Some Indirect Effects
SOME INDIRECT EFFECTS
It must be plain to any thoughtful person that the reflex influence of this movement in the institutions of learning themselves is simply incalculable. For every student who has offered himself to go abroad, certainly one or more have been influenced to take up a more aggressive Christian life at home. Development in Bible study and in personal work for the salvation of their fellows on the part of the students, as a secondary influence of this movement is without any doubt one of the great evangelistic tendencies of the century. At least indirectly, it may be traced to Mr. Moody.
One of the most wonderful things about the Student Volunteer influence has been its effect upon the students of other lands. Ten years ago the organization for the United States and Canada was the only student movement in the world, employing the volunteer methods, but now there are student volunteers in Great Britain, Scandinavian countries, Germany, France, Australasia, South Africa, China, India and Ceylon. All the organizations express their indebtedness to the American branch for the helpful and practical influence it exerted in the formative periods of the work. It is exceedingly significant that even the students of mission lands have joined hands with the students of Christian lands in a determined effort to preach the Gospel to all mankind.
In August, 1895, there was formed in the historic Vadstena Castle, on the shores of Lake Vettern, in Sweden, a World's Student Christian Federation. There were present official representatives from America, Great Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, and Mission lands. Mr. John R. Mott, in his "Strategic Points in the World's Conquest," says, " Never since the Wartburg sheltered the great German Reformer, while he was translating the Bible for the common people, has a mediaeval castle served a purpose fraught with greater blessing to all mankind."