For the Healing of the Nations

Work among the Jews— The Chinese mission at Clarendon Street— Inci-

dents—The transition to a spiritual church life

DR. GORDON had, as has been suggested in the discussion of his theology, an especial interest in the future of Israel. Work among the Jews ever appealed to him, and was carried on with much vigor in his church. In the letters which follow we get a vivid impression of the character of this work. They are like leaves from that part of the Acts which describe the great apostle's experiences among the contentious, " stiffnecked " children of the synagogue in Derbe, in Lystra, and in Thessalonica.

" We had a great day yesterday— house filled to the doors both morning and evening. The special feature of the evening was the baptism of our second Hebrew convert. Fifty Jews at least were present, and at the close a large number came into the after-meeting. The Christian Hebrews bore witness for Christ; then the unconverted Hebrews began to get up. One vehemently declared that Christians hated the Jews and had always persecuted them. I tried in vain to show him that those who persecute are not Christian, but antichristian. B was there, having just returned from Russia. As a Russian Jew, he put in some heavy shots in the disputation with these objectors. For a half-hour they contended out of the Scriptures whether this is Christ."

Again: " The Jewish work continues to be of great interest — one more confessed Christ last evening. The Hebrews of the North End are greatly excited over these accessions to Christ. Last Thursday night they assaulted Solomon as he was coming out of the hall. They called a meeting two weeks ago to see what could be done to resist the aggressions. The inclosed circular in Hebrew contains the call."

" I am just home from prayer-meeting and am moved to write a word. It was a wonderful meeting to-night, the subject being prayer for Israel. You would have believed the set time to favor Zion had come had you been there. One German Jew, a recent arrival from Europe, prayed powerfully in German. S followed in broken English. Then H S, who is to unite with us next church meeting, spoke. He is a little fellow, born in Boston, but he spoke like a patriarch for wisdom and solidity. It was really wonderful how he set forth Christ and magnified his grace. Then a new man, quite prominent among the Hebrews, Niles tells me, rose to avow his determination to follow Christ. Perhaps the day of the Gentiles is drawing to a close. It really came to me very powerfully that it might be so, as I called in vain for confessors among our people, and then saw these rise so readily to own Jesus, for I know all that this involves. Persecution is breaking out bitterly. Several new-comers among us spoke of their surprise and delight at hearing us talk about the conversion of Israel, Dr. N, Mr. McE, and myself having taken up the subject. It is such a new and surprising thing to many. Alas, what do they lose who know nothing of this subject and connected truths! Had we not best begin to pray that the veil be removed from the faces of Gentile Christians, especially ministers of the gospel who know nothing of this theme? "

A long list of uncouth, monosyllabic names at the end of the church directory attests the patient interest which the Clarendon Street Church has taken in the Chinese of the city.

A school was organized many years ago for these strangers. Its proportions grew rapidly. More than one hundred laundrymen from all parts of Boston and from adjacent towns meet each Sabbath. Of the twenty-five or more who were received as members, Gordon once said: " They have proved superior in most respects to any class of foreigners that has come among us. Instead of being a burden to the church, it is their disposition to take their place as burden-bearers with their brethren in Christ. As they are exceedingly industrious and thrifty in their business, so they are very hearty and generous in their gifts for the work of the Lord. The first man who was converted to Christ wrote out a statement of his conversion and his views of the Christian doctrine. I have that document in my possession. He wrote it without the aid of anybody. In all the fifty years in which the church has been in existence, we have never received an account of a conversion or a statement of the doctrines of Christianity so complete and explicit and satisfactory as the one which this Chinaman wrote out on entering the church."

For these Asiatics Dr. Gordon ever had a deep concern. In his late years he frequently remarked that if he were to begin life anew it would be as a missionary to the East. It was with peculiar delight, therefore, that he brought these men into the church of Christ. None will forget with what significant solemnity he used to repeat before his congregation of Americans, when baptizing " these from the land of Sinim," the words of the Lord, " And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven: but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness."

