never able to consolidate them, might not the East liberate itself and conquer the world?

But if this suggestion seem too fantastic-though it is no more fantastic than what this generation has seen-can we say that a conflict between the United States and Japan is impossible? Should that come, there is one thing that, I think, may be confidently prophesied, and that is, that in all the churches there will be heard voices declaring that this is a new crusade. We shall be told that the war came because Japan closed the "open door" to China; or that the people of the Pacific coast would not consent to have their pure "Nordic" blood contaminated by an Asiatic strain. In this there will be some truth. But if before the conflict comes, and we still have time to consider the question dispassionately, we should tell the fundamental truth, which is that such a war would be the inevitable result of the conflict between the imperialistic designs of Japan and the imperialistic designs of the United States in the Pacific, it might be that an adjustment might be made. The churches should be preparing to speak with authority before the storm breaks. For the churches are responsible in no small degree for the present tension. Few voices were raised in the churches against the imperialistic experiment of the United States which followed the Spanish War. No one of the churches failed more lamentably than the Episcopal Church, which, influenced by the example of England, hailed, by the mouth of some of its most influential bishops, "the glorious mission of America to bear its share of the 'white man's burden." Such men, if war comes again, will be as truly, even though unintentionally, responsible as were the leaders of the Lutheran Church in Germany who failed to protest against Bismarck's policy of "blood and iron" for the real outbreak of the World War.

I have spoken of those who make light of the signs of the times as "optimists," for such they like to call them

selves; but he only is a true optimist who faces the facts of life, estimates at their true value the dangers of the present, and yet has faith enough to believe that out of evil God will bring good. It is the latter only who can properly be called an optimist, though to the thoughtless he will seem to be a Cassandra or a Jeremiah. On the other hand, there will be found those who say that the outlook is so discouraging as to be hopeless. But it has been well said, "Truth is never discouraging." The difficulties are indeed great, but so should be our faith. "When the Son of Man cometh will he find faith on the earth?" That should be for us, as it was for Jesus, the one important question. Underneath the irreconcilable ideals of East and West is a spiritual one. The fatalism of the East counts the life of the individual as the small dust in the balance. What spiritual power have we with which to meet the fatalism of the East? That is the fundamental question and leads to a consideration of the mission and the task of the churches.

It is true we have great hopes; nevertheless, the dangers have not passed. So while we should rejoice, and do rejoice, at the dawn of a better day, we must listen to St. Paul's stirring words: "The day is at hand, therefore put off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." The dangers of which we have been thinking may not be so imminent as has been assumed, but they have not disappeared. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." How much more must it be said to be the price of salvation, whether personal or universal!

CHAPTER II

THE MISSION OF THE CHURCHES

HAVE the churches remembered their primary mission? The church was ordained to be a missionary society. Every one of the churches has such a society. But can it be denied that it is rather as an adjunct than as a manifestation of the essential work of the churches? How many we know in all the churches who state plainly that they have no interest in foreign missions. This may mean no more, and I believe does mean no more, than that people are indifferent to many of the missionary activities of the churches. But can it be denied that in all the churches the great work of the conversion of the world has been preached rather as a work of supererogation than as the primary work of the church of Christ? Until the spirit of missions is revived, there can be no expectation that the churches can meet the crisis of the world.

Again let us turn to the history of Rome. As a result of the barbarian invasion, the ancient civilization fell. How much of it was lost we shall probably never know. That everything was not lost was due to the Christian church. But why the church was spared when so much else was lost has not, I think, been sufficiently considered. Why was it that those fierce men who knew nothing of the "glory that was Greece" nor "the grandeur that was Rome" spared the church? Every one knows the familiar story of the great pope, Leo I, going out to meet the conqueror, and that the barbarian yielded to the bishop. Doubtless, as Gibbon says, "the pressing eloquence of Leo, his majestic aspect, and sacerdotal robes excited the veneration of Attila for the spiritual father of the Christians." But these would have effected but a momentary check had

they not been supplemented by the fear and veneration of the army which he led. Attila was a Hun, but the OstroGoths and many others in the barbarian herd were nominally Christian, and it is to them that the salvation of the church in that critical hour is due. Had it been a heathen flood that poured over Europe the church would have perished as did so much else. But centuries before, while the legions were still holding the banks of the Rhine and of the Danube, while the camps of Rome were still upon the Hellespont, "holding the fort," Christian men climbed the mountains of the Balkans, crossed the plains of Hungary, penetrated the forests of Bohemia, and journeyed as far as the shores of the Baltic, preaching Jesus Christ.* Therefore, when the dam broke and the waters of the Rhine and the Danube and the Black Sea poured in over Asia Minor, Illyricum, Italy, Spain, and France, the church and the church alone rode like the ark on the waves of this troublesome world. The barbarians saw in the lives of the saintly women and heroic men the culmination of a faith of which they had already heard and which they in a measure had learned to obey. They saw in the faces of little children a light that had begun to dawn in the dark forests of their former homes, and they knelt to kiss the feet of the Infant Jesus and bowed down before the cross. They were not awed by any bishop; they were not "converted" by any organization; they recognized their spiritual kin in the Christians of Europe and spared them. They had been converted not by the Catholic Church; they had heard the gospel from those whom that church had cast out.†

The lesson should not be hard to learn. If before the

* Some of the early missionaries were captives. Their conquerors little guessed that in scattering them through Central Europe they were preparing for their own submission to the captives' Lord. "Captivity was again carried captive."

†The Arians.

new barbaric invasion of Western civilization breaks through the barriers that army and navy protect, the churches were to send out their messengers into all lands, the same miracle might be worked again in our day, and the faith of Christ might be saved.

The crisis of the world should lead to a revolution in foreign missions. If Christian men were seriously to ask themselves what is their duty in the presence of the possibility of a new barbaric invasion, they might be led to feel that it is the missionaries rather than armies and navies upon which our hope depends. I believe that the Danish Mission at Serampore, and the Zenana Mission of American women in India; the Yale Mission, and St. John's College, and St. Agnes School in China; St. Paul's College and Hospital in Japan and Robert College in Constantinople to mention but a few of those agencies which in modern ways are doing the same work which the men of old did, and so saved the church when the Roman Empire fell-are doing more for the safety of Western civilization than all the armies and navies of the world combined.* For, while the West has shown its power to triumph over the weak, which will lead to revenge, the messengers of peace certainly some of them-have had the courage to say that we are ashamed of the misuse of our power and have sent them to reveal what it is that we really value.

The first thing that we value is the beautiful life of Jesus; but his death is more beautiful still. The heathen may

That the English government of India since the repeal of the charter of the East India Company has been a blessing to India will be denied only by those who are so obsessed by the theory of "self-determination" that they have not paused to consider what "self" implies. The modern religious movement among the natives of India would have been impossible without the strong arm of the government which protected religious freedom, and the rise of Nationalism would have been impossible without the previous training of the natives by English officials. But it must not be forgotten that one of the greatest blessings was the freedom granted the missionaries to preach the gospel, which the East India Company had not permitted.