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     MARK xvi. 15.--Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

     Last words are important words. Emphatically so, when these are the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. His voice was to be heard no more in the world until that day when "He cometh with ten thousand of his saints" (Jude i. 15); "when the Son of man shall come in his glory and all the holy angels with him, and he shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all nations, and he shall separate them one from the other as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." Matt. xxv. 31. "For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son, that all men should honor the Son as they honor the Father." John v. 22.

     As a final direction this is of the highest importance, being the complement of all that had preceded its utterance.

     The life of the Lord Jesus is only intelligently read in the light these words afford.

     The deeds of the Lord Jesus Christ are only understood by the interpretation given to them by these words. It is the summary of his whole life, an entire philosophy crystallized into a commandment to his disciples. It is the gospel and the law in their relation to personal duty, condensed into one sentence.

     Until this sentence is read, and its meaning comprehended, there are many things in the life of Christ whose meaning we fail to grasp; but here we find the answer to every question, the solution of every problem, and the reason for every step. All that had gone before was preparatory to this great work, and here is the divine intention running through all God's dispensations plainly revealed. The covenant in Eden and the later cov-

enant with Abraham are seen to be intimately related to this saying; and the completeness of the profuse and the truthfulness and strength of the pledge here most plainly appear. The spirit of the psalm and the burden of the prophecy find their fitting harmony in this final commandment and ultimate signification of the divine idea.

     Now, we know why those stupendous events in the career of the race, overshadowing all else contained in the history of the centuries occurred. Now, and here, in the last interview with the world's Redeemer and King, before the benediction contained in the promise, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world" is uttered, he reveals the all-pervading and all-embracing purpose of Almighty God--a purpose and a thought that fills the entire world and pervades all history--to be, that this gospel may be preached in all the world to every creature. And that wherever a convert is won the name of the triune God may be linked with the birth of the new creature in Christ Jesus. Without bestowing more than this measure of attention upon this thought, allow me to urge upon you the study of all authentic history, antecedent to this declaration and direction of Christ, from this point of observation; and see how wonderfully the fitness and harmonies of the divine plan will come upon you in a series of sweet surprises that will make your heart "glad in God your Savior," for the immeasurable wealth of mercy he has bestowed upon men.

     May we not inquire with more particularity, Why should this be performed? Why should this gospel be preached?

     My answer to this question is:

     First--Because it is the Master's command. I am aware that in these times in which we live, and among this people with whom we live, it is very fashionable to sneer at authority. It is, we say, an age of investigation, of research. Men think for themselves. You are to take nothing upon mere say so. Reason for yourselves and then decide. This may do very well as means to flatter our pride, but will hardly be allowable when we come to deal with practical things. We scarcely conduct our military campaigns, for instance, upon this principle of individual research and choice. I presume the one in command scarcely submits

his orders to a vote of his army and allows every man to decide whether h& will obey or refuse.

     There is a duty of unquestioning obedience imposed upon the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. As the soldier obeys, not knowing why the command is issued, nor anything of the campaign, beyond the order "Forward march," so Christ's army should obey every clear and plain "thus saith the Lord" which the book of God contains. Our God and his Christ know the campaign planned and all the course marked out through the centuries and traversing the ages, and at the command of the Captain of our Salvation the whole church should move out along those lines of operation that he directs. For this reason first, a reason all-sufficient and all-embracing--that God commands--should this gospel be preached.

     The second reason why this gospel should be preached is, "The spirit of the command and of the kingdom of Christ are in harmony with each other and with the social element in human nature. The social nature of man is opposed to a solitary life. God said himself; "It is not good for man to be alone," even when dwelling in the innocence and felicities of Eden. So everywhere since, men do not dwell apart, but in groups and tribes and nations. The drops of water do not come together more naturally and certainly, thus forming the ocean, than the individual members of the human family unite and form the race.

     So this command is in harmony with the social clement in our nature. It is likewise in accord with the kingdom of Christ within our hearts. There is perfect correspondence between the inner impulse and the outer deed. When the penitent sinner is converted, he at once wishes to tell some one else all about it. The cleansed leper with gladness cried out and made known the wonderful cure. The woman of Samaria, when she found the Christ, ran directly to the town to tell the story and bring her friends and relations to where Christ was. So, when Philip had been found of the Savior, he at once tells Nathaniel, "We have found him of whom Moses in the law and the prophets did write. Come and see."