To all with whom he came in contact, no matter how accidentally, he ministered. " Returning one morning from an errand," writes a correspondent in Waterville, Me., where Gordon had held a ten days' conference during the summer of '94, " he called at our house and said, ' I think that the Chinaman down here on the street is interested in religion, and I wish you would speak to him.' No amount of care and labor for the conference and for the whole world could drive from his mind and heart a sense of the need of the individual soul. He saw in the Celestial stranger laundryman ' my neighbor.' "

Many things have occurred which illustrate the fruitfulness of this branch of church work, and which conclusively refute the common assertion that these " stolid, tricky Asiatics " are beyond the reach of the gospel. One circumstance connected with the opening of the school is of special interest. Jure Sim, who, as first member of the church, gave such an intelligent exposition of doctrine, had been taught in the Scriptures by a lady before the Chinese Mission at Clarendon Street had been started. Soon after entering into membership he became convinced of the advantages which a Chinese school in the church would have. Without consulting any one, he set apart a week in which to pray that the Lord might establish such a school. Three times in the day he went by himself to press this request. Day after day followed without answer. On Friday noon, when he knelt down— so he explained afterward— something seemed to say to him, " Jure Sim, you must not pray for that any more. You have been answered." In the evening and on the following morning the same words were unaccountably impressed upon his mind. Shortly after he had begun work in his laundry Saturday morning, the mail-carrier stepped in and handed him a letter. On opening it he found a large red card, on which was printed, in English on one side and in Chinese upon the other, " A mission school for Chinese will be opened in the Clarendon Street Church, Sunday, March 4, 1887."

That conversion is much the same experience among all peoples can be clearly seen from the following

Chin Tong came into the school a raw, uncouth, unresponsive Chinaman. Unlike most of his fellows, he was in his person very unclean and unsavory. The teacher to whom he was assigned worked with him month after month without making upon him the least apparent impression. One Sunday the text, " If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness," was marked in his New Testament and assigned for the next lesson. When he turned up the following Sabbath the verse was almost obliterated from the page by the incessant movement of his finger back and forth over the lines. One word alone puzzled him, the word "cleanse." However, this was easily explained to one whose daily work was over tubs and ironingboards. During the next week a young man called twice at the teacher's home, but would not leave his name. When the hour for the Chinese school came round again the teacher took her seat in the accustomed place. Presently a man in Occidental dress entered and sat down beside her. It was Chin Tong, but so changed as not to be recognizable. His cue was off, his hair shingled, his long finger-nails pared, his face clean as a new coin, his clothes new and well cared for. The text had done its work. " Jesus Christ make me clean inside and outside," he explained. Heart, mind, and person had been transformed.

These Chinese Christians have organized a Y. M. C. A. among themselves, hiring a house near the church for its permanent quarters. They have, too, a lot in Mount Hope Cemetery, where Christians can be buried apart without the usual concomitants of heathen funerals. Some years ago one of their number died. Through some misunderstanding the pastor of the church was absent, and the funeral exercises arranged for had to be omitted. When they had gotten back to the Chinese Home they fell to talking about their dead friend. Every one regretted that Lue Pen should have been laid away " as a dog " without a Christian service. They determined, therefore, to hold a little meeting by themselves over the grave. Four of them accordingly went out the next day to the distant cemetery with an armful of flowers, and, gathering about the grave, read the account of the resurrection of Jesus, and of the walk to Emmaus, above the fresh mound. Then all knelt down, and in turn commended their friend and themselves to the Lord of the resurrection.

Yee Gow was one of the older men in the school, a slow, good, blundering fellow whom none could help liking and half pitying. One winter he fell sick and passed rapidly into consumption. He was carried to the hospital, but not much could be done for him. He was a Christian, and was frequently visited by his Chinese brethren. On the last day of his life he was found by Wong Tsin Chong, who had come to pray with the weak and disheartened sufferer. Wong did his best to cheer him with hopes of heaven. The old man did not respond with much eagerness at first. " I don't know whether I want to go there, after all," he reiterated. " I won't know anybody there; nobody will care for me." " Never mind, Yee Gow," was the reply; " I shall be there before long and when I get there I will look first for the Lord Jesus, and when I find him I'll bring him to you." The old man was comforted and closed his eyes in peace.

