METHODIST REVIEW.

NOVEMBER, 1895.

ART. I.-THE NEED FOR AN EVANGELISTIC MINIS. TRY.

The

To evangelize is "to instruct in the Gospel; to preach the Gospel; to convert to a belief in the Gospel." All this may be done by pen, or word of mouth, or by a holy life. In La Rochelle, which for many years was a stronghold of the Huguenots, there is an ancient cathedral whose aisles were once trodden by the bravest men and saintliest women. As one enters he may see at the right a magnificent window, in which are the figures of an apostle, life-size, and an angel. The angel has in his left hand a long trumpet, and in his right hand an open book. On the left-hand page is written, "Tuba mirum spargens sonum;" and on the opposite page is written, “ Liber scriptus proferetur." The interpretation is manifest. written book, the Bible, which reveals the will of God and makes known the plan of redemption and salvation, shall be published; but it is the Gospel trumpet that scatters the joyful news, the wonderful news, the glad sound, far and wide over all the earth. The evangelist must be more than a writer, more than a teacher, more than a book; he must be the living incarnation of Gospel truth, and he must translate his life into words aflame with love and compel the attention of toiling, suffering, dying, despairing men and women, until they shall come out of the regions of the shadow of death into the light and liberty of the sons and daughters of God.

Every minister of the Lord Jesus Christ in spirit and purpose should be an evangelist. The Master was an evangelist. 56-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. XI.

The supreme evidence of his divinity was, not that he gave sight to the blind, strength and soundness to the lame, cleansing to the lepers, hearing to the deaf, and life to the dead, but that he preached the Gospel to the poor-that he evangelized. In truth, he was a restless, itinerant evangelist; for he went about all Galilee, "teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the Gospel of tthe kingdom," and, incidentally, "healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people." Almost at the instant when he was taken up from earth and a cloud received him out of the sight of his astonished followers, he said, “Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations; "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature; " "And ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." These words of the risen Christ ought to inspire every loyal heart with an all-consuming desire to spread abroad the knowledge of the truth and win this world back to its rightful allegiance. When these words take possession of the soul then we know what Paul, the great evangelist to the nations, meant when he said, "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:.... that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death." Hence, if we study the example and commands of the Lord Jesus, if we study the thought and spirit of Paul, we must be impressed with the idea that, so long as there are careless souls to be aroused, penitents to be comforted, and saints to be instructed and encouraged, there will be needed a ministry that is thoroughly evangelistic.

The conditions of every age are peculiar. The first century of the Christian era had scarcely anything in common with the last decade of the nineteenth century. Then there was but one nation. Rome was everything. Rome claimed dominion from the Hebrides to the Sahara, from the pillars of Hercules to the banks of the Indus. The empire was magnificent, irresistible, and supposed to be eternal. Christians were few in numbers, humble in rank, powerless in politics, despised by the learned, persecuted by tyrants, and scattered here and there uncertain of the future. To-day the nominal Christians of the world number half a billion-a third of its entire population.

Christian nations control all things by sea and land. There is no terra incognita. Even Africa has been explored and is being rapidly apportioned among the Christian nations of Europe. Men fly from country to country as on the wings of the wind, and they send their thoughts around the world with a speed that well-nigh outstrips the light. Everybody in Christendom may know every morning at the breakfast table, or every evening at the supper table, most of the principal events that have taken place in the preceding twenty-four hours in all the lands between the frozen circles of the North and the South. We are neighbors by propinquity to everybody. There are no hermit nations; there are no somnolent peoples. The rush of events has awakened the whole mass of humanity. If there are comparatively few great and all-embracing scholars there are uncounted millions who know more or less about men and things, about the past and present, about matters with which they ought to be familiar, and equally about those they would do well to ignore and forget forever. Nor can there be any doubt in regard to the perils surrounding the Christian faith. There is no longer persecution that involves the loss of liberty, possessions, or life. We have freedom almost everywhere to worship God according to the dictates of our own consciences. But none the less are there manifest efforts to undermine the foundations upon which Christianity has been built; a persistent, malicious determination in every way to set aside the authority of the Bible; a specious or virulent antagonism to the claims of the Lord Jesus; a calm, quiet, invulnerable indifference; and an intense devotion and slavery to fame, fashion, wealth, pleasure, and all worldliness and sin. To compare the conditions of 1895 and those of the year 95, in not a few respects it will appear that the opposing forces, the enemies of Christianity, are as formidable now as then.

