THE

MISSIONARY OBSERVER.

DECEMBER, 1880.

Departure of Mr. Miller and Family.

MR. and Mrs. Miller and their two daughters left London for India on Tuesday, November 2nd, in the British India steamer Dorunda. A large number of friends went on board to see them off, and bid them God-speed; among them there being Mr. Stubbs, Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher, Mr. and Mrs. Freeman, Mr. Attlesly, Mrs. Hind, Mrs. Robson, Mrs. John Orissa Goadby, Mrs. Hough, etc. The noble vessel left the Victoria docks and commenced the journey down the Thames about one o'clock. By special permission, the Secretary, and Mr. Mills, of Birmingham, (Mrs. Miller's brother), went as far as Gravesend; and after the noise and bustle of getting away, the comparatively quiet run down the river was very pleasant. As we passed one of the training ships moored in- the Thames the boys crowded the deck-the band struck up Auld Lang Syne-and then they gave three hearty cheers to the departing vessel. After an hour or two of agreeable intercourse, and after commending our friends to God in prayer, our turn to say good-bye arrived, and so we left them to pursue their journey to the land of their adoption. In the following note, sent on shore by the pilot, Mr. Miller gives some information about the passengers, etc. He writes:

S. S. Dorunda, near Isle of Wight, Nov. 3rd, 1880, 11 a.m. My Dear Brother Hill,-The pilot is soon to leave. I must write a line to say that we have commenced our long journey under favourable circumstances. We have a strong fair wind, and, with steam and sail, are going rapidly down the Channel. It was hard to say "goodbye" to the many kind friends who saw us off yesterday in London. I felt most, however, when you and Mr. Mills left us at Gravesend. This, the last link being broken, occasioned a pang of sorrow which no language can describe. It is, however, consoling to know that we are

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still joined in spirit, and can continually meet around the common mercy seat. I rejoice to know that we have an interest in the prayers of so many dear Christian friends in England as well as India, and trust that, in answer to their petitions, we may have a speedy and useful journey. There are some eighty firstclass passengers-three Church missionaries and three Wesleyans - all seem very friendly, and willing to unite in family worship, &c. The missing box has not yet turned up. I shall regret if it be lost. It is time to post, so I must abruptly close.

P.S.-We are glad to see that the S. S. Dorunda arrived at Malta November 12th. Letters received from Malta. All well. The vessel left Suez November 18th.

The World's Cry and the Divine Response."

BY REV. E. W. CANTRELL.

IN taking leave of our friend, Mr. Miller, and bidding him God speed, we do so with the fullest confidence. He has been tried. When young men are sent fresh to the work, there must necessarily be a measure of uncertainty, and consequently a measure of anxiety; for, however high our hopes may be, there is the fact that they have not been put to the test of experience, and hence there is room for some fear that when they are put to that test, they may show signs of unfitness for their work. But when a missionary has been engaged in the work thirty-five years, and during that time has held his position honourably, and done his work faithfully and efficiently, there is little room for fear, and everything to produce confidence. We know our brother's fitness for his work. We know that he posseses the necessary endowments, both intellectual and moral. Whatever views may have been held in the past respecting intellectual fitness for missionary work, we certainly hold now that the best intellectual endowments the church posseses are needed in the foreign missionary field. But there is a fitness more important even than that of the intellect-if we may distinguish between the importance of two things, each of which is essential-i.e., moral fitness. While it is necessary that a missionary should possess the intellectual endowments which will fit him to expound the gospel of Jesus Christ-show men that His message is trustworthy, and press it home upon their consciences and hearts,-it is equally necessary that he should translate the gospel into a noble Christian character, and a blameless, self-sacrificing, heroic Christian life. With the masses of men character and deeds have more weight than theories and arguments; and it is only as the Christian worker, whether in the foreign field or at home, shows that the religion he advocates has raised the type of his own manhood, has purified and ennobled his own life, that he will persuade others to accept it. We have many evidences of the truth of Christianity, but there is no evidence so easy to grasp, so potent and influential, as the effects it produces in human character and life and the Christian worker must present in himself a living embodiment of those effects, that he may fitly represent the Christ he proclaims.

Christ's own best credentials are found in the spotlessness of His character, in the stainlessness and self-sacrificing work of His human life. In these days a large measure of prominence is given to the human side of our Lord's being, and to the superlative excellence of His human character and life. Perhaps some think that too much prominence is given to them, and fear that a large section of the church, if it is not drifting into a positive denial of our Lord's divinity, is nevertheless relaxing its grip of that great truth. Such a fear, I venture to think, is groundless. The current of thought and teaching at the present time is perhaps a reaction from the almost exclusive attention which has been given to other truths. The leaders of the church are making prominent the fact that Christ is intensely human, as well as divine; that while He is a priest, He is also a King, a Leader,

* Address delivered at Loughborough, at the Valedictory Services of the Rev. W. Miller.

