MR. YATES’ THIRD SPEECH.
[Dr. Darby having been called away unavoidably the Rev. J. E. Jenkins acted as Moderator in his place for the day.]
MODERATORS AND CHRISTIAN FRIENDS:

I am glad to meet you this beautiful morning in the house of God, and to continue the discussion of the great subject stated in the proposition which has been read in your hearing:
“Resolved, That the gospel work carried on by the different denominations of the Protestant world in heathen lands or foreign counties, known as the Foreign Mission work, is authorized in the Scripture and blessed and owned of God.”
I believe it as much as I believe in my existence; I believe it and affirm it with as much confidence and enthusiasm as I believe and affirm that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the only Saviour of men, or that the Bible is the blessed word of God.
In his beautiful speech yesterday evening, in which he laughed over the points in which he was caught, my brother demanded certain things of me, which I will attend to this morning. I ask you to notice when he comes before you again, and see if he does not resort again to the laugh. He will tell you a little anecdote; I will commend him for that, but when you get cool and read these things, many of you will feel badly for him. I do not care how much you laugh, but I want to give you facts. We have to meet these things in the judgment. We are going to grapple closely this morning; we only did a little picket-firing yesterday.
My brother asks me to show a text speaking of Foreign Missions. “O,” he says, “the Mission work is a good work; we are not here to oppose that work.” It is, my brother? Where do the good things come from? There are only two sources. God is author of all good things; then, all good things are blessed and owned of God; therefore the Foreign Mission work being a good work, as admitted by my opponent, is authorized, and blessed, and owned of God. Every good and perfect gift comes from above. The others are of Satan. Now look at the logic of my brother! When he asked me to find Foreign Missions named in the Bible, I told him I would find it on the next page after the one on which he would find Regular Baptist. Then he said, “He owns he cannot find it, and has lost the proposition.” He almost frightened me yesterday morning when he said, “Remember, you have got six days before you.” I will remember it. He well knew his denomination was gone when he took the position “that Foreign Missions are of man and not of God” on any fair interpretation of the Scriptures; therefore he asked me to give him a text speaking of Foreign Missions. This is only a quibble; but when he goes farther, and says he wants me to give him a text where the approval of Foreign Mission work is implied, I will gratify him with several; and I want him to look at these texts, this morning. I will turn to that one he touches so lightly— Acts xxvi. 17—18: “Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee”—is not that the rest of the word? —“To open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light”—my brother said yesterday evening that they did not need to have their eyes opened, that the Lord was revealed to them in nature—” and from the power of Satan unto God; that they may receive forgiveness of sins.” Sins! and yet my brother teaches a doctrine that man has no agency in salvation. I want him to come out today and tell us about that. “And inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me.” That is the way the heathen are saved; they are “sanctified by faith that is in me.” Rather a good mission text, my brother.
Matthew xxviii. 19: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” Go ye into all the world and teach the gospel; that is it. To all nations—that is, to all people. “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Is not that mission work?
Romans i. 13—15. We will stick to the Book. When I catch him in the Book, he runs out and says God saves without the Book; then he says I do not stick to the Book; and I go back to the Book again, and he is out of the Book. I go with him into nature, and he goes back to the Book again. It reminds me of an advertisement I read once over the door of a place of business, which said: “There are all kinds of turning and twisting done here.” That was their business; it seems to be the main business of my worthy opponent in this discussion. Now I will read the reference I gave: “Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you (but was let hitherto), that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles. I am debtor both to the Greeks and to the Barbarians”—my brother does believe as Paul did, that he is a debtor to the heathen world; he has no mission in the Foreign Field—” both to the wise and to the unwise. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.” He was a debtor; he was under obligation to preach this gospel wherever there were benighted minds; wherever there were sad hearts; wherever there were people that had not this wonderful revelation of Jesus; to preach the gospel, the glad tidings of salvation. He was under obligation to use all the means within his power to take, the gospel to them. “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation” but my brother does not believe it is in every case—” to every one that behieveth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” I will turn back now to the lxxii. Psalm, 16th verse: “There shall be a hand full of corn in the earth upon the top of, the mountains: the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.” Mountains, when employed symbolically in the Scriptures, usually represent kingdoms. Hence the mountains,” in the prophecy quoted, represent the kingdoms of the world in all future generations. That this prophecy is descriptive of the planting, propagation, and the grand results of the gospel, is clearly taught by the Saviour himself; for he employs the planting of wheat in the earth to picture the planting of the Word of God in the souls of men. This will be apparent if we examine the Saviour’s teachings in Matthew xiii. 3—9: “And he spake many things unto them in parables, spying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up; some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was up they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them; but other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.” In the 18th to the 23rd verses, inclusive, the meaning of this parable is explained by the Master. “Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the wayside. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for awhile: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that receiveth seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
