32 Obstruction of Jewish Evangelization in N. York.

was commissioned at once to prepare invitation cards in the Hebrew character to meetings commencing the same week.

But before that same day was ended-so swift had been communication from a confidential quarter in Mr. Tjader's entourage-the inveterate enemy had already heard of the plan, and had hastened to Mr. Tjader with statements of the same incredibly reckless falsehood with which we have so long been familiar: such as that Mr. W. had lied in claiming fellowship in the Church, and to which it was alleged, he had never been restored; with the addition of charges of immorality "not fit to print;" and a charge of having admitted baptizing unconverted Jews under a consideration of a few dollars, with the blasphemous excuse that a few drops of water would not hurt them; and finally notifying Mr. Tjader, in effect, that he would forfeit the support of the powerful coterie on which he was dependent, unless he dissociated himself at once and in every way, from the remotest fellowship with the missionaries in Grand Street. This mandate the frightened good man hastened to perform, with such alacrity that the day of his contract with Mr. Magil had not expired before the contract was revoked, with notice that no further intercourse could be allowed, and the very Bibles and Testaments were returned on the spot!

Such is what is going on to-day. We forbear comment, but our question is answered.

For a providential purpose in so conspicuous an opportunity for fresh self-revelation by conspirators maddened, not chastened, by defeat, we may perhaps look to the indignant determination provoked afresh in every positively honest heart, that whatever personal failings there may have been in the only Jewish mission for New York, such atrocities as these shall not be glossed with the thinnest semblance of success, henceforth, but the Christian support that hitherto has not failed shall be redoubled, until shame such as they can feel shall cover the purse-proud rulers of our disgraced Christianity, and a new departure in Jewish evangelization shall be made here, without them.

Shall He find Faith on the Earth?

33

"WHEN THE SON OF MAN COMETH, SHALL HE FIND FAITH ON THE EARTH?”

This question seems to imply the startling answer No. It has led many of us to the strange conclusion that the dispensation of the Holy Spirit must end in failure and universal apostasy, to be redeemed only by a fresh manifestation of the glory of God in the Person of Jesus Christ and in judgment. But it is pertinent to inquire whether "on the earth" necessarily means in the Church also. In general terms, such as our Lord was using, there has never yet been a time when the Son of Man, if He had come, would have found faith on the earth. Need we suppose that our Lord's question, postulate it seems to be, implies that He will find no such thing as faith anywhere, when He comes? Is it not better to expect that through grace He will find a Church "waiting for her Lord," and widely spread, proclaiming the "testimony" appointed her, throughout the world? Nevertheless, the prophecy in the question would be fulfilled, as it is now, in the great majority of mankind, still under condemnation through unbelief of the Divine message which the Church exists to proclaim to every creature.

We therefore labor in hope and pray in hope, for at least one great and unprecedented revival of the Word and work of the Lord, before this dispensation shall close. We cannot see our way to the fond expectation of our ecclesiastical brethren, for a great revival of the present condition in which past revivals have left us. Unless we wholly misread Church history and its lessons, we shall never see the present condition or idea of Christian life re-animated and glorified in its adherents.

No doubt the work of grace will go on, and does go on, under well-meant endeavors, with a steady ingathering, and a gradual uplift (we hope) of the standard of Christian devotion; and sporadic revivals may continue to blaze up and die down again. But we have an expectation that a wide sweep of the Holy Spirit's power will come only as it has always come, in a great cœcumenical wave of new conviction and reformation, raising the whole plane of Christian life to a higher level than had been known or imagined before. So the Reformation raised the Church out from the superstitious forms and dead works of the Dark Ages, into the light of faith and of the re-opened Bible; so, again, the wave of evangelical revival that bore on its crest the words of Wesley, Whitefield,

34

Shall He find Faith on the Earth?

and Edwards, lifted the Church to the missionary and SundaySchool plane, and rolled over the curse of intoxicating drink and of human slavery; so the oecumenical revival of 1857 uplifted the Youth of the Church to a fresh eminence of every-day duty, consecration and power, on which the world-wide Young Men's Christian Association has been joined by the world-wide Children's Christian Endeavor.

These things we have attained, and retain. It need not be doubted that they have yet unexpended and expanding strength; nor that the vast apostasy from Bible faith, that threatens all these with spiritual annihilation, will be turned back when the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against it.

