To Them That Dwell on the Earth by William Ambrose Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jan 25, 1906

“To Them That Dwell on the Earth”

By William Ambrose Spicer

The idea in this great federation movement among the churches has been working in all the earth. The spirit of confederacy for the securing of uniformity, and for power to deal with non-conformity, is all abroad. The recent federation council is sure to make its influence felt to the ends of the earth. It is only another voice from this one-time land of the Protestant principle in civil government now saying, “to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image” to the old-time papal system.

Already these reactionary forces are working strongly in Protestant Europe and the colonies, and in many of the great mission fields the same spirit is moving to restrict and control missionary effort. By the last China mail one of our workers sent a page from the North-China Herald, in which a Scottish missionary speaks out against the tendency toward federation of larger missionary interests for the purpose of securing a purely artificial uniformity. He says of a recent conference on federation, which met in Peking:—

One speaker is reported to have said: “What we seek is union, nor conformity,” but all the steps taken were intended to secure uniformity with the object of calling it “union.” This is a blunder which has cost the church of Christ dear in all ages. It filled the prisons of England with the best men of the time; it drove the Pilgrim Fathers to America; it dyed with blood the Scottish heather. Uniformity is not a natural thing—there are no two leaves on a tree alike, no two faces

in a crowd. It is chiefly characteristic of man’s productions—punched out with a machine. It has never been imposed without the aid of coercion, and where men have best succeeded in imposing a stereotyped uniformity, on either church or state, it has always resulted in stagnation and decay. The Greek Church and the Chinese people are interesting objects of study in this connection. If, therefore, uniformity be the price of union, I would rather not have it.

This missionary has a pretty clear view of the natural trend of these efforts to settle religious questions by majorities. Some of the issues were to be dealt with, he says, “on the you-use-my-Catechism-and-I-will-use-your-hymn-book principle,” but he rightly declares all these details as to the use of terms “but a trifle” as compared with what Peking proposes to do. “They are going to federate all the Protestant missions in China,” he says, and they even name the Roman Catholic Church in that country, as one with whom they hope to secure “ultimate union.”

Such a thing could never be, of course, and the federation remain in any sense Protestant. But this spirit is growing in the mission fields, and the inauguration of the federation movement here will give a new impetus to these ideas abroad. We must face the issue in all the mission fields soon. Now, truly, is the time to press in.

One aim of the movement in heathen lands is to limit the activity of each mission to its own allotted territory. The missionary may teach the people in the allotted territory the message of heaven, as he has received it from God, but beyond that territory he is a trespasser.

This idea is becoming more and more clearly defined, and it is to secure all possible regulation of spheres of influence that the mission federation movement is being hastened on. How Baptists, with the solemn duty of teaching Baptist principles and baptizing believers in all the earth, can possibly refrain thus from protest against these influences, it is difficult to understand. Certain it is that we can never do otherwise than carry this message of God’s judgment hour literally “to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” We must be kind and considerate of other missionary interests. Those who bear the final message of the coming of the Lord and of Sabbath reform acknowledge every missionary agency as a factor in preparing the world for the coming of the Lord. But the fact is that the same influences working to build up federated church interests, to the abridgment of gospel liberty, in this country, are working also in all the world. The last days have come, and the last things are being done. W. A. S.