The Theory and Practice of Missions

The following is an extract from "Life of Alfred Cookman" as published in The Evangelisation of the World:  A Missionary Band:  A Record of Consecration and an Appeal:

"Again, it might be asked, 'Are there not many of our own community who are familiar with temporal and spiritual wretchedness, who are acquainted with the necessities of the heathen world, who hear of this subject not only from year to year, but more frequently, and yet they have none of those exercises or experiences of missionary zeal?'

"That is true--that is undeniable; and so we are constrained to the conclusion that something more is indispensable than this simple consideration. What is that something? I answer that it is a union and a living sympathy with the blessed Lord Jesus Christ [italics added].

"And now, sir, at the close of these anniversary exercises, this thought brings me where I joy to come, and where I should like to lead this little company--that is, to Calvary. I throw the arms of my affection around the consecrated cross of Jesus; I drink in, in constantly increasing measure, His tender, sympathising, self-sacrificing spirit.

"Now from this standpoint of the Cross-- from the measure of that feeling which influences the heart and life of the Divine Redeemer--I look out again upon the world; but now with what different feelings! Now I hear with Christ's ears, I feel with Christ's heart, I see with His eyes; now I am ready to labour with Christ's energies; now I am disposed to give or go, or do or dare, or sacrifice or die--anything and everything--if I may but help in lifting our sin-cursed world up to God.

"This experience of which I am speaking is a vitalising principle; it is a Divine force. It is Jesus reigning, not (as my brother would say) simply in the skies; there is something better than that.

"We can have heaven on the way to heaven. It is Jesus reigning in personal consciousness in the individual heart; it is Christ living, breathing, dwelling, and triumphing in personal life."

"Shall the harvest spoil for want of harvestmen?" -- Daniel Wilson