Читать книгу The American Missionary. Volume 42, No. 10, October, 1888 - Various - Страница 5

Many of our missionaries who are engaged in their devoted and self-denying labors in the South, have been compelled by the nature of our work to take their summer vacations. The educational work of the American Missionary Association is through and through a missionary work. It is begun with a missionary purpose and is carried on in the name of Christ to disciple the people, that they may know Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life. All of our teachers are sent to be missionaries. Many are returning now to their fields of service with which they are well acquainted, and some are going for the first time. Among these, questions are raised as to the requirements needed in those who are to go. We have thought that a few suggestions given to the candidates for the China Inland Mission by Hudson Taylor, might be properly repeated here for those who are to take upon themselves these responsible Christian duties. He says:

First of all, it is absolutely essential that those desiring to be missionaries should have a deep love for Christ, a full grasp of His plan of salvation, and be wholly consecrated, in their inward lives, to Him. Mission work is not preaching grand sermons, or witnessing marvellous baptisms; it is a patient Christ-like life, day by day, far from external help, far from those we love; a quiet sowing of tiny seeds, which may take long years to show above the ground, combined with a steady bearing of loneliness, discomfort and petty persecution. The work demands of every worker very real and manifest self-sacrifice and acts of faith. It aims at, and ought to be satisfied with, nothing less than the conversion of the people to God. Not witness-bearing merely, but fruit-bearing is the end in view. Anything short of the salvation of souls is failure.

It is generally found that when people are of no use at home, they are of no use in the mission field. The bright, brave, earnest spirit, ready to face difficulties at home, is the right spirit for the work abroad. A patient, persevering, plodding spirit, attempting great things for God, and expecting great things from God, is absolutely essential to success in missionary efforts. Those will not make the best missionaries who are easily daunted by the first difficulty or opposition, but those whose strength is equal to waiting upon God, and who fight through all obstacles by prayer and faith. The spasmodic worker, frantic in zeal one month, and at freezing-point another, will be weary long before the station has been reached: while in the strength of Christ the weakest of us need not draw back, nor say, "I am not fit," yet nothing less than burning love to Christ, and in Him to perishing souls, will survive and overleap the difficulties and disappointments of the work.

These are royal words, and we believe that our teachers and missionaries engaged in this most glorious work of saving needy souls will take with them this spirit, and be blessed in the communication of their blessing to others.