43,136,400 per quarter! Price Senior,. 4 cts. Baptist Advanced, 2 Intermediate, " 2 Baptist Primary, " 2 Teacher, per copy! Advanced Intermediate Leaflets ΤΟ I cent each per copy! per quarter! .3 cents per set! per quarter! Bible Lesson Pictures, $1.00 per quarter! Illustrated Papers Price per quarter per year Our Young People (weekly), . 13 cents. 44 44 The Colporter (monthly), 50 cents. " 30 " 25 16 " 2 8 (The above prices are all for clubs of five or more.) American Baptist Publication Society "MR. ARNOLD'S WEEK OF CHRISTIAN LIVING"? It is a story with a purpose-a purpose of high order. It deals with a question of vital importance. It lays bare a radical defect in the life and character of many a professing Christian, and a prime source of weakness in many a Christian church. The central figure is so true to life that many will declare the original to be a member of their church, and will long that the process of transformation so vividly described might be repeated. The careful reading of it will lead all to heart-searching. The author has a keen insight into human nature, and is master of a fine literary style. The publication of the work in serial forra has led to repeated requests that it be issued as a booklet. Read it. Circulate it. It will disturb complacency, but can hardly fail to be a blessing. i EIGHTY-FOURTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN BAPTIST MISSIONARY UNION ROCHESTER, N. Y., May 17, 1898. The eighty-fourth annual meeting of the American Baptist Missionary Union was held in the Second Baptist Church at 10 o'clock A.M., Rev. Henry F. Colby, D.D., of Ohio, President, in the chair. In the absence of the Recording Secretary, who was not present until afternoon, Rev. E. F. Merriam was appointed Recording Secretary pro tem. The following were appointed a Committee on Nominations: Rev. T. S. Barbour, D.D., Massachusetts; Rev. G. B. Ilsley, D.D., Maine; Rev. L. D. Temple, Vermont; Dea. T. M. Seabury, Rhode Island; Rev. W. G. Fennell, Connecticut; M. S. Strien, Pennsylvania; G. W. Lasher, D.D., Ohio; Rev. E. R. Clevinger, Indiana; Edward Goodman, Illinois; Rev. L. H. Trowbridge, Michigan; Rev. R. M. Luther, D.D., New Jersey; Rev. W. B. Riley, Minnesota. The Union then adjourned to 1.30 P.M. A devotional service, conducted by Rev. J. W. A. Stewart, D.D., of New York, was held at 1.30 P.M. At 2 o'clock the President of the Union took the chair and announced the hymn, "Hail to the Brightness of Zion's Glad Morning." Rev. Edward Judson, D.D., of New York, read the second chapter of Philippians and offered prayer. President Colby then addressed the Union. THE GRAND CAMPAIGN Members of the American Baptist Missionary Union. BRETHREN AND SISTERS: Where could we better observe this, the eighty-fourth anniversary of our beloved organization, than in this beautiful and prosperous city, so long associated in all our minds with the intelligence and progress of our denomination and the education of our rising ministry. We thank you, brethren of Rochester, for your cordial invitation and your pleasant welcome, and we pray God to give these meetings a notable place in the long series of those which have proved a joy and a blessing. After many We have met in stirring times. The air is full of the sounds of war. years of peace and prosperity which God has given to our country, the call has been again issued for brave volunteers, and it has been enthusiastically responded to throughout the land until there are now more than enough. We are daily talking and reading of weapons and warships. Our hearts are thrilled by the mighty possibilities of the hour, and we are anxiously watching for tidings of national victory. In all the mixture of motives that are urging the American people forward in this great conflict, the main one, we trust, is not the ambition for more national glory, at best a doubtful and bloody prize; not the acquisition of new territory, which we surely do not need, but the true spirit of humanity, the duty of the strong to help the weak, a moral indignation against the cruelties of oppression and the determination to bring relief and freedom to the down-trodden and the suffering. On this ground alone we are claiming we can find sufficient justification for our armed intervention and our aggressive blows. In all this let us not fail to find today an illustration and a figure of the world-wide missionary cause in the interest of which we are assembled. The object of this, too, is intervention for rescue. Why should we not simply enjoy our own gospel privileges in peace? Why should we trouble ourselves about the moral and religious welfare of other lands than our own? Why, when we have so many evils to reform within our own borders, so much injustice and error and sin, should we not concentrate our efforts here? The false religions of the world, Brahmanism, Buddhism, Confucianism and all, have solicited none of our advice. These devotees, unlike the victims of tyranny in Cuba, are not wont to reach out for our interference, but rather regard our coming as an impertinence. Why, then, expend thought and time and treasure and Christian lives upon them, assailing such appalling difficulties and involving so much sacrifice? It is the old question. But the passing events