FUTURE OF FOREIGN MISSIONS.

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 1889, 18 October 1913, Page 9

FUTURE OF FOREIGN MISSIONS.

"INCOMES SHOULD BE POOLED."' i

A bold scheme of missionary federa«, tion and expansion is suggested by the' Rev. Gilbert T. Sadler, M.A., LL.B., in a sermon preached at Wimbledon recently. Recognising , that a, crisis has come in the foreign missionary enterprise, lie asks what is the iiest step t'hat needs to bo taken. This, he re- 1 plies, is an ago of financial combination, and the first call is for the'great missionary societies to unite, federate, pool theif incomes, and become a worldwide Trust for God's work. Mr. Sadler's second suggestion is that ■ foreign ( missions must send out not a creed,! but a spirit, an illimitable lave—this? Ideal is Christmas the principle of human life. The enlightened _ world, he remarks, iB less and less, inclined to - support tho sending out of doubtful dogmas and Western Churoh politics, especially if there bo added no criticism of tho military and gtasping efforts of' Western _ nations. Tho -future ol foreign' missions, Mr. Sadler finally argues; lies in an,united effort to.express the spirit of ideal' lovo in the -strategio points of tho world's life—Pekin and Shanghai, Hankow smd Hong-Kong, Delhi and Calcutta, and so forth. Mr. Sadler recognises _ that perhaps'; tha Churches and societies are not ready for this bold and spiritual effort, and he thinks that that may bo the very cause of their weakness to-day.