this Conference that the different Commissions get into altercation among themselves as to which Commission is the most important. It is a fact that there is not a Commission which has reported in this Conference or is reporting to-day that does not believe that its Commission is the most important Commission of the whole eight. Why is it? It is because each Commission knows more about the subject it has investigated than about the other subjects. If you make the Church know, its members will consecrate themselves and give. The curriculum in our universities and colleges must be changed that the young men, and young women also, who study in them may have an opportunity of studying the power of Christian civilisation as it comes in contact with the civilisation of the East. That is not a study of denominationalisation, it is not a study of Christianity; it is a study of the most profound and difficult problem that is moving over the face of the earth. Courses in missions are being introduced into many of the universities and colleges. They must come into them all. The introduction of a larger missionary course in our theological colleges is imperative. I hope some one will speak plainly upon that point. We complain, and many of our correspondents complain, that the clergy are not interested. It is because we have not taught them the themes of the Kingdom, because the parish surrounds their responsibility, and their vision is bounded by the boundary of the parish. We must teach them to go out with a vision as broad as the love of God, a vision that shall comprehend the whole world. There are many other things that might be said, and that will be said on this subject, but I wish to add just this in closing, we have come to this conclusion in our investigations that the Church of Christ here at home is dependent for its continuance upon the part it has in missionary work. We can never understand our own Holy Scriptures until they are interpreted to us through the language of every nation under heaven. We can never know our Lord Jesus Christ in fulness and in the length and breadth of His love until He is revealed to the world in the redeemed life and character of men out of every race for which He died. This is the last Commission reporting, and this is the conclusion of the whole matter. It makes little difference as to the opportunities that are opening to us, and it makes little difference as to how our hearts have warmed to one another while being here together, but it does make a profound difference as to the spirit which we carry back to our homes. If we go back with the spirit that led the apostles down from the mount of privilege where they met their Lord and saw Him carried away from them upon the clouds of heaven, if we go down with the spirit with which they went down, ready to follow in His steps through Gethsemane even to Calvary, and if we go down like them ready to die, if need be, in order that the Church may live, then our Conference need not be in vain. The whole success of this Conference depends upon our consecration for service, and upon our resolve not to cease in our service but to struggle until the whole Church of Christ has risen to the momentous character of its privilege, and its duty, and has taken up this work with vision and power. HOW TO PRESENT THE WORLD-WIDE PROBLEM THAT CONFRONTS CHRISTIANITY TO THE IMAGINATION OF THE CHURCH SO THAT IT SHALL BECOME AN IMPELLING AND DOMINATING MOTIVE IN ALL ITS LIFE The Rev. Canon L. NORMAN TUCKER (Toronto, Canada): I have seen in the Dominion of Canada, from one end of it to the other, especially in connection with the Laymen's Missionary Movement, assemblies, in some cases composed entirely of men, thrilled and moved to their deepest depths by the missionary cause. When all the great appeals are brought into one from the different mission fields they constitute what you, Mr. Chairman, have so well called a synchronisation of opportunities and crises, and this has appealed to the imagination of men irresistibly, and placed a burden on the soul and conscience of men which they are unable to cast off. Now side by side with that aspect of the question is its counterpart, the Church of the living God arising among all the nations of the earth and arising as a great missionary society. This idea, the Church itself a missionary society,— not Missionary Societies within the Church,-I take for granted. Now see how that idea will pervade all the life and operations of the Church. The Church a missionary society, all members of the Church called to be missionaries and to help in missionary work, and if all members, then first and foremost the clergy. It becomes their duty to preach missionary sermons, give missionary information to their people, not as something extra and optional, but as part and parcel of their daily administration. The time is past when clergymen may write to the secretaries of their Societies and say, Send me your deputation to make an appeal for your Society to my people, and I will give you the collection," as though the people and the money belonged to the clergymen and the need and the appeal belonged to the Society. Then, as the clergyman is and must ever be the centre of the position, and congregations will never rise much above the spiritual level of their pastor, we recognise the need of missionary information and training in our theological colleges, of professors of missions, or at any rate missionary lecturers, so that the rising generation of the clergy may go forth filled with that idea to fill their congregation with missionary information and missionary enthusiasm. If the clergy lead, then the laymen will follow. Men will learn to pray and deny themselves, and so giving will become part of their very lives. So a new life will come into the Church, and the Church will arise confronting this great opportunity as the army of God, living, united, militant, under the great Captain of our Salvation, to enter that open door, and advance to the spiritual conquest of the world. The Rev. C. R. WATSON, D.D. (Philadelphia, Secretary of the Foreign Mission Board of the United Presbyterian Church): I suppose our answer to the question how to present the world-wide problem that confronts Christianity to the Church so as to appeal to its imagination will be the answer to the question how do we feel the world-wide problem, and one cannot go very far in considering this question without discovering that there are in the missionary camp two divergent schools. There are those who are anchored in history, who are temperamentally and because of circumstance inclined to view all things from the historic point of view, as so many spiritual forces, as great ideas unfolding themselves in the world. These think naturally of the problem in terms of forces and problems that have to be overcome, and of meeting those problems by also having contrary forces and contrary movements and contrary ideas and influences, and this school will perhaps pride itself on its thoroughness and its genuineness, and the depth of its insight. But there is another school, and that is the school that looks at things somewhat in terms of numbers. It speaks of the great areas, the thousands of millions, and because it measures the problem in terms of numbers, it is also