EVANGELIZING THE WORLD.

“Lo! in the clouds of heaven appears

God’s well-beloved Son;

He brings a train of brighter years,

His Kingdom is begun.

He comes a guilty world to bless

With mercy, truth and righteousness.”

                                           – Bryant.

     THE progress of the Gospel is slow. A large part of the human race have never heard of Christ. The darkness of idolatry rests upon a great majority of the families of the Earth. The number of heathen and Mohammedans is vastly greater than the number of even nominal Christians.

     In the most favored Christian lands, how few real Christians are found! How small the numbers who even profess to be born of God! and of these how small the proportion who give Scriptural evidence of this supernatural change! “We know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth him not” – 1 Jno. 5:18.

     “How monstrous,” says Finney, “and how melancholy the fact, that the great mass of professing Christians to this day recognize the 7th and not the 8thchapter of Romans as their own experience! According to this, the new birth or regeneration does not break the power of the propensities over the will. The truth is, and must not be disguised, that they have not any just idea of regeneration. They mistake conviction for regeneration. They are so enlightened as to perceive and affirm their obligation to deny the flesh, and often resolve to do it, but in fact do it not. They only struggle with the flesh, but are continually worsted and brought into bondage: and this they call are generate state. O, sad! How many thousands of souls have been blinded by this delusion and gone down to hell!”

     What is the cause of this comparative failure of Christianity? The Gospel is designed by God for all nations. It is adapted to them. It is intended for every individual. It gives a happiness that nothing else can afford. Every nation that embraces Christianity is elevated by it. Prosperity attends its progress. In its triumphal march it scatters blessings with a lavish hand. Wherever it goes, it establishes schools and churches, it builds homes and hospitals, it brings peace and comfort. Yet this outward prosperity is but “the dust of that diamond which constitutes her crowning gift – the shed blossoms of that tree of life of which the office of Christ is to dispense the immortal fruit.” Even opposers of the Gospel admit the beneficent effects of the Gospel. “So conspicuous have been the triumphs of the cross in many of the most hopeless parts of the heathen world, that even the magicians of worldly philosophy begin to acknowledge that this is the finger of God, and to despair of ever being able to do the same with their enchantments.”

     Why then is not the Gospel carried to the ends of the earth? Why is it not preached to every creature? It is not for lack of means. Money is poured out freely for enterprises bearing the Christian name, but serving chiefly as monuments of pride. The amount expended to build and run a fashionable church would build and run a dozen equally commodious, and better adapted to the spread of Christianity. But the Gospel does not depend on edifices; it can use money, but it is not dependent upon it. The apostles went out without purse or scrip. The early evangelists had no salaries. One can be converted in a tent more easily than in a cathedral, as cathedrals are controlled. A multitude assembled under God’s great canopy is as accessible to divine truth as if they were standing in Westminster Abbey. It was their outdoor work which made Wesley and Whitfield the great apostles of their day.

     Nor is it for lack of influence that the Gospel does not make more rapid progress in Christian and in heathen lands. Our great statesmen, and soldiers, and men of science openly avow their belief of the Gospel. Said Henry Clay: “I believe in the truth of Christianity, though I am not certain of having experienced that change of heart which divines call the new birth. But I trust in God, and Jesus, and I hope for immortality. I have tried the world and found its emptiness. It cannot fill and satisfy the human mind.”

     Says Stephens, a celebrated literary man of England: “In the long annals of skeptical philosophy no single name is to be found to which the gratitude of mankind has been yielded or is justly due.” The benefactors of mankind are Christians. The Gospel is no longer an experiment. Its beneficent effects are seen and acknowledged. This of itself opens the way for the heralds of the cross.

     In addition to all these human influences in its favor, the Gospel, wherever it is faithfully proclaimed, carries with it a divine energy that nothing but the free will of man can withstand. It is the “power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” The promise, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,” still holds good. Where Christ is, there His power is exerted, silently it may be, but nevertheless powerfully for the good of all present. No other advocate has such assistance as he who, possessed of the Holy Spirit, advocates the Gospel. He may be wanting in human learning. Men may oppose him and persecute him, and put him to death, but they are not “able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which he speaks.” There is a convincing power in his plain, simple words to which it is difficult to reply.

     Melancthon said: “That Luther’s words were born, not on his lips, but in his soul.”

     Why, then, we repeat, does not Christianity root out all false religions? and why does it not have amore marked effect upon the lives of those who acknowledge its truth? There must be a cause.

     The reason is, that the vast majority of those who embrace the Gospel are not permitted to labor according to their ability, for the spread of the Gospel.

     It is said that about two thirds of all the members of all the Protestant churches of this country are women. Yet in these churches a woman, no matter what may be her qualification, and devotion, and zeal, is not permitted to occupy the same position as a man. The superior must, sometimes, give place to the inferior. The bungler must give directions, the adept must obey. The incompetent coward must command, if no competent man is found, while the competent woman is relegated to the rear. A Deborah may arise, but the churches, by their laws, prohibit her from coming to the front. And these laws must been forced though all others are disregarded.

     In some of the churches a woman is forbidden to speak or pray in even a social meeting if men are present! In none of these, except among the Friends, is woman given the same position, or the same opportunity for advancement as the man. She is, of set purpose, kept back, while cunning contrivances are adopted to make her think that she is accorded all the liberty she wants. She suffers in consequence, but the cause of God suffers most.

     What a loss the world would have sustained if John Wesley had been suppressed in infancy! The work which Frances Willard is doing in the cause of temperance, and of moral reform, gives us some idea of what woman is capable of doing when left free to exercise the gifts and graces which God has given her. It is impossible to estimate the extent to which humanity has suffered by the unreasonable and unscriptural restrictions which have been put upon women in the churches of Jesus Christ. Had they been given, since the days of the first Apostles, the same rights as men, this would be quite another world. Not only would the Gospel have been more generally diffused among mankind, but its influence, where its truth is acknowledged, would have been inconceivably greater. Our so-called Christian nations would have been more in harmony with the teachings of Christ, in their laws, their institutions and their practices.