     This is the wonderful spirit of the living God, that rests in a divine baptism on every converted soul. Every heart thus be

comes a willing heart, and every hand a willing helper, all tongues are touched, and all lips are cleansed to make known the glad tidings to wandering men. This, then, is, a very gracious reason why this gospel ought to be preached, because it is in agreement with the Spirit of the Kingdom implanted within us.

     In the third place this command ought to be obeyed "because gratitude and its obligations bind us to do this."

     What was Europe before the introduction of Christianity? Your forefathers and mine? One day there was a small company of men seeking passage across the Ægean from Troas to Phillippi. They were converted Jews. Their leader was Paul, to whom had appeared in a vision a man of Macedonia, stretching forth his hands in supplication, crying: "Come over and help us."

     They needed help then over in that out-lying province of Greece. They needed help then in cultured and licentious and infidel Athens; they needed help in pitiless and despotic Rome; they needed help then in barbarous and enslaved Gaul, in cruel and bloody Britain. Through all those gloomy forests, by all those winding rivers, along all those rocky coasts and stormy seas, men needed help.

     And God's army of relief, consisting of four men led by Paul, was coming to their deliverance.

     The embarkation of those men that day at Troas for the shores of Europe, Gibbon and Buckle to the contrary notwithstanding, was a more important event than Cæsar at the Rubicon, the retreat of the ten thousand, or the battle of Thermopylae. It was a pivotal day, in which turns the future of that quarter of the globe. It is a new date among the centuries and a new force in the affairs of the nations, that shall displace and subdue all that may array itself in opposition to its advancement.

      The gospel of Christ came to Europe in that band of missionaries, and came to stay, to live, to conquer, to bless our fathers and ourselves with the fullness of that joy that abideth forever.

     Having redeemed our fathers, and per consequence ourselves, from barbarism, we have a debt of gratitude to discharge in conveying the same riches of grace to those who have it not.

     Fourth. Because the spirit of prudence and sound statesmanship defines this as the proper course to be pursued.

     Prudence dictates this as a wise and necessary measure. The far-seeing statesman can discern in the missionary enterprise our sure defense against many dangers which otherwise cannot be averted. It is quite within the range of possibilities that Christian nations will at last come to see the necessity of adopting the missionary plan, as their only method of preserving their own peoples from corruption and their civilization from overthrow.

     It is not probable that Tartar hordes and Chinese invaders will ever overrun Europe again as they once did, leaving demoralization everywhere that their conquests extended; but the same danger threatens us in another way.

     The nations now, owing to the facilities of travel, are brought close together, and these bonds of intercourse will not become relaxed; the peoples of the earth shall become closer neighbors and never shall they drift asunder again.

     But if you are compelled to live next door to a family that is drunken and profane and vile, if you must remain, your family will be ruined. They. will become like their .surroundings. You must change the character of that community or the community will change your character.

     Our civilization dwells in the " five points" of the earth, and Christian civilization must change barbarism, or barbarism will revolutionize our civilization. We can only avert the danger that menaces us by converting these nations in their own countries. The heathen are our neighbors. China is next door. We can not move out of their neighborhood. It is vain for any man or party to say the Chinese must go. That will not save us so long as our people roam over the earth. But the Chinese will come and our people go.

     In either event the danger is the same. Chinese quarters and dens will pollute the American and ruin him, whether in San Francisco or Hong Kong.

     A comprehensive view will discover the imperative need there is of carrying the war against sin "into Africa" in order to save ourselves.

     All the world dwell together. And Christ's saying of neigh-

borship applies more and more forcefully in the changing condition of things.

     You will be met very often with the question, Why send missionaries to the heathen while there are so many unconverted people at home?

     You send relief to famishing Ireland, and you do well; but why do this, it might be just as reasonably demanded, until all the hungry are fed at home?

     You would answer, men and women and children are dying of want yonder, arid there is no bread in all the land, while in this land of ours we have plenty of food.

     So we reply, there is enough for all, and for each, of the bread of life in this land of ours; but beyond those seas there is no bread of life at all among those millions other than that sent by missionary hands. Until this supply arrives nations are dying by the tortures of spiritual famine.

     Chicago is desolated by fire, and thousands shiver with cold and hunger on the bleak prairies. You are not to send any food until you ascertain that no one has gone without supper to bed.