Nevertheless, all who with different eyes and from different points of view, study the present position of the Church, are compelled to recognize not only great reformations necessary, but also a certain pause if not retrogression in spiritual vitality and power. It is admitted on all sides, though variously accounted for and prescribed for. Christian sociologists (not to say socialists) tell us that the Church must reform its relation to economic interests, and become an evangel of prosperity for the poor. This may follow; but to say that it will precede, as a condition, or will constitute, a prevalence of Christianity, is to say that the Kingdom of God is "meat and drink," an utilitarian Utopia. Yet in the full missionary spirit, which wants so great widening and deepening, there is room for much greater zeal than now exists for the evangelization of the dark continents within Christendom as well as without. And the darkest continent in Christendom, if not in pagan lands, is the unbelieving and Gospel-hating Jew; a continent scarce touched by Christian enterprise and still less by spiritual power from the Church.

We have thought that perhaps the most necessary uplift of the Christian consciousness to characterize the next great movement of the Church by the Holy Spirit, might take the form of Jewish evangelization.

But shall we, then, have to wait through one more intermediate state like the present, before the grand and final wave of Divine power shall lift the Church to a conception and acceptance of Christ's own standard of discipleship the following Him in His work of Redemption with entire devotion of powers and persons and possessions?

Shall He find Faith on the Earth?

35

We cannot believe that the work of faith by the Holy Spirit is to be so incomplete in the Church before the visible coming of the Lord, that He will not find faith anywhere incorporate on the earth, in this primary meaning of the thing. Strange, mysterious, that His first and all-comprehending Word, in the very beginning of the Gospel, has never been recognized in theory nor attempted in practice, since the days of the Apostles, save by here and there a solitary and singular devotee of person or of goods! It is the most mysterious of all the dreadful lapses into which inscrutable wisdom has suffered the Church at large to fall since that Apostolic spring. True, the word has stood on the page, stood patiently, while interpreters have glossed it over with accommodations to temporal and unbelieving requirements supposed to control the interpretation of the plainest words that could be spoken; requirements which, indeed, cannot possibly be set aside save by implicit faith in the marvellous promise that accompanies the precept; the promise that not personal loss, but Divine security and recompense on earth, shall attend the loss of all for Christ and the Gospel.

When this faith shall become the accepted standard of the Church, it will be thought for a Christian "a disgrace to die rich.” This twofold faith, or this sequence of perfect faith on perfect love, is most manifestly what the Church now needs, to generate the evangelistic impetus that shall overwhelm the darkness both near and far, both Jewish and pagan. It is the sum of all that our deficiencies require. Its deficiency is, intrinsically and practically, the sum of all we lack for conquest of the world for Christ. It must be the last uplift, for there remains none higher. May the Last, then, come quickly, and may the Lord Jesus come quickly, and find this faith ready to meet Him!

WHAT THINK WE OF CHRIST?

The reader is referred for such statement to the department of Jewish Evangelization (which might well be for Christian Evangelization too), because it comes in answer to a Jew's inquiry, "What think ye [Christians] of Christ ?"

Many volumes of debate, not so very antiquated, have been devoted to speculation on the relations of the Divine and the human in the Son of God, and about the Eternal Sonship; on the basis of a supposed distinctness or duality of natures Divine and hu

36

The Meaning of St. John's Epistle.

man, in the Man Christ Jesus; with all the difficulties and inconceivabilities that flow from that purely artificial supposition. In the simplicity of revealed truth, there is really far less difficulty in comprehending the united parentage of God and man, and the integral union (not combination) of the two in the Son of God and Son of Man, than the most advanced physiology finds in the mys tery of natural human generation. By the same revelation, the date of the Sonship is fixed as plainly as words can be made to express anything. As plainly is the newness in time, of the Sonship, expressed "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee" -no less plainly, again, is the earth-born Son of God identified with the unborn Eternal Word who "was made flesh and dwelt among us" as Son of God and Man. These things were plainly written for our understanding, not metaphysical bewilderment, and our understanding of them is of vast practical importance, to prevent bewilderment in prayer and in trying to unfold "the mystery of godliness" (theology proper) to inquiring Jews or Gentiles.

THE MEANING OF JOHN'S EPISTLE.

Much of the first Epistle of St. John is an enigma which Christian Expositors have sometimes either stumbled over or explained away in very inconsistent, not say uncandid, fashion. One of the latest readings we have happened to hear from the pulpit included these words, with others to like effect:

"Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God."

Parenthetically the minister thought it necessary to insert here the usual qualifying words. He said that one born of God does not and cannot indulge intentionally and habitually in any known sin. Which is true enough, but nothing like what the Apostle wrote. But what did the Apostle mean by the sweeping and inflexible sentence apparently pronounced here, and in many places, by implication, on every Christian who ever lived on earth? Nothing short of absolute holiness seems to be allowed as a condition of Christian hope, and infallible wisdom seems also to be imputed, as well as required, in ii:20, 27. Many taking it thus in their simplicity, have tried to realize and profess a condition of holiness and divine illumination which is confuted by their own lives in common with us all; "the very chiefest of the Apostles" not