AT THE ECUMENICAL MISSIONARY CON

FERENCE

OPENING ADDRESS AS HONORARY CHAIRMAN

Carnegie Hall, New York, April 19, 1900

I count it a great honor-a call to preside over the deliberations of this great body. It is to associate oneself with the most influential and enduring work that is being done in this day of great enterprises.

My assignment is to the chair-not to the speaker's desk. The careful and comprehensive program that has been prepared for the convention will, in its orderly development, bring before you the whole subject of foreign missions in all its aspects. Gentlemen whose learning and special experiences will give not only interest but authority to their addresses, will discuss assigned topics.

We shall have the arithmetic of missions, the muster rolls, the book increase, the paymasters' accounts; some will need these.

We shall have before us some veterans from the mission outposts-men and women who have exhibit

ed in their work an unsurpassed steadfastness and heroism, whose courage has been subjected to the strain of time. They have been beleaguered; they have known the weariness of those who look for succor. From them we shall hear what the gospel has done for tribes and lands; and, best of all, what it has done for the individual man and woman. These reports will be the consolidated reports of the whole mission work of all the detachments of the evangelical protestant army.

Hours for daily devotional exercises are assigned. The greatest need of the foreign field is a revived, reconsecrated and unified home church. And this conference will be fruitful and successful in proportion as it promotes those ends. There will be, I hope, much prayer for an outpouring of God's spirit.

The gigantic engines that are driving forward a material development are being speeded as never before. The din of the hammer and the axe, and the hum of wheels, have penetrated the abodes of solitude-the world has now few quiet places. Life is strenuous-the boy is started in his school upon the run, and the pace is not often slackened until the panting man falls into his grave.

It is to a generation thus intent-to a generation that has wrought wondrously in the realms of applied science that God in His Word, and by the preacher, says: All these are worthy only, and in proportion as they contribute to the regeneration of

mankind. Every invention, every work, every man, every nation, must one day come to this weighing platform and be appraised.

To what other end is all this stir among menthis increase of knowledge? That these great agencies may be put in livery and lined up in the halls of wealth to make life brilliant and soft, or become the docile messengers of a counting house or a stock exchange, or the swift couriers of contending armies, or the courtiers who wait in the halls of science to give glory to the man into whose hand God has given the key to one of His mysteries? Do all these great inventions, these rushing intellectual developments, exhaust their ministry in the making of men rich, and the reinforcing of armies and fleets? No.

These are servants, prophets, fore-runners. They will find a herald's voice; there will be an annunciation and a coronation. The first results seem to be the stimulation of a material production and a fiercer struggle for markets. Cabinets, as well as trade chambers, are thinking of the world chiefly as a market house, and of men as "producers" and "consumers." We now seldom have wars of succession, or for mere political dominion. Places are strategic primarily from the commercial standpoint. Colonies are corner stalls in the world's market place. If the product tarries too long in the warehouse, the mill must shut down and discontent will walk the streets.

The propulsion of this commercial force upon cabinets and nations was never so strong as now. The battle of the markets is at its fiercest. The great quest of the nations is for "consumers." The voice of commerce is: "And my hand hath found as a nest the riches of the people: and as one gathereth eggs that are left, have I gathered all the earth.”

But with the increase of commerce and wealth the stress of social difficulties is not relieved but rather increased in all of the great nations. The tendency is not to one brotherhood but to many. Work for the willing at a wage that will save the spirit as well as the body is a problem of increasing tangle and intricacy. Competition forces economical devices and names wages that are, in some cases, insufficient to renew the strength expended. It suggests, if it does not compel, aggregations of capital, and these in turn present many threatening aspects. Agencies of man's devising may alleviate, but they can not cure this tendency to division and strife and substitute a drift to peace and unity. Christ in the heart and His gospel of love and ministry in all the activities of life are the only cure.

The highest conception that has ever entered the mind of man is that of God as the father of all men-the one blood-the universal brotherhood. It was not evolved, but revealed. The natural man lives to be ministered unto-he lays his imposts upon others. He buys slaves that they may fan his sleep,

bring him the jeweled cup, dance before him and die in the arena for his sport. Into such a world there came a King, "not to be ministered unto but to minister." The rough winds fanned His sleep; He drank of the mountain brook, and made not the water wine for Himself; would not use His power to stay His own hunger, but had compassion on the multitude. He called them He had bought with a great price no more servants but friends. He entered the bloody arena alone, and dying, broke all chains and brought immortality to light.

Here is the perfect altruism; here the true appraisal of men. Ornaments of gold and gems, silken robes, houses, lands, stocks and bonds-these are tare when men are weighed. Where else is there a scale so true? Where a brotherhood so wide and perfect? Labor is made noble-the King credits the smallest service. His values are relative; He takes account of the per cent. when tribute is brought into His treasury. No coin of love is base or small to Him. The widow's mite he sets in His crown. Life is sweetened; the poor man becomes of account. Where else is found a philosophy of life so sweet and adaptable—a philosophy of death so comforting?

The men who, like Paul, have gone to heathen lands with the message, we "seek not yours but you," have been hindered by those who, coming after, have reversed the message. Rum and other corrupting agencies come in with our boasted civili