emphasize anew our answer. This is a war for deliverance. On that ground we have a right to make it. On that ground we must make it, or else prove false to the spirit of our Christianity, and grieve that world-embracing heart of compassion which has touched our hearts and prompted them to the pity of our fellowmen. For long sad centuries those old false systems have been holding men in bondage, blinding their minds, imposing on them unutterable burdens, and at their very best professing to offer but glimmering rays of hope to groping souls. Cuba's cry for material aid is but an incident compared to the strong appeal unconsciously presented to us in the spiritual needs of many peoples. "From many an ancient river, From many a palmy plain They call us to deliver Their lands from error's chain." It would be cold-hearted and selfish to be unmoved by the knowledge of their necessities. We need not wait for orders, for the great Captain of our salvation has commanded us to go. Of the expediency of the great enterprise we need not question, since He, who spake as never man spake and has the right to our extremest loyalty, has planned its operations and has placed himself at its head, promising to be with us always if we faithfully carry out his injunctions. It is a constant inspiration for our timid hearts to remember how fully and calmly He has surveyed the field, and with what confidence He is expecting till his enemies be made his footstool." He summons us to no waning cause, 66 no doubtful issue. Though it takes a long time, the banners are moving forward. Victory shall come. The world shall be delivered from its bondage to sin. Meanwhile let us rejoice that it is not by sword and rifle, by death-dealing shot and bursting shell that we are to do our work. It is rather by the precious proclamation of a Savior's love that we seek to subdue men's souls, and to bring them as willing subjects into the blessed kingdom of our God. "The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds." Oh, brethren, this is the grand campaign. The present, passing war, important as are its issues, is not to be compared with it. Let your hearts never cease to be stirred by the magnificence of its scope and the height of its moral grandeur! Think of the prayers and tears and shouts of joy that have marked its progress, the critical battlefields of its history, the roster of its sainted heroes! As Christ's disciples we must not be slack in carrying on our part of it. "To doubt would be disloyalty; To falter would be sin." This world-wide character of the campaign results from the position of our great Commander. What is the diameter of this globe compared to his stoop from heaven to live and die upon it! Such a sacrifice as his cannot be localized or nationalized in its significance and benefits. He gave himself for all mankind. And now that He has risen and ascended and reigns, not in Jerusalem but at the right hand of God, one part of the earth is just as near to his hand and to his heart as any other. As a nation we think we have a right to intervene in Cuba because it is at our doors, but we excused ourselves from doing so in the case of Armenia, because we would not interfere with European politics or become involved in entangling alliances. But in this missionary movement Christ as the King of kings bids us assert his claim everywhere; and to all the powers of sin that would hinder discipleship to him he says, as Jehovah of old said to Pharaoh : "Let my people go!" We should think of the broad, gracious outlook from his throne and learn to widen our selfish horizons. The world-wideness of the campaign also throws light and cheer upon our local duties here in America. If the work we are personally and severally doing for Christ in the places where he has put us, were independent and isolated and had no relations to anything broader in its sweep and purpose, we might perhaps have reason sometimes to regard it as small and narrow, and so to become disheartened. The strength of one man is so limited and his field of influence seems to reach such a little way. Looking only at what is shut in within the barriers of his own station, each might sometimes ask, "Is it worth while for me to keep on?" The overwhelming odds in favor of the enemy just then and there might make him give up. Pastors and laymen who think only of their own church, will often thus faint and grow weary. But if that is only one post in a great and comprehensive plan taking into view the whole nation and all the nations; if the individual Christian worker is but filling his place in a mighty army which the Lord is superintending and moving and which requires some to toil hard in the muddy trenches as well as others to carry the flag to the conquered heights; which requires the weary pacing of the lonely sentinel in the forest as well as the triumphant march to thrilling strains of music into the surrendered city; which may even require submission to an apparent defeat on the part of some in one place in order to a signal success on the part of others in another, and in which some brave soldiers must fall and die without the sight, while their comrades go orward over their dead bodies to a new stage in the fulfillment of divine promises; ah, i |