AMERICANIZING NOT GOSPEL WORK.
By G.
An appeal comes from Rev. A. H. Lambert, a Methodist missionary in Porto Rico, to “help in the noble task of Christianizing and Americanizing the people” of that island. It is one of the fads that too extensively prevail among American missionaries, that everywhere people must be “Americanized.” Suppose we read the commission, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature, and Americanize him. He that believeth and is baptized, and Americanized, shall be saved; but he that believeth not, and is not Americanized, shall be damned.” This idea that American missionaries must Americanize the heathen has blinded many of them. They have been led to confound Americanism with Christianity, and have looked upon all Americans—rumsellers and all—as Christians. Thus Christianity has been greatly depreciated in their eyes. When we reflect that the United States (commonly known as America, abroad) is to become a full-fledged “image” to Rome, we see that “evangelizing” Roman Catholics in Porto Rico, and Americanizing them, is nominally bringing out of Rome, but it is leading them by the American route back into Rome. Professed Protestants would better leave out the Americanizing idea in presenting the Gospel to the heathen. The Porto Rican sinner or the Zulu sinner can be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ just as well as the American sinner. Becoming an American, either before or after conversion, adds nothing to his Christian character. A Christian Porto Rican is just as good as a Christian American, and making Americans is no part of the Gospel work.