he a home, or a foreign missionary? He was not far from home in his native land; but he brought the news of salvation to the neglected and the destitute. He was a missionary: the further distinction is not essential to our cause. It is this lack of appreciation for the superior privilege which they have who carry the gospel to the destitute, whether in the New-England village, or on the frontier, or in Central Africa, which has hitherto cramped and weakened both our home and foreign enterprises. In the gospel order, both the chronological and the logical, the missionary has a certain marked superiority to the pastor. No minister can aspire to the highest places in the Church of Jesus. Christ who does not become a missionary, who does not do, that is to say, the work of the apostle and the evangelist in going forth with the message of salvation to the destitute. The essential thing is not in the distance to which he goes. He may cross the river which runs through his town, or cross two oceans, to reach those destitute. Every pastor should be also a missionary; every layman as well.

We observe with regret, moreover, that the true estimate of the relations which exist between our Congregational principles and the work of missions, as well as the final and satisfactory adjustment of those principles to that work, have as yet never been made. We have enjoyed, as Congregational churches, for more than a half-century, a marked revival of our interest in foreign missions: we have in the mean time rejoiced over notable successes in this missionary work. And yet this length of time, with its experience of successes, has only answered, in a very fragmentary and partial way, some of the most important and pressing questions. Among such we may enumerate the following:

How far do we act distinctively as Congregationalists in our foreign missionary work? How far are we to undertake this work as a matter of self-propagation, as a work, that is, of multiplying in the world the number of Congregational churches? How far are Congregational missionaries to teach, and to have embodied in the churches of their converts, a true doctrine of the church, as well as other true doctrines? How far may we energize and utilize our peculiar church order for a peculiarly successful work of foreign missions? Is there, indeed, any thing in our church order which may insure for us such peculiar success? How shall these principles of the true church polity better operate, and how far be relied upon, to excite enthusiasm for this work in the particular churches of our own land? How shall these particular churches be efficiently united in this work? I stop in my questioning at this point, not because there are no more interesting questions which I could raise, but because I have already raised so many more than I can answer. Indeed, I must disclaim at once any seeming assumption of ability to answer a single one of the questions raised above. The purpose of this Lecture will be accomplished, if only it serve to place them before your minds, and if it somewhat stimulate some minds to attempt their better answer.

One of the most interesting theoretical questions which a Congregationalist can ask himself is this one, What are the relations of the principles of a true church polity to the missionary work of the churches? More interesting and important, for instance, than any new theory of councils, or associations, or consociations, as means of giving a formal expression to the communion of churches, is this question, How shall the commun

ion of churches be made availing in the spread of the gospel among the destitute? This general question concerning the relations of our church order to the missionary work of the churches we shall now briefly consider under three heads. These heads are, (1) The relation of the individual member of a Congregational church to the work of missions, (2) The relation of the particular visible church to this work, and (3) The relation of the communion of sister Congregational churches to the same work. The view which the Congregational polity must take of each one of these three topics is dependent upon the two fundamental principles of that polity. The formal principle requires that we should look to the missionary work of the apostles and the New-Testament churches as containing the ideas, and embodying the principles, which must control our missionary work. It requires us to study the New Testament "in order that," as Dr. J. P. Thompson has said, "with the elements and causes of the early triumphs of Christianity distinctly in view, we may apply to the present whatever in those early methods was of the nature of a permanent principle." To this conclusion, necessary on theoretical grounds, Dr. Anderson declares that experience also leads. But the material principle of Congregationalism requires that every individual believer and every local congregation of believers shall be a hearth of heat and a source of light, without assignable limits and without conventional restraints.

The principles of Congregationalism lay an immense emphasis upon the duty and power of the individual believer in the propagation of the gospel among the destitute. Under the purest and most strenuous working of these principles, every converted soul is to be 1 Article in New-Englander, 1860, p. 946. 2 Foreign Missions, p. 29, f.

regarded as a self-appointed and self-controlled missionary or propagator of the gospel of Jesus Christ; because every such soul is by his conversion made the bondman for such service of his Lord. To him as one who has subjected himself totally to the will of a divine Master,' and who is, therefore, in respect to this obedience, independent of the will, concurrent or adverse, of any individual in the whole universe of created souls, the command of this Master is made known. The terms of his allegiance allow of no hesitation: they do not permit that he shall take counsel of others to discover whether they purpose to unite with him in obedience to this command. Each disciple of the Lord, were he the only disciple, would be as much bound to the effort to bring this message to the destitute, as he can now possibly be; and no means of co-operation can release any disciple from this perpetual and perpetually obligatory bond.

It is the missionary spirit which itself organizes all means of missionary work. This spirit belongs to the believer as such; and New-Testament history shows us, in veritable and efficient exercise, the power and duty of the individual believer in propagating the gospel of Christ. The converted soul is the first missionary society. There is, indeed, a society, if there be only one such soul; for there is a holy communion of spirit and unity of endeavor between that one soul and its risen Lord. The missionary work of the early Christians began before any formal union of churches occurred, and even before the formation of more than a single church. This work brought into being the material out of which the subsequent churches were formed. The self-propagation of Christianity was by the preaching of those who

1 See the word doûλos in Grimm's Lexicon of the New Testament.

had become Christians, irrespective of their rank, or condition of society, and without tarrying for any consecration of an ordaining prayer, or laying-on of hands. The apostles themselves were primarily simple preachers of the gospel to the destitute; and all the other activities, offices, and products of the apostolate, are secondary to this. As founders and guides of churches, as writers of Sacred Scripture, and authoritative teachers of permanent Christian doctrine; they act out of the further requirements which the Spirit of Christ made in order chiefly to render effective their obedience to the command of Jesus, Go and disciple all the nations. To consider them as carrying alone the burden of this command, or as having the monopoly of this work, or as doing the work belonging to them in a merely official and perfunctory way, is totally and fatally to misapprehend the planting of Christianity in the history of the race. Individual Christians, scattered by the wind of persecution, were the seed-bearers of the divine Word. They went not simply as fugitives, but also as witnesses. In not a few places they doubtless preceded the apostles themselves.

The records of the first centuries of the Christian Church show us the wonderful triumph of Christianity through the spontaneous work of individual believers. Tertullian could boast, with a large measure of truthfulness, although with whatever excusable exaggeration, "We are a people of yesterday, and yet we have filled every place belonging to you, cities, islands, castles, towns, assemblies, your very camp, your tribes, companies, palace, senate, forum." But the possibility of the boast was largely due to the fact, that, as Celsus jeeringly states, "wool-workers, cobblers, leather-dressers, the most illiterate and vulgar of mankind, were zealous