     Yellow fever is slaying thousands, and appeals come for physicians and nurses and medicines; none are to go, and no relief is to be given, until every sick man in the community gets well. Out upon such reasoning as this!

     But in this matter the plague of sin ravages worse than the fires of a conflagration, worse than the abundant harvest of death reaped by yellow fever, whole nations of men are perishing, and we must take to them the balm of Gilead; must bring them into contact with the physician of souls, whose touch expels the leprosy of sin.

     Send your money where it is most needed. If you cannot relieve all, help those who suffer most.

      If you cannot feed all, feed the one by whose side death stands the nearest. Adopt the Wesleyan philosophy: "Not only to those who need you, but go to those who need you most."

     And consider also the profound and comprehensive idea, that Christian enterprise is more and more adopting and verifying, " The world is my parish."

     Behold the harmony between these sayings and the spirit in

breathed into the text, "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," and then discern how, in accordance with these expressions coming from the Savior and from the founder of our church also, the Methodist Episcopal Church ought pre-eminently to be a missionary church.

     Again, as a wise and economical measure, it is cheaper to convert the heathen than conquer them in battle. Had one dollar in ten that have been expended in our Indian wars, been placed at the disposal of the missionary boards of this country, there would be no more need of military posts to guard against the Indians than of military posts to guard against the Quakers.

     You would hear no more of the need of sending troops against Sitting Bull than of sending troops against Henry Ward Beecher. Twenty years on the frontier have given me opportunities for knowing the truth of what I affirm. Apply the same principle to the relations of all nations, and see how much money, now wickedly spent for blood, would be saved for bread wherewith to feed the hungry. War's wicked waste will cease when wisdom wrests the sceptre of misrule and crime from the hand of evil.

     I have not made account of the lives taken and substance destroyed in the frightful ruin of warfare, for these factors are ever in the mind when this subject is brought forward.

     Fifth. This gospel ought to be preached because the obligations of good-will toward men require it to be done.

     You are to take this gospel to Pagan peoples, that they may be made happier than they have ever been.

     You will need to meet this question in your missionary work everywhere: " Will the heathen be saved?" You will answer either "yes" or "no." If yes, then it will be demanded of you, "Why send them the gospel if they will be saved?"

     The conclusion by implication is, that if the heathen are saved, then we need not send them the gospel. In nothing else do we make the discharge of a personal duty to depend upon the question of another man's being, saved or lost. We do not apprehend the cruelty of a question of this kind. Is one suffering want or perishing of famine, or in need of medical attend-

ance, you never ask this question. No more should you ask it here.

     The mistake here is in looking upon Paganism in the light of health, and strength and plenty, in the light of strong men and women. This is a grievous mistake, which should never be made. You are to consider heathenism, not as it is described by the infidel writers, who admire it from a safe distance, and draw upon the imagination, when painting with glowing rhetorical rhapsodies with the rainbow colors of a false sentimentalism, the state of Pagan society; but you are, as men of wisdom, to deal with the stern facts of actual life in heathen countries.

     You are to consider woman as enslaved and degraded beyond all description who lifts her chain--burdened hands to you, people of America, that you may remove those fetters from the wrists. Although they may make no sign--nay, though they may be in love with their bonds, you who have the better way are called upon to share With them the blessings of your more favored lot.

     Helpless childhood too, in heathen lands, seeks in you a champion. There is a law for the prevention of cruelty to children upon the statute books, but what do we know here in this land of ours, bad as it is, of the enormities practiced upon children over there in China and India and all heathendom, that have made the air heavy with woe through all those weary ages.

       Among heathen peoples famine reaps the countless spoils of death. Millions in China and Persia perish of starvation. Year after year our hearts ache with the story of their suffering and woe. It will not do to say they are remote from us and therefore hold no claims upon us. Humanity's ties bind us all together. Humanity's brotherhood unites us all in one family, and humanity's claims girdle the entire earth. Upon this fact is based the direction of this text. It is a distinct recognition of the brotherhood of men.

      Sixth--This text embodies the only sound political economy. What is the best way of helping men? Is it to dole out to them corn and meat? Is it to erect for them an asylum where they shall live at the public expense?

     The best way of helping men is to fit them to help themselves.

