st instance his last commission to his followers to go and make
disciples of the nations is taken as the watch-word; and this has always
meant thorough, patient, all-inclusive effort for the redemption and
elevation of all the races of the earth.

The other class has taken as its watch-word our Lord's last utterance upon
earth--"Ye shall be My witnesses." "Witness-bearing" has become to them the
expression of the Church's great duty to the world.

There is a great difference between these two classes of aims and motives,
and they are associated with two classes of theological thinking.
According to the former theory the Kingdom of our Lord, under the
dispensation of the Holy Spirit, is to spread in regenerating power and
triumphant efficacy until all the nations of the earth shall come under
its sway. This is a great and arduous undertaking. The planting of this
Kingdom in heathen lands and the discipling of those people until the
Church of God shall have become a living and a self-propagating church in
all the regions of the earth is a work of ages, worthy of the combined
effort of heaven and earth. And this consummation will surely take place.
God has promised it; Christ's work involves it; the Holy Spirit came into
the world for its realization. They who entertain this belief are
Christian optimists. No reverses can daunt them; no opposition can
discourage them. They lay broad and deep the foundations of their work and
labour patiently but hopefully for the great and final consummation.

Those, on the other hand, who are pessimistic as to the triumph of the
Kingdom of Christ under the dispensation of the Spirit, maintain, with
exclusive emphasis, the Christian duty of witness-bearing. They claim, in
Dr. Pierson's words, that our mission to the heathen world should be one
of diffusion and not of concentration; that we should bear witness
concerning Christ to the people who know Him not and then pass on to
others, rather than remain to expand, to convert, to train and to
establish living churches. They maintain that our duty is preeminently to
bear witness to Christ, that we have no responsibility for the conversion
of the people and for the building up of strong churches.

This claim that it is the duty of the Church to herald the good news of
redemption to all men as speedily as possible apart from the expectation
that they will accept it: does not commend itself to me either upon
Scriptural grounds or upon grounds