OF THE MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE; OR SKETCHES OF PROMINENT FEMALE MISSIONARIES. BY DANIEL C. EDDY. EDITED BY THE REV. JOHN CUMMING, D. D. "But there are deeds which should not pass away, THIRD EDITION. LONDON: ARTHUR HALL, VIRTUE, AND CO., 25, PATERNOSTER ROW. PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. (RECAP) THE missionary enterprise, if not commenced in paradise, is coeval with the call of the apostles. It is part of Christianity itself-inseparable from it-inspired by its motives, elements, and ends. Grace is essentially diffusive-it grows by giving-its efflux is in the ratio of its intensity. When it ceases to expand it ceases to exist. Money may be raised in answer to the calls of sectarian rivalry or of ecclesiastical pride, but a true missionary sympathy is created only in those hearts in which the Holy Spirit has created and rooted the grace of the everlasting gospel. It is true, science has her martyrs and her devotees, and these in their sphere are not unimportant. But no creed, or system, or science, can present such, and so extended, and so singularly disinterested a roll of missionaries, martyrs, and devoted heroes as the religion of the Bible. This is a fact-the most brilliant of facts. With little expectation, because with barely a possibility of earthly renown, with the absolute certainty of poverty as their portion on earth, men who had genius sufficient to raise them to the very loftiest places of power and reputation and pecuniary advantages in other professions-resigned all such expectations-cheerfully resigned them; and seeing a grave on earth as their end here, a crown of glory as their possession in eternity, and seeking nothing more, and satisfied with nothing less, they took up the cross and went to far-distant and barbarous lands to win souls, and do their Master's bidding. Such men are the modern credentials of Christianity. They are witnesses to the presence of a heavenly influence here; the gospel shines through and in them, and they act for it, as they live by it. The world reads them as divine epistles, and Christians quote them as evidences of what grace has done, and as instalments of what it can do. 5498 319 46862 |