     Make them capable to help others. This is only surely done by making them christian. The world, along the line of centuries, has been trying experiments to make men good and happy, and those experiments have everywhere failed. I have not the slightest fear of contradiction when I affirm that these experiments have proved disastrous failures in the end in every instance. In christianity alone is unvarying and complete success only to be found. We should go to this task with the profound conviction that we teach the only cure for the world's ills, the only relief for the world's burdens, the only escape from the world's perils.

     In all conscience and wisdom experiments ought no more to waste the world's energies, and squander the world's opportunities, nor consume any more of the world's precious time. It is wickedness and folly to kindle false hopes, that only leave the world wrapped in deeper gloom when they expire. All other plans for the world's relief are cumbersome and circuitous, this is plain and direct. It proposes to restore happiness to man by reconstructing the entire nature and giving no place to evil, in the new creature in Christ Jesus.

     But you wish to know whether that which you give reaches the ones for whose benefit you intended it. If you are to send food to Ireland you wish to know that it goes to those who are in need, and that it is not wasted on the way. So you wish to know, and it is your duty to find out; and it is the highest pleasure of the missionary board to furnish you the information, just how every dollar of the money is spent. The details in statistics and accounts, the facts and figures, show that ninety-seven cents of every dollar given goes directly to the accomplishment of the main purpose, that is, to carry the gospel to heathen lands. But we know how convenient round numbers are, so in order that you may have the satisfaction of knowing that you have given a whole dollar, and that the heathen have received the benefit of these round numbers, whenever you give a dollar add three cents to it to pay the expense of sending it to those countries so far away.

     Seventh--Does this investment yield any returns? In other words, does it pay? How glad and grateful are our hearts in being permitted to reply: "lit pays most richly." Dollar for

dollar it pays more in visible results in heathen lands than any where else. Much more. You will have more tracts distributed, more visits made, more prayers offered, more sermons preached, and more souls saved in heathen lands than in christian countries.

      In answer to the question, Does it pay to take the gospel to the heathen lands? a varied and most conclusive answer must be given in the affirmative. Ask Europe if missionary, labor pays, and a truthful answer would be given in part only, when in re. ply she would point to those monumental proofs, her forests subdued, her swamps and marshes reclaimed, her fields clothed with the purple vintage and the golden harvests, her trees laden with figs and olives; she would point to her mighty cities, her schools and colleges and churches, her stately navies, telegraphs, railroads, and printing presses; and ten thousand other adjuncts and influences so helpful to men, begotten of the potent forces abiding in the gospel of the Son of God, and brought to bear on that spot of earth by Paul and his associates and successors in christian missionary work.

      In proof of this you need but divide European history into two parts. The first to comprise all that is known thereof before Paul took ship at Troas. The second, all that has occurred since that time, and to trace the intimate relation between christianity and its subsequent greatness, in order to see how the latter is the direct offspring of the former.

      You are not confined to any quarter of the globe while searching for testimonies concerning the efficacy of christian missionary work, for when you strike the stream of christian civilization at any point along its shores you have but to trace its upward current to the fountain-head when you shall discover that it proceeds from this spot on which Jesus stood when this command was issued, and arose from the activities put forth in obedience to its injunction. Hence when we are glad in contemplating our greatness as a people, and our achievements on all the lines of progress as a race, we carry our grateful remembrance reverently back in thanksgiving to the author of those marvelous blessings, our Lord Jesus Christ.

      Should you wish additional testimony to confirm your faith,

increase your hope, to inspire your hands to industry and to fill your heart full of the gladness and joy of a wonderful. triumph that is to be, wherein the earth shall be filled with sunshine, and heaven shall teem with inhabitants, hear the words of one before whose vision the mists of the oncoming ages were rolled away and the glory of Messiah's kingdom was revealed. John the divine says, when he describes the marvelous results flowing from this gospel preached in all the world to every creature: "I beheld and lo a great multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands. These are they which came out of great tribulation and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple."

Average Claims, Receipts, and percentage paid to the Pastors in the several districts and in the Conference, not including the Presiding Elders.

	Average	Average	Per cent
	claim	Receipts	paid
Omaha District	$634 58	543 79	86
North Nebraska District	400 33	335 40	84
Lincoln District	605 93	520 57	59
Nebraska City District	653 93	623 13	95
Beatrice District	544 14	456 00	83
Kearney District	475 89,	361 88	78
Nebraska Conference	562 05	462 93	80

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© 2003 for the NEGenWeb Project by Pam Rietsch, Ted & Carole Miller.