There is one fundamental fact we must always remember. Humanity itself, in all essentials, is always the same. This is true of all the races now living. It always has been true, and always will be true. The ideas of ought not and ought, of sin and penalty, of God and responsibility are thoroughly ingrained in the nature of man. They are found in all lands; they cannot be obliterated. It is equally true that souls everywhere desire and long to be delivered from the burden-may we not say

from the guilt, the pollution, and the power?-of sin. Human souls are not orphaned, they are not outcast, they are not forgotten. God has them in mind, and his love flows out to all, and he will happily be found by those who feel after him. Human hearts are hungry for pity, compassion, sympathy, love. This hunger is just as natural and just as universal as the hunger of the body; and is it not reasonable to suppose that some provision should be made to satisfy this heart-hunger? The very existence of hunger proves that somewhere there must be an adequate supply of what is needed to appease the inevitable longings of the deathless spirit. The one sufficient, supreme, divine remedy for all ills, whether of individuals and of humanity, is the Gospel of the Son of God; for it is the infinite, omnipotent, all-efficient power of God, the eternal and ever-blessed heavenly Father whose name is Love, unto salvation-salvation of soul and body, for time and eternity-to everyone, of every race and nation, that believeth. The remedy is brought within the reach of everyone, and it may be obtained upon conditions that may easily be complied with by all.

We need to remember always that the Gospel is complex and comprehensive. There is much more to it than is embraced in that puerile proverb, "Be good and you will be happy." When it is assumed that such a proverb covers the case we relegate the Gospel to the low standard of Confucius and Mencius. There must be the foundation of good conduct in the intelligent apprehension of truth; and so the Gospel implies the search for truth. The Gospel has its greatest triumphs in such intellects as those of Paul and Newton and Wesley. The Lord recognized the use of the intellect when he said, "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me." And the use of the intellect in the consideration of the Gospel is commended in that memorable passage where it is said, "These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily, whether those things were so." But the Gospel requires faith and belief, because there are depths and heights of divine wisdom that can never be fully grasped by the human understanding, and because human reason may not be able to perfectly adjust all the relations of revealed truth. "For we walk by faith, not by sight."

In these days in which we find ourselves living much is said in regard to creeds, as though they were of the least possible importance. There are some so-called Christian ministers who evidently think, with the unbelieving poet, that a man's creed must be right who lives a respectable and decent life, forgetting the restraining power that men of right creeds have on all about them. The Gospel is a creed-an imperative, intolerant, Godordained creed. "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned." These are the words of Jesus, and they imply the existence of a creed-of something to be believed. Men with no moral convictions are the men without creeds. Men who excuse sin and make it a trivial thing in the moral universe are the men without creeds. Men who think God is careless, indifferent, oblivious in regard to the violations of the divine law are the men without creeds. Men who make myths of heaven and hell, of the resurrection and the judgment, are the men without creeds. The men who, while they maintain the appearance of respectability and good conduct, are yet worldly, self-indulgent, pleasure-seeking, and selfish are the men without creeds. Gennine Christian character independent of the Christian creed is well-nigh impossible. Jesus was a creed-maker. Hear him: "Ye believe in God"-the God of the Scriptures, the omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, the eternally self-existing God. "Ye believe in God "-the lawmaker and administrator of the material and moral realms, the watchful, faithful, loving friend of all men. This faith in God is the first article of this creed. And the second is like unto it: "Believe also in me." Believe in me as the Messiah, whose coming has been foretold from Genesis to Malachi; in me, of whom Moses and the Psalms and the prophets all testify; in me, the only begotten Son of God, the I Am of the Old Testament, equal with the Father, self-existent from all eternity, the Redeemer and Saviour of mankind. The Lord Jesus had no idea of character without creed, and it would seem that there must be something wrong with a man's head or heart who inveighs against creeds.

What this present hour needs is that God's people "should carnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly