The First Soprano Part 20

"It is not a necessity," he said. "I may do as I will. And I will to do that which will serve Him best."

He read the text, "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich." Tears, to which his eyes were unused, made them glisten for a moment. "Ah, if through my poverty some might be made forever rich!" he thought.

How to put in practice what he desired to do became a problem. He went to his office with the sense of a new relations.h.i.+p to its business. A new Proprietor sat at the desk with him, and, afraid to act rashly, on Him he wisely waited for the clear instructions which should show how best His interests might be served.

The new Proprietor looked on him and saw a man triumphing where the mult.i.tude of essaying disciples fail: not in lofty ideals, not in emotional experiences, not in grand works undertaken; but in the prosiest, hardest spot--albeit the touchstone of many a man's consecration--the _money question_.

CHAPTER XVI

THE MISSIONARY MEETING

It was early summer when the Women's Foreign Missionary Society of Doctor Schoolman's church was to have a public meeting. On Sunday the faithful calendar announced it, and Doctor Schoolman made special mention of it, urging attendance. A missionary home on furlough was to exercise a part of his "well-earned rest" in addressing the meeting. It was to be held in the afternoon, but it was suggested that as many men of the congregation as possible unite with the ladies in giving welcome to one who had distinguished himself by faithful and valuable service on the foreign field.

The announcement was discussed in the Gray household and Hubert determined to join Winifred in attendance.

"Not that I believe much in it," he said, "when here all about us, and especially in our large cities, there are plenty of objects for our commiseration quite as wretched, undoubtedly, as those in foreign countries."

"No doubt," said Winifred. "It always seemed to me to be looking rather far afield for something to do."

However, the two determined to hear the voice from China.

Wednesday, the day for the meeting, came, and Hubert left work in time to join Winifred on her way. They found the lecture-room of the church rather better filled than was usual at a missionary meeting, but only a few gentlemen were present. Winifred had time to observe some of the faces about her before the meeting began. She knew the Secretary, a woman with a keen, earnest face, always active in good works, and indefatigable in her efforts to excite a generally indifferent church into some glow of interest in the missionary cause. There were a few other faces as interested as her own. Hubert saw the plain little body he had singled out at the church social as one who perhaps would find it a pleasure to talk about the Lord. Her eyes looked expectantly toward the quiet looking man who came in with Doctor Schoolman.

The President, rather new to her office, fingered her jeweled watch-chain nervously as she opened the meeting. The company sang "From Greenland's Icy Mountains," and Doctor Schoolman offered prayer. The Secretary read the minutes of the previous meeting--a "Thank-offering meeting"--and it was discovered that the sum of $90 had been realized. The ladies exchanged glances of satisfaction at the amount.

"Hm-m! Their combined thanks foot up to that," thought Hubert. He was a business man and must be forgiven such a practical view of the case.

"The Lord must be gratified!"

"I feel, ladies," said the President, pus.h.i.+ng a diamond ring up and down upon her finger anxiously, "very much pleased that our poor gifts have amounted to so much. We cannot all do what we would, but we may give our mites, and together they will count for something in the work. We cannot tell what these ninety dollars may mean to the heathen."

"Their mites!" thought Hubert, with something of his old-time irony. He was freshly instructed on the subject of money, and knew well the story of the widows' mites. "If Mrs. Greenman herself had given the ninety dollars, I should think she was beginning to feel a tinge of grat.i.tude for something."

Winifred had fastened her brown eyes musingly upon the President. She was wondering if money might express thanks, and, if so, how much would appropriately suggest her own grat.i.tude to G.o.d for His "unspeakable gift."

"No gift would be large enough," she thought, and then the familiar lines came to her mind:

"Were the whole realm of nature mine, That were a present far too small; Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all."

"How true that is," she thought. "But I suppose it is nice to give some token, even though one cannot adequately express one's thanks."

There were some other reports and then the leading alto from the choir sang:

"There is a green hill far away."

"I am sure we are all glad," said the President, "to have with us Mr.

Hugh Carew from China, who has labored for years among the heathen there.

We shall be pleased to hear him tell us something of his work."

And Mr. Hugh Carew began. He was a man uninteresting to look upon, save that his face wore a certain indefinable expression of a man who has been a stranger in many places; a man habituated to loneliness and to silence.

But he was evidently a man also accustomed to speak, for he addressed his audience with easy grace.

