full of
chariots of fire round about Elisha."

Spiritual power, in all its forms, is not only greatly needed by the
missionary, it is also highly appreciated by the people who are always
ready to be led by it. I believe that the people in the East are much more
amenable to this influence and much more ready to follow spiritual
guidance than are the people of our own land. And this, in itself, is an
added reason for deep spirituality in the missionary.

5. The Missionary's Attitude Towards the Non-Christian World.

This attitude is one of considerable importance to the missionary because
it furnishes largely the motive of his life work. Before one goes out as a
missionary he should acquire some definite and sound views as to the
condition of the non-Christians who constitute three-fourths of our race.
This means that he must decide as to his missionary motive,--what motive
power shall impel him to leave his native land and go to live among a
benighted people surrounded by a thousand disadvantages.

Since the organization of our missionary societies--less than a century
ago--there has been an important change of emphasis in the matter of
missionary motives. The progress, I might almost say revolution, in
theology has worked towards this change. The recent discovery of new
sciences, and the utilization of the wonderful modern means of
communication whereby a new knowledge of non-Christian peoples has been
made possible to us, has affected our consideration of the whole problem
of missionary work and has especially modified the missionary motive. Dr.
W. N. Clark, in his admirable book on Christian Missions, discusses fully
this question. "The difference," he says, "between our conception of man
today and that of a century ago is mainly not that something true has
fallen out of it, though that may be the fact with many minds: it is
rather that immeasurably much that is true has been added to it.
Unquestionably our conception of man is still incomplete, unbalanced and
incorrect, but it certainly has been altered within the century by the
addition of much that must remain in any true conception. Our knowledge
must have experienced true and legitimate growth and from our present
conception of the human world we can never go back to that which our
fathers held when they began the work of modern missions ... our thought
concerning our fellow-men contains elements of truth and justice that our
fathers knew nothing of. T