Thus we see that the Saviour’s teaching in this parable corroborates my interpretation of the passage quoted from the 72d Psalm—that the handful of corn planted in the earth on the top of the mountains is a prophetic description of the planting and propagation of the gospel, and hence it is an exact description of the Foreign Mission work of today, both in its object and its fruitfulness. Is not the object of the Foreign Mission work the planting and propagation of the gospel in all the kingdoms and among all the people of the earth? Do not the fruits of this work today shake like the mighty cedars of Lebanon in all the kingdoms and countries of the world? He was telling us yesterday that we damned all the heathen, that we cast them wholesale into the land of the lost. He said, “I object to this doctrine because it is contrary to God’s Word. “That they are all going to hell unless they get the Bible,” is the plea that gets your half-dollar from your pocket for the Mission Work. Now, he said I was on both sides of the question. How sweetly he said it! And he got a laugh. You noticed one thing—how nicely he kept away from that proof-text that I gave him. I want to quote it again this morning, and let him take hold of it. Romans 1. 20. And there is another—Romans ii, commencing with the 11th verse:
“For there is no respect of persons with God. For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law; and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law.”---that is, those who have sinned in the Hebrew theocracy shall be judged by its code. “For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” Then he says: “For when the Gentiles which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.” He teaches that the Gentiles who did not have a formal revelation of the divine law, like that of the Hebrews would be judged by the light they had. Though unlike in form, the light they had was the same in essence as the principles of the Hebrew revelation. For truth is a unity. Hence they must obey the light they had to be saved. That would be doing the things contained in the law. So it is in the heathen lands today, where the gospel has not been proclaimed. What is the Bible in its facts and principles? It is the counterpart of man’s nature, a revelation of God to man—the one in whose image he was created, and of the principles, of his nature, and how he can learn and obey them, and thereby become godlike. In the constitution of things man cannot be saved—I speak it reverently—without he is saved in accordance with God’s spiritual and moral government as revealed and recorded in his Word, having not the law, having not the ritual when they comply with these principles, then they are saved.
“They [the heathen] are without excuse” (Rom. i. 20). I want you to, listen to his fine comment. “Why? asks Brother Potter, were they without excuse? They had Nature that should teach there is a God. Does not the same thing teach the heathen now? If it answered the purpose then, why not now? My idea is, that when people think there is a God, and have an idea of his character, they ought to have some respect for him.” Ought to treat him kindly, you know—not use his name in vain. “And it is my idea that it is so,” he said; “that Nature unfolds a volume to the people wherever they live. Paul said the people that had that were without excuse, as they had some way, to know. Then the Bible and the ministry are not absolutely essential for the heathen to know that there is a God.” Brother Potter and Paul are squarely at issue. Why did Paul say they were without excuse? “Because that when they knew God they glorified him not as God.” But Brother Potter says it is his opinion that if the heathen know God they will respect him. I want him and Paul to fix that up. “Neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.” Now my brother, I call your attention to that. I want you to answer that argument. So much for that.
I will give you another proof-text for Foreign Missions. The Book is full of them; I would have to take up all my time in quoting them if I quoted all. Revelation xiv. 6. This book of Revelation is a perfect prophetic description of the grand history of the Church—her triumphs, her agencies, and her means. The quotation reads as follows: “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the, everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.
Now I want to read you one of his objections to Foreign Missions. I desire him to answer a few questions this morning. He says: “There is one objection I have always had to this plea for Foreign Missions— that they preach the universal damnation of all the people where there is no Bible.” Now, I say we do not preach that. I have given you frankly my views in regard to the salvation of the heathen. If they live up to the best light they have, they will be saved. If so, few of the great multitude in gospel lands comply with the principles of salvation, how fearfully less will be the number in heathen lands who will live up to the light they have, with the terrible pressure of the darkness of sin and corruption around them, when the light they have is no more in contrast with the light of the gospel lands than the light of the glow-worm is in comparison with the light of the noonday sun in his dazzling splendor. I will say this to you that no man who is an idolater is saved; no being is saved who worships something else instead of God. I want my worthy opponent to affirm that persons are saved who pay homage to some object or creature instead of the Lord, if he believes it. I defy any minister to show in God’s word any idolater who was saved. In the Mosaic Law the penalty of idolatry was death.