" Wong Tsin Chong," writes Gordon, " whom we call ' our Chinese deacon,' so faithful is he in looking after his ' countrypeople ' and fellow- Christians in the church, is a remarkable man. No Sunday passes without finding him preaching the gospel to his countrymen in the Chinese quarter. As he stands in the street speaking in his native tongue, crowds of Englishspeaking people will often gather. Then, changing his language, he will plead with these to be reconciled to Christ. ' What kind of Christian?' do you ask? Would that there were scores of such! His sole thought day and night is how to reach his ' country-people ' at home and abroad.... For some years he has provided for the maintenance of a native missionary to preach to the people of his own village in China. Association with Christians is a delight to him. When he stood up to receive the right hand of fellowship on admission into the church, the pride and satisfaction with which he accepted such high honor were visible in his entire bearing. At the next communion, when other members were to be received, Wong innocently took his place in the line again. Though an unusual thing to repeat the ceremony, we did not pass him by. 'How I like this church! They shake hands every month.' said he. Certainly we ought to merit his encomium by more hearty and unfailing good fellowship with those who come among us.

" At the last four occasions of admitting members into the church a Chinaman was among the number each time. Noticing this with surprise and gratification, we said, ' Wong, isn't it remarkable that we have had a Chinaman on each of the last four Sundays?' With the most radiant look he replied, ' Not at all remarkable. I asked the Lord for ten this year you have got four of them. Hold fast and you will get the other six before the year is over.' O Chinaman, I have not found so great faith, no, not among our American Christians!

" It is touching and cheering to hear them pray and sing and expound Scripture and exhort one another, all in such fervent

and orderly manner, in their own weekly prayer-meetings. A

few of these expositions will illustrate the sincerity and intelligence of their Christianity.

" Yeung, in a prayer-meeting talk on ' The Word of God is not Bound,' said: ' The Word of God binds; it is not bound. We were astray, alienated from God. It bound us back to him. It binds our lives by its influence. Bind the Word of God? The Bible says it is a sword. Can you bind a sword? Will it not cut through the cords you attempt to bind it with? Bind the Word of God? The Bible calls it light. Can you bind light? Will it regard your cords and fetters? Can you keep it in a room? Can you keep it from shining? It will penetrate everywhere The gospel will spread; man cannot prevent it. Bind a sword, bind light; then may you bind the Word of God.'

" Cheung Yule P'eng said: ' When a man and wife have been married for eight or ten years without having any children, and at last a child comes, they are full of joy. But if, after a while, they find that the child is deaf or lame or blind or dumb, their joy is turned to sorrow. So when I hear of baptisms now and then— six or eight joining the church— I am rejoiced. But alas! sometimes my joy is weakened and I am filled with sorrow. Why? Some of these members are dumb or blind

or deaf or lame. How? Why, when a man becomes a

Christian and doesn't speak to others about Jesus he is dumb when a Christian doesn't read his Bible he is blind; when he will not listen to advice and instruction, or when he sleeps in church, he is deaf; when he neglects the meetings of the brethren and fails to come to church on the Lord's days he is lame. I rejoice to hear of baptisms, but how often converts disappoint our hopes and tiu-n out but blind or deaf or dumb or lame children!'

The local missions of the church included, in addition to the work among Jews and Chinese, a mission for colored people, which became in time self-sustaining; the work of the Industrial Home, administered largely by members of the Clarendon Street Church; an important rescue work for women; the various evangelistic enterprises of the young people at the wharves, car stables, and hospitals; and the evangelistic work of the deacons in weak churches. To the participation in foreign work reference has already been made. In addition to the support tendered the missions of the denomination, an independent mission in Corea was organized by a member of the chiurch, with five workers in the field. This number is to be increased shortly. On the walls of the vestry, where the prayer-meetings are held, are inscribed the names of missionaries and evangelists connected with the church. The number varies from time to time, averaging anywhere from ten to twenty.

