abstractions. Its spiritual topography embraces the height of
good, the depth of love, the breadth of sympathy, and the width of
catholicity. It was meant for the race and for the far-reaching
reciprocities and inexpressible necessities of the race. It is attuned
to the cry of the common heart. Its interpretations have the sanctions
of an authoritative human experience which has never failed in its
witness. Sometimes I have challenged these honored servants of the
evangel who have come back to us from quarters where they were busy
on the errands of the cross. Almost pathetically, with the painful
interest of one inquiring for a long absent friend of whom no news has
been received, I have solicited the missionaries. They came from the
south of our own dear land, where they administered to the negro; from
the arctic zone, from the farther East. Their wider vision, their more
imperial instinct, were plain to me, and my usual question was, "What
do you teach the impulsive colored man and the stolid Eskimo and the
pensive Hindu and the inscrutable Asiatic?" And they replied, "We
teach them, that God is a personal spirit and Father, whose character
is holiness and whose heart is love; that Jesus Christ is the designed
and supreme Son of God, who lived in sinlessness and died in perfect
willing sacrifice for the eternal life of all men, that by the will of
God and in the power of His spirit men may have everlasting life and,
better still, everlasting goodness, if they will accept and trust in
Jesus Christ for all."

And this gospel obtains the day of overcoming for which we plead and
pray. For tho an angel from heaven had any other, men do not respond;
the charisma rests on no other message. Possest of it, and possessing
it, under the covenant of heaven and led by the Shepherd and Bishop of
souls, we shall go forth determined to give it place in us and in our
presentations as never before. May nothing mar the solemn splendor