inclined to give the answer to the question somewhat in terms of numbers, and this school perhaps prides itself on its aggressiveness. I have come into touch with both schools. Naturally the extreme on either hand is unfortunate, but what I wish to do this morning is to try and emphasise the necessity of reconciling these two divergent schools of thought. Perhaps it is on the Continent that the first school of thought has been developed the most. Perhaps it is in connection with the Laymen's Missionary Movement in America that the last school of thought has had its greatest emphasis, but it seems to me to-day that we need to bring the two together. Alone we cannot answer the question, alone we cannot meet the need. Now because the dynamic way of viewing the missionary problem is the oldest way and is established, I wish to say a thing or two about this other way that has received increasing emphasis in later years, that it may be justified, not in the things that cannot be justified in it, but in that content which is at the heart, and which perhaps may avail in the present situation. First of all let us recognise that it is not an unspiritual movement, that it fully recognises that God is all in all, and that these agencies and these men and millions are of no avail whatever unless the power of God move mightily through them. And let us recognise in the second place that this is not a promulgation of what you have occasionally hearda theory of one missionary to every twenty-five thousand people. It is true that in one field that statement has received the approval of some missionary bodies, as an average general statement, but there is no one who imagines for a moment that it is applicable everywhere. It is only a general statement. It is absolutely untrue of many fields. It may be only true of one single place at one single time. And let us recognise in the third place that this is not a view of a definite missionary policy that should be pursued; it is rather simply a method of making more definite and clear to the Church the vastness of the problem, of bringing it into terms that will be comprehended by some men who cannot comprehend other terms, who will understand this way of putting it, and will thus be able to link their lives to this problem. The man on the street wants to know in a definite way something of the measure of this work. Lastly, may I say this, that that which leads us to regard with sympathy this method of stating the problem is the fact that we come to you, as the former speaker has said, out of the experience in America where we have seen men's faces lit with the glory of God as somehow, by means of this method of the presentation of the problem, their imaginations have caught the vision, and they have said, "This is a new phase of the Christian life, and to this phase of the Christian life I must address myself, and I will give myself, my life, and my money." t The Rev. CYRIL BARDSLEY (Church Missionary Society): I speak as a parochial clergyman this morning. I am not here as the secretary of the Church Missionary Society. How can we impress the imagination of the Church as a whole? The rank and file of the Christian Church will never grasp the truth that the evangelisation of the world is the primary task, or, as the Archbishop told us, the central duty of the Church, until a more definite lead in a more definite manner is given by those in a position of leadership in the Church. How can they give that lead? First, they must be possessed of the truth themselves; they must be obviously full of it. They must be absolutely enthusiastic and in deadly earnest themselves. Secondly, they must afford opportunities to their people for intercession and praise for foreign missions. How much regular intercession and praise for foreign missions is there in the regular worship of our Churches? Thirdly, it surely should, if it is the greatest task, dominate the assemblies and gatherings of the leaders of the Church whenever they come together to consider the things of the Kingdom of God. There are other matters of importance, but not so important. First things first, when we are gathered together. Again, there should be positive discouragement of extravagance or united luxury in our congregations. Just as much as it is wrong for a consecrated man to be extravagant, so it is equally wrong and inconsistent for a consecrated Church to be extravagant. Because a congregation has a certain amount of money that is no justification for that congregation spending that money to meet its own needs and to satisfy its own desires. Then there must be a readiness for co-operation within the Churches. Surely it is wrong that there should be such a competition for congregations as is going on in many of our great cities and towns to-day. Can we say that it is right in view of the world's needs? But if there is co-operation within the Churches, if congregations are to combine, organisations to gather together, in order that there may be an economy in men and money, to send more to the front, it will mean a most practical self-denial. Has not the time come for a call for corporate sacrifice? What does this mean? It means the members of the congregations meeting together and saying: What does the present position demand of us unitedly as a congregation? I have been asked just to say a word about a certain act of corporate sacrifice. The members of a Bible class which had been administered for many years by a clergyman towards whose stipend they gave £35 got some vision of the world's need. They met, they prayed and they thought it out and they counted the cost. They did not do it in a hurry. They passed a resolution that they would do without a chaplain, and that he should be at the front. Secondly, instead of giving £35 a year towards his stipend they made themselves responsible for £80, and resolved that they would do more work themselves so that the work should not suffer. What has happened is that they have procured a missionary at the front and that they have not their own chaplain now. Instead of giving £35 towards his stipend they are giving over £135. The work has not suffered, it has actually gone forward, and God has blessed those men in their act of corporate sacrifice. They have sent a man to the front instead of having a man to themselves. This is the divine law-life unto death. So long as the Churches at home are self-absorbed and occupied with their own interests, they cannot save the world. It is the Church that saveth its life that shall lose it, but it is the Church in a very real sense that loseth its life that shall save it. Miss E. HARRIET STANWOOD (Secretary of Congregational Women's Board of Missions, Boston): In connection with the Missionary Conference held in New York in 1900 there were several important meetings of women carefully planned beforehand with subjects for consideration. One practical outcome was the appointment of a central committee. This committee at once set itself planning for a course of study of foreign missions and the preparation of text-books. In 1901 the first text-book was issued, a preliminary one, under the auspices of this committee, and every year since then a text-book has been issued. The subjects taken up have been the work of foreign missions in various lands. The |