III.—­A RADICAL CONSECRATION.

Another principle required in this work and exemplified by it, is a thorough-going consecration.  The men and women who have taken up this work, have followed Christ in his self-abnegation.  There is no worldly honor in it.  It is not an easy life.  You know well enough how these devoted missionaries have braved social ostracism, and shut themselves in to their lowly ministry.  With the Christly “sympathy of identification,” they have made themselves one with their despised brethren, bearing their burdens, sharing their privations, stooping to meet their needs.  What almost infinite patience it has sometimes required, what forbearance and charity, we cannot know, but they have served willingly and cheerfully, and found the sacrifice to be a joy.  And there are many of them, in school and church and home, in our Southern land and in the Western wilds, who are serving there in a spirit of self-abnegation and patient sacrifice, and whom God will honor.  These faithful workers are not martyrs; but there is something heroic in their lives.  It is the heroism of those who lay upon themselves the lowliest duties, and perform them in the spirit of the loftiest devotion.  The work that calls forth such consecration as this, so disinterested and sincere, bears its own letter of commendation.  The spirit of Him, who “came to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many,” is exemplified by it.

 IV.—­A RADICAL METHOD.

There is one thing more that I would mention.  It is the radical {161} method which this Association has adopted in doing its work.  It has never been satisfied with surface culture.  It strikes down to the roots of character.  Not “quantity,” but “quality,” is manifestly its motto.  As an illustration of intelligent thoroughness in Christian service, therefore, this Association commends itself to our regard.

A decided advance was marked in missionary work when the church came to see that not only the conversion of the heathen, but their establishment in Christian character, was a legitimate object of missionary endeavor.  Francis Xavier in ten years visited fifty kingdoms and baptized a million converts, but the ten years’ labor of some of our modern missionaries, spent in laying solid foundations and thoroughly training a few chosen men, may, after all, come to more in its permanent results upon the world, than all that was done by Rome’s great apostle.  Jesus gave the best part of his three years of public ministry to the training of twelve men.  He might have baptised a million.  He preferred to do thorough work with a few.  This Association has acted upon this principle.  It has sought to develop manhood and womanhood after the pattern and by the power that is in Jesus Christ.  It calls to its aid every possible force.  It educates the mind, the heart, the conscience, the hand.  It uses the church, the school, the workshop and the Christian home.  Character-building is its vocation,