusting to Him the certain guidance of the great tides of influence and life which are beyond our control, it is for us to keep the commandments of His Son and carry to those for whom He lived and died and rose again the message of the goodness and love of their Father and ours. We who live now and have this message must carry it to those who live now and are without it. It is the duty of each generation of Christians to make Jesus Christ known to their fellow creatures. It is our duty through our own preachers and those forces and institutions which grow up where the Gospel prevails, to attempt now the speedy evangelization of the whole world. We believe this to be God's present call, 'Whom shall I send and who will go for us?' We appeal to all Christian ministers set by divine appointment as leaders of the people, to hear this call and speak it to the Church, and we appeal to all God's people to answer as with one voice, 'Lord, here am I, send me.'"