Thus was the church transformed, until the formal, selfcontained congregation had become " a little kingdom of God in itself," unobtrusive, but none the less aggressive in its multifarious religious agencies. It had now been brought into a condition of spiritual equipment and organization; new motives had replaced the old. The saving of souls had taken the preeminent place. The birth of this new ideal had been with much labor and toil, but its development was the salvation of the church. For twenty-five years this purpose was emphasized week after week. In an address at Minneapolis, in 1887, Dr. Gordon drew a contrast, which is strikingly suggestive to one who reads between the lines, of the life of old and new Clarendon Street: " Ask social scientists concerning the perils which threaten our republic, and among these they will mention the out-populating power of the foreign races. They tell us that negro and Celt are multiplying so rapidly that there is danger that our native stock may be swallowed up by them. And as the counterpart to this, they admonish us that the Americans, as they grow rich and aristocratic, evade the responsibilities of child-bearing, and so put the Saxon and Puritan stock to a constant disadvantage in the competition of races. I mention this only that I may dwell upon the analogous spiritual fact. As soon as Zion travailed she brought forth children. It is the law of God that renewed souls should come forth through the birth-pangs of prayer and faith in the church of Christ. But the tendency is for the church, as soon as it becomes wealthy and aristocratic, to shirk the responsibilities of child-bearing, preferring the luxuries of worship, the music, the oratory, and the architecture of an elegant sanctuary, to the bringing forth and nursing of children. Fashionable religion frowns on prayer-meeting exhortations as sanctified baby talk, and on simple gospel preaching as weak pulpit milk, and on lifting the hand and rising for prayers as nursery exercises in which cultivated Christians do not care to engage. But the church that knows its calling as the mother and nurse of souls will use all these things because God has enjoined milk for babes, and the rudiments of faith for children. All honor to the church that accepts the function of child-bearing and nursing; but no honor to that church which prefers barrenness to maternity in order that she may be at ease in Zion. May God save us from this temptation, which culture and social position are constantly forcing upon us. It is the certain precursor of doctrinal unsoundness as well as of spiritual blight. I can look out upon scores of churches in my own city, planted in orthodoxy but now fallen from the faith, and I find that their history for the most part verifies this maxim. Their doctrinal looseness began in spiritual laziness; it was when they ceased to bring forth children that they began to bring forth heresies."

" Christianity is both a cement and a solvent," says Vinet. The preaching of spiritual truths and the insistence on spiritual methods had a sifting effect, the results of which were twofold. The restless, the worldly, the unfriendly, gradually dropped off and went elsewhere. This was in some ways a great relief to the pastor. Indeed, during a period of friction he prayed earnestly a whole summer long for the departure of a leading member whose presence he felt to be fatal to the church's best interests. In the autumn this man left in a most unexpected way without trouble or irritation. On the other hand, there gathered around the church a large clientele of earnest, devout souls, whose views of church life corresponded with those set forth from the pulpit. Hundreds were converted, too, bringing with them the vigor which goes with fresh and powerful reli-

350 ADONIRAM JUDSON GORDOM

gious experiences. For this was no church built up by attracting the comfortable and well dressed from other churches with oratory and subtle, dexterous rhetoric. There was here no flinching from the hard realities, no avoidance of uncomfortable truths and unpopular causes, no magnanimous (though sophistical) tolerance of all parties and all beliefs however opposed they might be. Into these walls were built all manner of rejected material— the drunkard, the outcast, the vagabond, the opium-slave. As the sun distils and draws to itself from the vilest tarn the fleeciest clouds, so the Spirit of God carried on his redeeming work in Clarendon Street Church. The impulses gained vitalized, too, the Baptist churches of eastern Massachusetts. For years Clarendon Street stood as a religious clearing-house between the city and surrounding towns. Young people from the country and from the Provinces would spend five or ten years here, and then, when married, go to establish homes about suburban churches— stanch, reUable men and women with the stamp of the city church upon them.

Let us go into the church of the nineties. Here is no longer a select congregation of pewholders. No longer do the humming-birds of fashion flit up the aisles. No longer does the usher distribute strangers with furtive glances at the numberless gaps in the congregation. Now the rich and the poor meet together; the Lord is the Maker of them all. We are upborn by the weighty sense which a great concourse of people gives, especially of people of like interests and motives, of a unanimity of life and spirit. A noble type of Christianity is regnant in these hearts. What cordiality, what affection, what mutual forbearance and assistance among the members! John Stuart Mill remarked cynically that it could hardly be said now, as it was said by those of pagan Rome, " Behold how these Christians love one another." Yet this could be claimed without exaggeration of the people whom Gordon left behind him in the chiu-ch of his training. For had he not explained to them the source of unity and love? " ' If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask,' " said he, quoting our Lord's own words, " ' it shall be done for them.' That word 'agree' is a beautiful one in the original, meaning to be in symphony or musical accord. But it is not possible for two to be in holy agreement among themselves unless each is attuned to a third, the Holy Comforter. The harp strings must be keyed to a common pitch in order to chord with each other."

How were these deep and comprehensive changes effected? Not with struggling, but in quietness and peace. Reforms were waited for in prayerful patience when opposition arose. Conferences were held for the deepening of the spiritual life. Week after week, year after year, the most spiritual truths were presented to the people. The steel was turned and wrought and tempered. Like the Japanese sword-smith who spends a lifetime on a daimio's single blade, Gordon worked at his church for twenty-five long years. No wonder it became an effective instrument. He loved his people. When at home he bound them to him by the tenderest ministries, at the side of the sick, comforting the bereaved, burying the dead. When away he wrote frequently to them.

