p. 651 | A Free Gospel

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 30, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 41.

A Free Gospel.

THE idea of a free gospel, “without money and without price,” no doubt is a charming idea. And there is a great and glorious truth in it. But no idea ever was more miserably perverted. This gospel is the costliest thing that a man can receive to his heart and life. It demands the whole of him, and insists on a generous share of his goods. It is no kindness to converts, either at home or abroad, to hold back from them this possibly unwelcome truth.

The missionary’s true aim is not merely to save souls, but to make them worth saving. It would be easier and in some sense more agreeable for him to nurse the churches through a perpetual babyhood. But he is sent to train Christian men and women with some strength in their fiber, some force in their lives. It will take Italy fifty years, apparently, to recover from the abject beggary which has been her perpetual curse. We want no Italian communities around our missionary stations.

A Christian who attempts to find support rather in leaning than in standing, a human parasite, will come to no ripeness, and will bear no fruit. National, like individual dependence is fatal to all vigorous growth. No colony, while it continued such, ever in all history became a great people. Self-reliance with self-government are the prime, indispensable conditions of power.

When Mr. Wheeler, of Harpoot, Turkey, as related by Dr. Clark, after three hours of argument finally persuaded a native deacon to buy, rather than receive in charity, three cents’ worth of slate pencils for his child at school, he led him an immense stride on toward Christian manhood. Three hours could hardly have been better spent.—Advance.