"The pleasure is mine," he said, "in being able to present to your interest and sympathy the dearest object of the heart of G.o.d."

Hubert started to hear the man's work, as he thought, thus spoken of.

Mr. Carew went on:

"Of course I refer not to my simple share in it, but to G.o.d's great work of salvation in all lands."

"Ah, that is what he means," thought Hubert, and repeated to himself--"the dearest object of G.o.d's heart!"

"You may question my definition of that work," said Mr. Carew, "but a moment's reflection will convince you that it is true. We may measure the object's value by the price expended for it. For what other than the dearest object would G.o.d have been willing to give His most priceless treasure--the Son of His love? You will pardon my giving some attention to the fundamental facts of our common salvation before speaking specifically of the work in which I have had a part for some years in China. My apology is this: that wherever the returned missionary goes, even among G.o.d's people, he finds himself obliged to defend his work to some who regard it as an impractical and self-devised effort at doing good, rather than the simple carrying out of the expressed will of G.o.d.

We have to go back to first principles and inquire afresh: '_What is the will of G.o.d_?'"

"That sounds sensible," thought Hubert, who loved to hear vital principles discussed.

"Some very simple, well-worn texts will serve for our brief study," said Mr. Carew. "First there is that comprehensive pa.s.sage, familiarly known and quoted in all evangelical circles: '_For G.o.d so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life_.' The words that I wish to emphasize especially are two:--'_the world_.' They show you the scope of G.o.d's love and gift. He loved 'the world,' not some favored race within it.

And love, which cannot rest inactive, _gave_; gave according to its own measure--'His only begotten Son.' We cannot be otherwise than agreed that this love and this gift were for all, and so must include my poor China. Indeed, could you divide G.o.d's love arithmetically (it is a foolish way to put it--you cannot divide infinity!) then my friends over there might claim about one-fifth of it, I suppose, as they number about that proportion of the world's population."

The ladies smiled indulgently at the curious way of putting it, but were not yet persuaded in their hearts that so considerable a portion of the love of G.o.d could be diverted from their own delightfully engrossing race, not to China alone, but to other peoples also, as would follow by that kind of arithmetic. Let the missionary talk. It would still be as obvious to their consciousness as the glittering pompon on Mrs.

Greenman's bonnet that themselves were the consistent and natural monopolists of the favor of their Creator!

But Mr. Carew went on: "We may find our two very illuminating little words in another text almost equally familiar. It is this: '_Behold the Lamb of G.o.d which taketh away the sin of the world_.' This lets us farther into G.o.d's att.i.tude and purpose concerning 'the world.' Loving all His creatures, He still saw that they were involved in ruin brought on by sin. If He brought them to Himself--the only event that could satisfy love--it must be by a great and costly Redemption. One emanating from Himself must be projected into the ruin and death of the world and come back to Him, spotless and unsullied, bringing with Him 'many sons'

unto the glory. But He must purge their sins. So He gave Him to be a Lamb of sacrifice; that He taking the sins of the world upon Him, might work in Himself a death unto sin that should be made good to all that become united to Him. Potentially, then, the sin of '_the world_' is taken away. If we wish to support further this point in our study concerning 'the world' we may turn to Paul and hear, 'G.o.d was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespa.s.ses unto them.' Or the Apostle John will tell us that 'He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of _the whole world_.'

"Now that we have reminded ourselves of the love, and of the gift embracing redemption, it occurs to us to ask how are our poor brothers in China to avail themselves of the gift or to hear of the love. Another well-known test, containing our two words again, tells us very clearly.

It offers the only logical answer to the question, and it is this: '_Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature_.' Love has devised its gift and prepared it at unspeakable cost, and now commands our feet that we may bear it to all habitable parts of the earth. Wherever the objects of G.o.d's love are, there the gift must be borne. Do we not all see that the work which we call 'Foreign Missions'

is in the direct, simple carrying out of the purpose of G.o.d, bearing the knowledge of the gift to all for whom it is intended, that they may avail themselves of it? What object could be dearer to the heart of G.o.d? What He has Himself done shows us of what moment the matter is to Him. How can we ever excuse ourselves that it has been a matter of such indifference to us? He has limited Himself to human instruments for the carrying to the lips of dying ones whom He loves the water from the smitten Rock, and how have we responded? Are we indeed His sons and daughters, that His supreme wish should be our last concern?"