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and Commander. If this is being done to an erroneous extent, it will right itself. The current of human thought and teaching has always been marked by ebb and flow. Our tendency is to rush to extremes. We give great, if not exclusive, prominence to one class of truths; then we find that we have been neglecting another class of truths equally important, and we atone for the neglect by rushing off to another extreme, and perhaps deal almost exclusively with those truths we have formerly neglected. It may be so at the present time; but if the current of thought is running too much in one direction, yet the tide is sure to turn, and the thing will right itself.

Yea, it must do so. The study of the human life of Jesus Christ will never lead men to deny His divinity, or to lose sight of it. We have many proofs that Christ was divine; but the clearest proof is not found in dogmatic assertion, nor in the claims which Christ made to oneness with the Father, and to the homage of men-claims which, if He was not divine, were blasphemies. It is found in the unique spotlessness and nobleness of His human character and life. In no way can they be accounted for, except by the fact that He was divine. Nature is not capricious. The human character of Christ was not a freak of nature. It was not the result of a gradual development. It was not the necessary outgrowth of the ages that preceded. Christ was not the natural production of His own time. Evolution does not work by great leaps. Supposing the theory of physical evolution to be true, still the lowest types of life have not, by one stride, developed into the highest-they have done so by gradual and slow processes. A barbarous or semi-barbarous state does not, by one bound, rise to a high state of civilization. The work of evolution is gradual, and Christ cannot be accounted for in that way. There were no grades of purity and nobleness leading up, step by step, to His lofty standard. If the human Christ was the result of evolution, it must be admitted that when He appeared, evolution made a tremendous leap upwards, and that leap was followed by a corresponding fall. The human Christ is unique. He stands alone in solitary grandeur, no other produced by His own age, or by any age that preceded, or by any age that has followed, being worthy to unloose His shoe-buckle, or touch the hem of His garment. When we gaze upon His matchless goodness, all doubt as to His divinity is banished; we fall prostrate at His feet in lowly reverence, and with Thomas confess, "My Lord and my God."

And this is what the world needs. It needs not only to be told of a Saviour, but to have a Saviour presented, who bears evidence, in His own person and life, that He is endowed with the authority, with the spirit, with the very nature of God. It wants not simply to hear of God, but to see God, as He can be seen only in Jesus Christ. Philip's cry is the cry of humanity. When Philip besought Christ "Show us the Father," although he might be unconscious of it himself, yet he was giving utterance to a universal cry of desire and need. The cry of humanity is for a visible manifestation of the divine. The cry may be uttered very indistinctly. It may not be uttered in so many words. It may not be uttered in words at all. Like many of our most fervent prayers, it may be breathed in sighs, or expressed in actions; but it is the universal cry nevertheless. Men want that which will satisfy the

intellect, the conscience, and the heart, but they want it in a revelation which will reach them largely through the senses. As a rule men cannot grasp the abstract, unless they are helped to a conception of the abstract by means of the concrete. It is difficult, if not impossible, for many to grasp a merely intellectual conception of God. They want a revelation of God which will appeal to the eye and the ear. They want to see a manifestation of God. They want to hear the voice of God speaking to them. They want a manifestation of God which, through the medium of the senses, will reach and satisfy their intellects and hearts. That is man's need, and for that is man's universal cry.

Is it not? Indistinctly as the cry may be uttered-though it may be only like the babbling of an infant before it has learned to articulate syllables and words-yet the cry is uttered. If we listen, we hear it arising from the pagan world. It lies at the basis of every system of idolatry. Men have worshipped the sun, the moon, and the various heavenly bodies. They have worshipped rivers, and birds, and beasts, and reptiles. Most pagans have their fetiches. They have their temples, their shrines, and their idols, before which they prostrate themselves in adoration, and to which they attribute qualities that they suppose to be God-like. And what does all this mean? It means that men feel the need of a visible and tangible manifestation of the Unseen. At Athens, Paul found an altar raised to the "Unknown God." Many have gone a step further than the Athenians, and have not only raised altars to the unknown God, but have made images which are designed to represent the unknown God, and through the medium of that which appeals to the senses, direct their thoughts to Him. The system of idol-worship has had its origin in a felt need, the need for a visible manifestation of the divine; and every idol-worshipper, each time he prostrates himself before his graven image, repeats Philip's cry, "Show us the Father."

And it is this also that lies at the basis of the material and the sensuous in the Papacy. One great secret of the power of the Papal Church lies in its offering to men what is definite and tangible. It rules by a living power. It appeals to the senses of its adherents. It offers them something definite to trust and follow. The members of the Papal Church have their altars, their crucifixes, and their images. They do not adhere to abstract definitions and dogmas, but to a living person, whose decision on all questions is implicitly accepted, who is supposed to have power to forgive sins, who is looked upon as the living embodiment of divine authority. One of the main sources of the great power of the Papacy lies in this personal authority. And what is it that has given rise to altars and crucifixes and images? What is it that has given rise to the Pope, and to his being invested with the attributes and authority of God? It is the same felt need that has given rise to the idolatry of the pagan world. The distinguishing features of the Papacy are the utterance of a felt need for a visible manifestation of God, for some one whom we can see and hear, and who shall speak to us with undeniable authority. The material and sensuous in Roman Catholicism are a reiteration of Philip's cry, "Show us the Father."

Jesus Christ told Philip where the response to this cry of need was