14 INTRODUCTION. 



from that day to this, so far as they have been crowned with 

 great successes. How little of work and expenditure at hap- 

 hazard has entered into the splendid structure of En«;lish and 

 American missions to the lieathen ! How little has the spirit 

 of romance or of aesthetic taste ever accomplished in evangel- 

 izino- the nations ! The two localities to Avhich the romance 

 of Christian enterprise would naturally turn are Palestine and 

 Greece ; the one as the home of our Lord, the other as the 

 birthplace of art and culture. Yet how little, comparatively 

 speaking, have Christian missions achieved in either land ! 

 Labor has been as faithful, and self-sacrifice as generous there 

 as elsewhere ; but in the comparison with other missions, 

 where are the fruits '? 



Success in the work of the world's conversion has, with 

 rare exceptions, followed the lines of human growth and pro- 

 spective greatness. But a single exception occurs to one's 

 memory— that of the Hawaiian Islands. Seldom has a nation 

 been converted to Christ, only to die. The general law has 

 been that Christianity should seat itself in the great metropol- 

 itan centers of population and of civilized progress. It has 

 allied itself with the most virile races. It has taken possession 

 of the most vigorous and enterprising nations. The colonizing 

 races and nations have been its favorites. It has abandoned 

 the dying for the nascent languages. Its affinities have always 

 been for the youthful, the forceful, the progressive, tho aspir- 

 ing in human character, and for that stock of mind from 

 which such character springs. By natural sequence, the local- 

 ities where those elements of powerful manhood are, or are to 

 be, in most vigorous development, have been the strategic 

 points of which our religion has taken possession as by a 

 masterly military genius. 



The principles of such a strategic wisdom should lead us to 

 look on these United States as first and foremost the chosen 

 seat of enterprise for the world's conversion. Forecasting the 

 future of Christianity, as statesmen forecast the destiny of 

 nations, we must believe that it will be what the future of this 

 country is to be. As goes America, so goes the world, in all 

 that is vital to its moral welfare. In this view, this volume 

 finds the superlative corollary of its argument. 



Austin Phelps. 