The speaker's eyes had deepened in color as he spoke. Now they burned with intense feeling. His long, tenacious hands were clenched repressively. He went on:

"I imagine I hear an objection that the same work is being done at home, and that there is ample field here still. We may not trust our own understanding to argue the case as to the value of confining our efforts to the home field, but let the Scriptures, always ready to instruct us, give us light. Probably we will agree that Paul, the apostle-missionary, is in his life an exponent of the theory of Gospel preaching. He had an ambition. Hear how he expresses it: 'Yea, being ambitious so to preach the Gospel, _not where Christ was already named_, that I might not build upon another man's foundation; but, as it is written

"'They shall see, to whom no tidings of him came, And they who have not heard shall understand.'

"He shows his Roman readers his method; telling them that from Jerusalem unto Illyric.u.m (just across the Adriatic Sea from Italy) he had 'fully preached the Gospel of Christ.' Now he was ready to look farther, his task to those regions being accomplished. What did he mean? Was he leaving behind him converted areas, whose every inhabitant magnified G.o.d in Christ Jesus? Far from it. 'Fully preached' though he had, communities were still heathen, but for the lights that he had kindled from place to place in his persecuted journeyings. Remembering that he is in his life the model for Gospel preaching, as he is in his writings the messenger of Christian doctrine, must we not see that the Gospel is for _broadcast sowing_, not for close gardening, save by the careful hands that G.o.d will raise up in the wake of the evangelist. Or, to use another figure, it is the _notification, to lost heirs_, of a fortune bequeathed them; and the responsibility of the ones entrusted with the carrying out of the will is not so much to persuade heirs to receive their inheritance as to notify them of it. So the Apostle preached 'not where Christ was named,' having a zeal to discharge his debtors.h.i.+p of making known to all nations G.o.d's gift of grace. Now over into Spain--far, far afield, as distances then were gauged--the eager eyes of the Apostle looked and longed for a crown of rejoicing from that land also in the day of Christ. In him we see the faithful exposition of the missionary idea."

By this time Hubert was looking at the speaker very intently, with widened, almost startled, eyes that were opening to a new idea. Winifred also sat with riveted gaze, her cheeks slightly paling beneath the deepening conviction of a tremendous truth. True wors.h.i.+per that she was, to know the truth must be to shape her life in consonance with it, and a voice at her heart gave warning that to be conformed to this newly revealed will of G.o.d would be pain. But where was the theory that had seemed so clear and sensible to both Hubert and herself when they came to the meeting? Hubert always had clear ideas. What would he say to this?

Now Mr. Carew was saying:

"I have frequently heard it objected to foreign missions that there are works of philanthropy still to be done here. The objection is absolutely irrelevant. The work of missions is not an indefinite 'doing good.' It is the bearing of a _specific good_ to those who have not received it.

It is not, _per se_, the bettering of temporal conditions. It is the securing to those who believe its message the _best eternal conditions_.

It is not a matter of 'elevation'--it is a matter of translation. Not into a bettered life, but into a _new_ life with an eternal outlook--into a new realm altogether, and that divine--the Gospel we carry ushers its believers! How would the poor, irrelevant argument I have quoted have affected Paul? Looking across the sea to Spain, and to Rome by the way, he was leaving behind him in Judea, in Asia--in all the region unto Illyric.u.m, hungry people still unfed and the naked still unclothed. Want and misery still stretched out their hands to be relieved. But they could not stay the feet of the Apostle. He had heard _the supreme call_!

G.o.d had a supreme gift to bestow; the world had a supreme need; and to bring the need and the gift together was his absorbing, constraining zeal. Would G.o.d it were ours also! Friends, my plea for China is not for its temporal needs; it is not that its women's feet are bound, that its men are opium-stupefied, or that it needs our Western ideas, as it is waking from its Eastern way. It is this: _G.o.d has an unspeakable gift for its people, and we must bear it to them_."

His tall figure was leaning forward and his burning eyes chanced to rest fully upon Hubert. The latter started, and a half audible groan burst from his lips. Was it the burden of a new motive, or the sudden smiting of a chord he knew right well? The "unspeakable gift!" Yes, he knew it; and its glory was ineffable beyond the highest earthly good he had known.

Happy the man under commission to bear such a treasure, though it be to the uttermost parts of the earth! And the great Giver longed to bestow it on the millions of His creatures, but waited the unwilling feet of His messengers! It was heart-breaking! But was there no other way? Why should an infinite G.o.d limit Himself to finite man in carrying out His great design? Mr. Carew continued: