for maiden missionaries, and the like. And God's voice to the brethren is: "Recognize such women! Set them apart! Supply their wants!" Then would woman become indeed a power in the church vastly surpassing her present. Woman is Heaven's natural evangelist. And so shall she help undo the sad work of the first woman.

The True "Apostolical Succession." — Although the primitive apostles have gone, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession, Jesus abides, and all true sons of the Kingdom, whether officers or laymen, belong to the true "Apostolical Succession," being an elect race, a holy and kingly priesthood, to show forth the excellencies of him who called them out of darkness into his marvellous light.1

1 It would be appropriate, in connection with this study of the modern problem of ecclesiastical administration, to study the modern problem of church finances, including questions of pew-rents, debts, mortgages, taxation, endowments, charities, etc. But the author confesses that he is not competent, as a result of any special study in this direction, to discuss these financial problems, and therefore he wisely lets them alone.

CHAPTER IX

MODERN PROBLEM OF LAY MISSIONARIES

Christianity has its Body-side. - One of the conspicuous signs of our times is the growing recognition of the bodyside of Christianity. The church of the past — the church of Athanasius, Augustine, Anselm, Luther, Edwards - busied herself chiefly, and in the main profitably, with theological problems. To her was committed, in the order of Providence, the vast and responsible task of formulating creed-statements of Christianity. Wisely did the thinkers of the past fulfil their great mission. Nevertheless, the Christianity of the past was largely either a metaphysical or an emotional Christianity; a religion of the university, or of the cloister, rather than of the workshop and the market-place. But with the birth of the scientific spirit—a spirit which busies itself with the phenomena and sequences of nature, and the uses to which the natural forces may be applied — the attention of the church began to be directed to the physical needs of mankind. And this new direction of Christian thought and enterprise marks another fresh stage in human history, or the unfolding of God's providential plan. For, philosophize and refine as much as we please, the inexorable fact remains that man's body, at least in the present stage of existence, is as truly a part of him as his spirit. Not only is the body the tenement of the spirit; the body is also the arena of the spirit's activities, the

bodily organs serving as the inlets of sense and the outlets of force, being the very hinges of the soul, on which character turns to and fro, in and out. And Jesus Christ came not to bestow a partial salvation; he came to save the entire man, man's body not less than man's spirit:

The God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved whole without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. I Thessalonians 5:23.

In fact, the resurrection of the body is the culmination of redemption itself: "Waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body." Sensuous and atheistic as the modern materialism tends to be, even this latest materialistic dictum of science is forced by stress of divine Providence to make an immense moral contribution to humanity. For materialism, in the very fact of its making so much of the doctrine of environment, is unconsciously bidding men to take care of their bodies. Viewed in this light, the modern materialism is but a return to the practice of Jesus Christ himself. Let not the profound spirituality of his mission blind us to the fact that one of the chief characteristics of his public ministry was his devotion to physical amelioration. He was, indeed, a preacher and a teacher; but he was no mere doctrinaire. Recognizing the truth that man's spirit lives, and, so long as the present constitution of things lasts, must live in the body and by means of the body, he treated men practically, approaching them body-wise. In fact, he declared, as we have seen, that the chief credential of his own Christhood was precisely here:

Go and report to John what ye hear and see. Blind men receive sight, lame walk, lepers are cleansed, deaf hear, dead are raised, poor

men have good tidings preached to them. And happy is he, whoever finds no occasion of stumbling in me. — Matthew 11: 2-6.

And were Jesus the Christ to revisit earth and live in our own land, a land which, in distinction from ancient Palestine, is a land of Christian civilization, where, under God's good providence, the slower processes of the scientific method have supplanted the swiftness of the ancient miracles, I doubt not that he would say to his people today:

"Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature; heal the sick, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, found asylums, build schoolhouses, teach the trades, show the natives how to take advantage of God's laws of nature, seek to unfold man in the totality of his being - spirit and soul and body."

This, then, is our first point in studying the modern problem of Christian Missions.

The Lay Element in the Missionary Field. And this prepares us for our second and main point: The lay element in the missionary field.

Here let me pay a moment's tribute to our missionaries. Surveying them in the mass, never was there a more heroic, self-sacrificing band of Christian men and women. They have planned wisely, toiled laboriously, suffered patiently, and in many instances reaped gloriously. But faithful as they have been, they could not do everything; and so they have wisely confined themselves in the main to strictly evangelistic labors. All thanks and honor be offered to them!

But now the question arises: Do not the signs of the times, that is to say, the hints of divine Providence, indicate that the hour has come when the church must consider

the query whether she ought not to make an onward movement in this direction, and reënforce our noble missionary preachers and teachers with noble missionary laymen? For the distinction between the orders of the ministry and the laity is merely modal or formal. Morally speaking, the humblest layman is as truly a priest of the Most High God as his pastor or his bishop. And even this technical, official distinction of ministry and laity is lessening every year. The education of the masses is raising the laity toward the plane of the ministry. Not but that the ministry is, and ever will be, one of our King's methods for his church. While earthly time lasts, the church will need preachers, teachers, leaders of religious thought, formulators of Christian truth; in a single word, "episcopoi," that is, overseers. In this sense it is true, and always will be in this world, that "the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and men should seek the law at his mouth; for he is the messenger of Jehovah of Hosts." And, therefore, at the very time that I join with my fellow-Christians in pleading for the higher education of the laity, I must also plead for the still higher education of the ministry.

Meanwhile, and who does not thank God for it, the laity are becoming more and more a momentous factor in our church life. As their intelligence grows, so grow their benevolence and personal share in church activities. But are they to be limited to giving, and Sunday-school work, and here and there a trusteeship, in the land of their birth? Is it the minister alone whom God summons to a foreign career? Is there not an immense field for lay activities in heathen lands? For heathendom needs not only Christianity, it also needs Christianity in its ideal completeness —