Missionary Interest Awakened
MISSIONARY INTEREST AWAKENED
The interest awakened was fostered by two young men, Messrs. Wilder and Foreman, who were led speedily to devote a portion of their time as students to deepening and widening this work among the students of the colleges not represented at Mt. Hermon. This in brief, then, is how the Student Volunteer movement was born; it came into being in connection with the first Christian Student Conference ever held at Mt. Hermon, where Mr Moody's school for boys and young men is situated.
Like many another thing for which Mr. Moody opened the way, if he did not actually originate it, the Student Volunteer movement has grown almost beyond comprehension. It assumed organization in 1888, and has become a recognized factor and power in the missionary life of the Church throughout the world, as possibly no other single movement. Briefly stated, the four-fold purpose of the organization is First, to awaken and foster among all the Christian students of the United States and Canada, intelligent and active interest in foreign missions. Second, to enroll a sufficient number of properly qualified student volunteers to meet the successive demands of the various missionary Boards of North America. Third, to help all such as pledge themselves to foreign missionary work to prepare for their life work, and to increase the co-operation of these young workers in developing the missionary life of home churches. Fourth, to lay an equal burden of responsibility on all students who are to remain as ministers and lay workers at home, that they may actively promote missionary enterprise by intelligent advocacy, gifts and prayers.
The Volunteer movement is not a missionary board. It never has sent out and never will send out a missionary, for it is simply a recruiting station. As in so many other ways, the wisdom of Mr. Moody in calling to his side such men as L. D. Wishard, C. K. Ober and John R. Mott, of the International Committee of the Young Men's Christian Association, was soon manifest in the progress of the movement, and these men have had much to do with the rapid increase of the work during these last years.