Apostle? Nor again is it my purpose in any sense to exhaust the characteristics of each type, but to fasten on certain outstanding features as convenient for our study and imitation. Taking these types, then, in the order I have named,

I. Consider, first, the Missionary as Apostle.

Whatever the missionary is not, he surely is an apostle. The very word is the same. Indeed, as we have just said, the apostle himself was all we are claiming that the missionary should be. He was prophet, he was shepherd, he was priest. But there was one feature peculiarly his own. which the prophet was not, which the pastor is not, and which the priest is not, but which the missionary is, and which is shared only by the missionary, viz., that of founder. The prophet saw visions of a far off age which filled his soul with ecstatic hope, and he was a declaimer of righteousness for his own age. But he did not found or organise, he did not plan and build, so as to secure continuity in the coming generations. He was the living stone laid hold of and placed in the living temple by the hand of the Great Artificer, but he was hardly a builder himself. The apostle on the other hand laid foundations that others might build thereon, consciously working for generations who should come "after his departure. In fact, speaking relatively, you might almost say that only an infinitesimal part of his work was seen in his own day. The attitude of the apostle as founder is revealed in two striking utterances of the Apostle Paul. Writing to the Christians at Corinth he speaks of the Gospel as a stewardship intrusted to him. And writing to the Christians at Rome he speaks of himself as debtor to Greeks and barbarians, to wise and to foolish. Thus on the one hand he is impressed with a sense of responsibility towards the Gospel itself as a system of truth to be propagated among men, and on the other hand a sense of responsibility to all nations to whom that Gospel must be preached. This two-fold sense of responsibility found its expression in the method of the propaganda and in the measures he took for the transmission of truth. Look for a moment then at these two aspects of the apostle's responsibility and what they reveal as to the attitude which should characterize the missionary.

If we ask what was the characteristic feature of the era before the apostolic age, it would perhaps not be inaccurate

to say that it was the era of the development of revelation; the kingdom of God being confined to one nation and one land, while the characteristic feature of the era which followed, was the growth and spread of the kingdom of God among all nations and in all lands; the revelation itself having been completed.

To this then the apostle set himself with all the ardour of his regenerated and consecrated life. It was not sufficient therefore for the apostle that he should travel from place to place, chosen at random, preaching the Gospel to any who might be willing to hear and there leaving it, content to have led one here and a few there into life and liberty. On the contrary there was a Spirit-taught strategy in his choice of centres for preaching. There was as much care in the organising of the church as there was urgency and vehemence in the proclamation of the Gospel. And the motive of it all was that all peoples might be reached by his message. See him there at Troas. He has reached the last limit of the Asiatic continent. He gazes wistfully across the narrow belt of sea that divides him from the continent of Europe. There also he is debtor. Macedonia stretches forth her hands in mute appeal. Through Macedonia is the road to Athens, the seat of the world's wisdon, and beyond Athens is Rome, the seat of the world's power. How can he rest till these keys to the world's evangelization are in his hand? Nor does he rest till he stands on the Areopagus itself, nor again till he gives his testimony before the very throne of Cæsar. All this strategy, as the narrative is at great pains to make clear, is under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit. Every other road is barred by the Spirit but that which lies through Macedonia to Athens. And when later Paul is on his way to Rome by the strangely roundabout way of Jerusalem, it is "bound in the Spirit" that he passes from city to city, till in outward bonds, which are still the bonds of Christ, he finds himself in Rome itself. Such was the spirit of the apostle. Impelled by an irrepressible longing to reach all men with his message, he made use of a divine strategy under the direct guidance of the Spirit for the accomplishment of that end.

But the apostle was not satisfied to reach men far and wide with the message of the cross. Wherever there was a reception of his message, he took steps to make his work permanent. He constituted the body of believers into a fellowship. And as an essential part of his diligent care in organising the society, was the careful provision for the transmission of truth within that

society. The apostles were preeminently teachers. Not declamation as in the prophet, nor proclamation only of their message, but the patient implanting of truth in the hearts of men by the slow process of teaching was what characterized the apostle. The apostle felt that the message he spoke was a sacred trust, not only to be made known to all men, but to be handed on to the generations yet unborn. His sense of trust was seen in the jealousy with which he combated heresy, whether Jewish or Gnostic. And his sense of responsibility to those who should come after is seen in the solemn charge he gave to those whom he had taught that they should commit the same truth to faithful men who should teach others also. So to the fifth generation in the spiritual succession he transmits the truth which he himself received from the Lord Jesus.* Thus in his teaching, in his organising, and in his strategy, we trace the foresight of the founder.