" I am resting powerfully, and have much time for communion and quiet talking with the Lord," he writes. " I feel that my busy and hurried life in Boston robs me too much of this. How much we need the times of refreshing to fit us for toil, lest we become mere superficial and routine servants!... I have written to many in the parish, having time now to think of all their wants and sorrows, and all I wish to say to them by way of exhortation. So that I have written long letters and am going to write scores more."

And again: " I am using great diligence in the midst of my country work in v^iting letters to such as need a word of comfort or counsel. Yet I begin to feel quite anxious to get

352 ADONIRAM JUDSON CORDON

back again to my parish, and to all the interests and labor, that are so dear to me. I cannot entirely cast off the burden of it, even while so far away, but am constantly sending back my desires and longings toward those whom God has given me to watch over and care for. I really desire, above all things, to go back to a more devoted ministry for the good of souls."

In the fragment of spiritual autobiography published after his death Gordon describes this metamorphosis, this passage of his church from pupa to imago.

" ' Why not withdraw from the church which has become thus secularized and desecrated? ' it is asked. To which we reply emphatically, ' Until the Holy Spirit withdraws we are not called upon to do so.' And he is infinitely patient, abiding still in his house so long as there are two or three who gather in Christ's name to constitute a tcviplum in tcmplo, a sanctuary within a sanctuary, where he may find a home.

" What the lungs are to the air the church is to the Holy Spirit; and each individual believer is like a cell in those lungs. If every cell is open and unobstructed the whole body is full of light; but if, through a sudden cold, congestion sets in, so that the larger number of these cells are closed, then the entire burden of breathing is thrown upon the few which remain unobstructed. With redoubled activity these now inhale and exhale the air till convalescence shall return. So we strongly believe that a few Spirit-filled disciples are sufficient to save a church; that the Holy Ghost, acting through these, can and does bring back recovery and health to the entire body.

" Woe then to those who judge before the time; who depart from their brethren and slam that door behind them before which Jesus is gently knocking; who spue the church out of their mouths while he, though rebuking it, still loves it and owns it and invites it to sup with him.

" ' For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death,' writes the apostle. This is the method of the Lord's present work— death overcome by Hfe. ' I cannot sweep the darkness out, but I can shine it out,' said John Newton. We cannot scourge dead works out of the church, but we can hve them out. If we accuse the church of having the pneumonia, let us who are individual air-cells in that church breathe deeply and wait patiently and pray believingly, and one after another of the obstructed cells will open to the Spirit, till convalescence is reestablished in every part.

" With the deepest humility the writer here sets his seal of verifying experience. When the truth of the in residence of the Spirit and of his presiding in the church of God became a living conviction, then began a constant magnifying of him in his offices. Several sermons were preached yearly, setting forth the privileges and duties of Christians under his administration special seasons of daily prayer were set apart, extending sometimes over several weeks, during which continual intercession was made for the power of the Holy Ghost. It was not so much prayer for particular blessings as an effort to get into fellowship with the Spirit and to be brought into unreserved surrender to his hfe and acting. The circle of those thus praying was constantly enlarged. Then gradually the result appeared in the whole church; the incoming tide began to fill the bays and inlets, and as it did so the driftwood was dislodged and floated away. Ecclesiastical amusements dropped off, not so much by the denunciation of the pulpit as by the displacement of the deepening life. The service of song was quietly surrendered back to the congregation, and instead of the select choir, the church, who constitute the true Levites as well as the appointed priesthood of the new dispensation, took up the sacrifice of praise anew and filled the house with their song. Later came the abolition of pew-rentals and the disuse of church sales for raising money for missions and other charities. The prayer-meeting soon passed beyond the necessity of being 'sustained,' and became the most helpful nourisher and sustainer of the church. The pulpit, too, acquired a liberty hitherto unknown; the outward hampering being removed, the inward help became more and more apparent, and the preacher felt himself constantly drawn out instead of being perpetually repressed, as in the olden time. So noiselessly and irresistibly as the ascending sap displaces the dead leaves which have clung all winter long to the trees, so quietly did the incoming Spirit seem to crowd off the traditional usages which had hindered our liberty."