Missionary Societies in Home Churches.
By John L. Phillips
AN American lady of a remarkably well-balanced mind, a careful reader, and a devoted friend of the foreign missionary enterprise, has written me a letter recently, in which I find these words: "Do tell me how we can keep up the interest in our missionary society." The same point came up over and over again while I was at home on a furlough a few years ago, and it is one that deserves attention. As I recall it now, my observation amongst the home churches led me to divide the missionary societies I found into two classes, viz., live and galvanized. I was continually meeting with both kinds. The one had real, hearty life of its own, and life it could communicate, too, to others. The other had all the sound and show and shine of life on stated occasions, when roused to action by the galvanic battery of some eloquent speaker, but too soon and surely it fell back into a chronic state of suspended animation, and there it stuck till the aforesaid battery was again applied. Now, I believe with all my heart that a missionary society is a good thing for a church and community that is generally run down. The discouraged pastor of a small church on our western frontier once wrote me of his trials, and I never made a medical prescription more sincerely or strictly than when I sent him the following: Get the good women together and organize a missionary society. This dose rarely needs repeating, and I have found it to work wonders in lifting up low churches to health and happiness. There are two points to be thought of, neither of which can be overlooked in the "keeping up of the interest," in the missionary societies of the churches. 1. Food. Faith and facts constitute the food of every such society, and in a careful diagnosis of the galvanized ones I met with, I found in every case that either faith or knowledge was wanting, and in some cases both were wanting. The heart and the head need nutriment, and where this is denied them, they die of inanition. The chief source of faith and facts for missionary work is the blessed Bible, and an important auxiliary is the history of the Christian church, ancient and modern. The word of God and the missionary literature of all ages from the first century to the present constitute the grand store-house of information and inspiration for all missionary effort. I have been amazed to find people trying to "keep up the interest" in a society without diligent study of Scripture history and prophecy, and without a scrap of modern missionary literature! 2. Work. Neither food nor tonic can take the place of work. Facts from the history of the Jews or from the fields of central Africa, from the middle ages or the nineteenth century, from the home of the Huns, Hindus, or Hottentots can't bring life and vigor, growth and blessing, without effort. There must be much thinking and much prayer, and there must be much active endeavor as well. One can't read of genuine missionary adventure and hardships in the Acts of the Apostles, or Schwartz's Memoirs, or the Life of Judson, or Livingstone's journals, without being pushed to Christian undertaking and sacrifice. So every live society (I say good-bye to the galvanized ones for the present) will be as busy as a hive with the drones driven out.—Dr. J. L. Phillips.