E.
Chivers, D.D.
VIII
THE HOME MISSION OPPORTUNITY
The question of supreme interest to us is the religious question. What
share shall the Church have in making Christian Americans of these
immigrants? How may Church and State work together for the solution of
the problem, on the solution of which very largely the future prosperity
of the State and the Church depends.--_Charles L. Thompson, D.D._
The future success of missions will be largely affected by the success
of the Church in dealing with problems that lie at her very door. The
connection between home and foreign missionary work is living. The
conversion of the world is bound up with the national character of
professedly Christian lands. --_Rev. Herbert Anderson, English
Missionary in India._
"The blood of the people! changeless tide through century, creed, and
race, Still one, as the sweet salt sea is one, though tempered by sun
and place, The same in ocean currents and the same in sheltered seas:
Forever the fountain of common hopes and kindly sympathies.
Indian and Negro, Saxon and Celt, Teuton and Latin and Gaul,
Mere surface shadow and sunshine, while the sounding unifies all!
One love, one hope, one duty theirs! no matter the time or kin,
There never was a separate heart-beat in all the races of men."
VIII
THE HOME MISSION OPPORTUNITY
_I. Alien Accessibility_
[Sidenote: A Unique Mission Field]
"Save America and you save the world." Through immigration the United
States is in a unique sense the most foreign country and the greatest
mission field on the globe. "All peoples that on earth do dwell" have
here their representatives, gathered by a divine ordering within easy
reach of the gospel. Through them the world may be reached in turn.
Every foreigner converted in America becomes directly or indirectly a
missionary agent abroad, spreading knowledge of the truth among his
kindred and tribe.[89] The greatness of the opportunity is the measure
of obligation. God's message to this nation has been thus interpreted:
"Here are all these people; I have taken them from the overcrowded
countries where they were living and sent them to you, that you may mass
your forces and lend a hand to save them." No such opportunity ever came
to a nation before. The Christian church must seize it or sink into
deserved decadence and decay. Only a missionary church can save the
world or justify its own existence. The manne
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