And yet let us not lose sight of the most striking fact that all this was combined with a vehement urgency in the proclamation of his message. Urgency because the time is short. Urgency because the Lord is at hand. Such a paradox suggests the question: How does this foresight of the founder, this laying foundations for the future, coexist with the apostles' views of eschatology? The most evangelical and the most radical schools of interpretation alike tell us that the apostles anticipated a speedy return of the Lord Jesus.

If this interpretation is correct, it needs no very abstruse arithmetic to infer that they expected that return to be premillennial, and such, I think, is the sense of the New Testament. And yet this expectation, this hope, was not in their minds inconsistent with such a long look as led them to lay the foundations of a work which has continued growing to this day. There was no incongruity in cherishing such a hope, and at the same time praying for, longing for, working for the conversion of the world. The scope of their efforts was not narrowed down to a mere witness. The horizon of their hope was not less wide than that of the world itself. And they laboured for the day, far off though it might be, when all Israel should be saved and the fulness of the gentiles be come in. And why was there no incongruity in this? Surely because the return of their Lord, for which they waited as they

*For a full treatment of this line of thought see "The Preacher and His Models", by Dr. Stalker, Lectures viii and ix.

that watch for the morning, and for which the church still watches, and waits, and hopes, did not, in their minds, mean a break in the continuity of history any more than did the first coming of Christ. On the contrary, it meant a culmination, the crown and fruit of all their labours and ours. Just as our Lord Himself, reaping where others had sown, found His disciples among those who had been gathered together by the Baptist. And just as after the ascension there was a wider acreage in the nation at large, and in every heathen city a seed plot ready to yield its harvest, the fruit of the labours of lawgiver and prophet, of psalmist and king; so in every dispensation the transition from one age to another is not some violent break with the past, but the ripe fruition of all that has gone before.

Whatever our views as to last things may be, we should let this same paradox characterise our work; urgency and vehemence in the proclamation of our message and at the same time the patient foresight of the founder. For these are what the situation calls for to-day! This opportunity! So great! So varied! Its character changing almost with the changes of the seasons! The message everywhere needed, everywhere acceptable! And yet our forces so few that some opportunities must be suffered to pass by, some places must be left untouched; the question simply is, which? Surely at such a time, if ever, Spirit-taught strategy is called for, concentration on the centres which are themselves keys to the enemy's position. And when we look at our poverty-stricken churches, and at the urgent necessity of securing for the future a stated ministry, and the relation of both to the question of self-support, I confess to grave misgivings. To my mind we are at a most critical point in the history of our church. I have always been a keen advocate of self-support, but I venture to say that we shall commit one of the gravest errors ever committed if, for the sake of self-support, we imperil the existence, or lower the quality of the stated ministry. For after all, self-support is but a method, while the stated ministry represents a vital principle of New Testament teaching. The method may be good, but it is liable to change from age to age and to differ in different lands, and never should the method be allowed to imperil the principle. If we do that, the coming generation may justly turn and charge us with faithlessness to a divine trust. Surely never more than to-day do we need divine skill in organization and

patience in teaching, if in the true apostolic spirit we are to be faithful to our trust.

2. Consider, second, the Missionary as Prophet.

Looking at the prophet as he stands out before us on the page of Scripture, one is impressed by three distinctive characteristics. The prophet was a man with a message, a message preeminently for his own nation; this message fired him with moral and spiritual passion, and both the message and the passion were because he was first and foremost a man of vision. What the content was of the message uttered by the prophet of Israel it is outside the purpose of my paper to enter upon. But there is one feature of it which I wish to emphasize. The prophet's message was a message for the nation, for his own people and his own age. As he unburdened himself of that message his whole being glowed with a passion for righteousness as the basis of his people's greatness and well-being. And therefore though in its essence his message was a message for all the ages, yet instinctively he brought it into touch with the need and crisis of the hour and of the nation in which he lived and spoke. Nay rather the messages of the prophets were for all ages because they were messages for their own age and their own people. The evils they denounced were national and social evils-oppression, luxury, robbery, and adultery. The national vicissitudes were their constant theme as expressions of Jehovah's anger or favour. All this reveals in the prophet a passion for righteousness, a jealousy for the honour and the glory of his people as the holy nation. And coupled with this was love for his people, not less passionate, and sorrow alike for their sin and the calamities it produced. "Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people. " Such words do but focus in one sublime lament the very essence and spirit of ancient prophecy. And it is this spirit of the prophet that is needed in the missionary to-day. We need the man who has a message for the nation and the age, a message which fires him with spiritual and moral passion, a message of sympathy for the people in their sorrow and humiliation, in their aspiration after high ideals. The missionary, I say, must be a man of the people, with a soul of such fine sympathy that his very passion will be tempered with wisdom. For each age and each nation calls