1830.
Letter from B. J. Bettelheim.
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The Church, unlike the Jewish polity, is not confined to one or two lands or nations; she is to be a great multitude, which no man can number of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues. Oh, tell me, will you shorten their shout of holy triumph? Shall Lewchew have no voice mingling in their hosannas? Ought any nation to fail to swell this universal choir, worthy the enthroned Redeemer of a world? Oh, tell the American Churches, I feel for the coppered Indian, I mourn for the African negro, I sympathize with the Mohammedan fellah, I rejoice over the awakened Nestorian and Ar- menian, but there must be a corner left in the American heart for Lew- chew, the more so as she is the threshold to our brightening hopes in Japan. Let the people of God there be sure that in proportion as the disciples of Christ go to all nations and disciple-or, venturing on his plain command, at least try to disciple—them, in the same ratio the number of their home churches, and the number of hearts in those churches will grow. On the field subject to the exclusive control of Revelation, no operation or plan must be chalked out according to reason alone. However poorly capable a human mind may be to take in the universal missionary church, the infinite mind of our Captain has spoken out plain on the matter, “go ye unto all nations.”.
nations."-Many of the prayers and exertions at home would bring down richer blessings both to far and to near, if they were directed to some outpost church.
In fact, the concentration of Christian effort to any given locality savors much of the old Babel project, the ethics of which were, “lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." Now, just this was the will of God: “replenish the earth, and subdue it.” And does He, who desired the posterity of the first Adam to be scattered over all the world, even while the plain of Shinar was quite spacious enough for them, not equally desire the offspring of the second Adam to spread over the whole globe? Shall we remain in our home pastures, beneath the shadow of our steepled church towers, and drink the sweet waters of Siloam, while others are famishing from thirst? It is a conso- lation that he who knew how to scatter Babel, knows also how to scatter his church. Israel in the flesh was scattered abroad, but at the same time in mercy, for they
for they "were sown among the people," as a seed that shall serve him; and it stands to reason that the spiritual Israel of God must take the same tour round the globe, that as sin entered into the world and passed upon all men by the traveling up and down of fallen man; even so, through the instrumentality of the light sown unto the righteous, by the righteous, the works of darkness shall be destroyed, and the desert changed into the garden of God.
VOL XIX. NO. 1.
(To be continued.)
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