INTRODUCTION. 13 



fleniands in supreme exercise certain military virtues. Vigi- 

 lance in watching opportunity; tact and daring in seizing upon 

 opportunity ; force and persistence in crowding opportunity 

 to its utmost of possible achievement — these are the martial 

 virtues which must command success. 



This volume presents, also, with a power which can scarcely 

 be exceeded — for it is the power of the simple facts — the truth 

 that Christian enterprise for the moral conquest of this land 

 needs to be conducted with the self-ahandonment which deter- 

 mined men would throw into the critical moment in the criti- 

 cal battle of the critical campaign for a nation's endangered 

 life. What the campaign in Pennsylvania was to the Civil 

 War, what the battle of Gettysburg was to that campaign, 

 what the fight for Cemetery Hill was to that battle, such is 

 the present opportunity to the Christian civilization of this 

 country. 



Turn whichever way we will — South, West, North, East — we 

 are confronted by the same element of crisis in the outlook 

 upon the future. Everything seems, to human view, to depend 

 on present and dissolving chances. Whatever can be done at 

 all must be done with speed. The building of great states de- 

 pends on one decade. The nationalizing of alien races must be 

 the work of a period which, in a nation's life, is but an hour. 

 The elements we work upon and the elements we must work 

 with are fast precipitating themselves in fixed institutions and 

 consolidated character. Nothing will await our convenience. 

 Nothing is indulgent to a dilatory policy. Nothing is tolerant 

 of a somnolent enterprise. 



The climax of the argument appears in the view taken of 

 the auxiliary relation of this country's evangelizing to the 

 evangelizing of the world. One who studies even cursoril}'^ 

 the beginnings of Christianity will not fail to detect a masterly 

 strategy in apostolic policy. Christian enterprise at the out- 

 set took possession first of strategic localities, to be used as 

 the centers of church-extension. The first successes of Chris- 

 tian preachers were in the great cities of the East. The attract- 

 ive spots, to the divine eye, were those which were crowded 

 with the densest masses of human being. Not a trace do we 

 find of labor thrown off at random in the apostolic tactics. 

 As little do we discover of the spirit of romance. The early 

 missions were not crusades for the conquest of holy places. 

 They were not pilgrimages to sacred shrines. Martial ardor 

 in the work was held well in hand by martial skill in the 

 choice of methods and localities. 



The same military forecast has ruled Christian missions 



