Power of the Advent Doctrine.
It is often claimed that a belief in the near coming of the Lord would paralyze Christian effort, and check the missionary spirit in the churches. Really there is but little of the true missionary spirit in the churches, and it would be a pity to smother out that. We doubt whether those Christians who believe it is the duty and privilege of the church to convert the world, give as much toward accomplishing that object as they spend for tea, coffee, and tobacco. It would not amount to a tithe of what they spend for those fineries and superfluities which are directly forbidden in the word of God. But it is not true that a belief in the advent doctrine is inimical to Christian effort. It can be shown that, according to their number and means, earnest believers in the near coming of Christ are doing more in the cause of missions than any other people. At the late "Prophetic Conference," in New York city, the following resolution was introduced and adopted unanimously by a rising vote:— "Resolved, That the doctrine of our Lord's Pre-millennial Advent, instead of paralyzing evangelistic and missionary efforts, is the mightiest incentive to earnestness in preaching the gospel to every creature, until He come." Before the vote was taken, Dr. S. H. Kellogg, Professor of Theology in the Presbyterian Seminary, in Allegheny, Penn., made the following remarks, which we copy from the report of the N. Y. Tribune: "I have felt, my friends, a very special interest in this resolution, first, for the reason that, spending, as I have, twelve years of my life on the foreign mission field, I have been both in a position to hear this wearisome objection oftener, perhaps, than most, and have also been happily in a position to appreciate the utter folly and worthlessness of it better than most; and I do not intend on this occasion to make any lengthy speech, but simply to take this rare opportunity to give my personal testimony to the truth of the statement embodied in the resolution. We hear this said constantly: 'If you don't look for the conversion of the world, then there is an end of the foreign missions.' One of the most venerable and beloved missionaries of the Church of God—his name well known in all the churches—said to me within a fortnight, with the tears in his eyes, in reference to this convention, that he dreaded the effect of it upon the foreign mission work. I told him it filled me with hope. Look at the early age of the Church, as you have heard it already. The one age of the Church in which that faith was absolutely universal was an age in which the zeal of the Church in spreading abroad the Gospel among the nations of the earth was such as has never been seen, even in the nineteenth century. "In my own case personally, a change of view upon this subject, from the doctrine of the universal conversion of the world to the faith of the Advent of the Lord Jesus as the hope of the world, was one of the most effectual and immediate motives of the occasion of my deciding I could not afford to stay at home; that if the Lord were possibly at hand, I had better be about my Master's business. Woe to that servant who neglects his Lord's commission if that Lord be at hand. "And let me go further. It has not always happened so, but there are many in the mission work who think differently from us on this matter, but in my own class in the Theological Seminary, where this doctrine was not taught, but the contrary, there were in all seven men who offered to go as foreign missionaries. They were every one of them Pre-Millennarians, and there was not a single other one in that class that so much as offered to go. They felt interest in the mission, but did not offer to go. I will not detain you longer, but simply express my very deep sympathy with this resolution and give utterance to the hope, which I trust may be heard in a somewhat wider circle than this assembly, that at last we may see the end of this old objection to the doctrine of the Advent of Christ as ever imminent on the ground that it paralyzes missionary effort. I say deliberately that the objection has no foundation, either in logic, in facts, or the experience of Christian life. I am sure that the resolution will pass unanimously. "In response to an inquiry in regard to the Scotch and English missionaries, Mr. Kellogg added; 'I am not able, sir, to speak of the Scotch and English missionaries. Personally to some extent my recollection accords with yours. I can only say in regard to the mission of our church in India—the Presbyterian church—that a few years ago there I was curious to take a census of the Indian views upon this subject. I don't know how they stand at present, but I know at that time the Pre-Millennarians, as proportioned to the others, were about two to one, and I am happy to remark that two of those honored comrads of mine I have seen in this house to-day—missionary brethren, both Pre-Millennarians.'"