“I object,” says he, “to that doctrine because it is contrary to God’s Word.” Where does he get it in God’s Word that the heathen are saved without some truth at least? Truth is a unity in God. It is the plea, he says, that gets your half-dollar from your pocket. He tells us that these schools and colleges lifting up the people out of that bad state are a good thing, but that the plea that gets your half-dollar from your pocket for mission-work is that the heathen are going to hell unless they get the Bible. Where would we have had any of these good results if we had taken your position? (pointing to the map). There would not have been a mission in all those heathen lands. You said Mr. Taylor was a Regular Baptist. You would not take him into your Church today. He is a Protestant, and he is not a Regular Baptist in the sense you use it at all, my brother. I can take every Regular Baptist by the hand that takes the position of Taylor, of the Chinese Inland Mission. You would not take him into your Church. You would not receive any missionary unless he would submit to be rebaptized. The real fact is, Brother Potter does not believe I am called to preach. He does not believe any man is called to preach unless he belongs to the Regular Baptist Church. For my worthy opponent to accept a minister of the gospel as scripturally ordained and set apart to the work he must be dipped backward, ordained by the voice of his Church, which, he claims, has an unbroken line of ordained ministers clear back to the Pentecostal revival at Jerusalem.
You remember when he challenged me yesterday to show a missionary on the foreign field that supported himself by his own hands, as he claimed Paul did, and when I produced the Rev. J. Hudson Taylor and his co-laborers of the China Inland Mission, with the wonderful fruits of their work as missionaries of this class, he saw he was caught, and undertook the ridiculous dodge of claiming the Rev. J. Hudson Taylor as a Regular Baptist. How absurd for a man occupying the position he does on this occasion toward the Foreign Mission work to claim such an enthusiastic worker for the mission cause as Mr. Taylor! But he was completely nonplussed, and this was the best he could do to relieve himself of the embarrassment of the terrible dilemma into which he was thrown.
I want to say another thing—he has not argued to the questions he knows that. I read you yesterday morning the change he wanted to make in the proposition. He wanted me to affirm that all the measures and means employed in Foreign Mission work are prescribed in the Scriptures, and I would not do it. It is the Foreign Mission work itself we are to discuss. I asked him last night, before this congregation, if the wording of the proposition did not mean; and if he did not understand the expression “blessed and owned of God” to mean, the work of spiritual regeneration among the heathen, as evidenced in the fruits of the Foreign Mission work. He said, No; man might be blessed in other ways. And when I pressed him to know in what other ways, he said; “It is not of God, for the free-school system of Indiana is a good thing, but it is of man; and not of God.” Did he suppose when I wrote that proposition I wrote it in view of only of the temporal blessings of man? This supposition seems not to have entered his mind until he saw where he would be caught. He has to say now that very one of these men who are laboring, or have labored, in foreign fields, are self-deceived or hypocrites. He has to say this of men who are acknowledged by all who are conversant with their lives to be the grandest men on earth. He has to say it of Judson, who did so noble a work for India, who stood at the head of Christian civilization in that land, who acted as mediating ambassador in the war between the English Government and the Burmese, writing the treaty, while suffering in a prison in Burma, that brought about peace, thus opening the way for missionary operations, and securing protection to the missionaries throughout India. He has to say that Duff and Moffatt, and all those grand men and women—and some whose bones bleach today on the foreign fields—were either self-deceived or hypocrites, and he cannot do it. Outside of that he has to show that these men and women are not competent judges; they are liars, so to speak! They are giving figures, and are not competent to judge whether men are truly converted or not. They are not competent to judge the tree by the fruit it bears. Ah, my friends, he has something on his hands in this business, and it is a serious business. I will leave it with him to fix that.
I want to know of him today if as many heathen will be saved without the Bible as with it? Put that down, if you please, my brother. I want to know if Brother Potter does not believe that as many heathen will be saved in all these islands (pointing to the map), before the gospel reaches them as there will be when it does reach them? Will any man or woman be lost because the word of God has not been taken to them? I may be mistaken, but I think Brother Potter saves them all before they were born, away back in eternity. I believe Brother Potter teaches the doctrine—if I am wrong he will correct me—that God chose before the foundation of the world all of his elect, and the number is so definite that it can not be increased or decreased. It does not matter who or what you are, in God’s own time he will save you. You are dead; you cannot do any thing; God has to do it all, and no man can be saved without he is elected. This is his idea of heathenism. Of course their condition would not touch his heart.
Well, he says, you have the glowing colors on the map, but you do not know whether there are ten million or one thousand Christians there. We will see, by and by. Brother Potter spoke of the Roman Catholics, and said, Brother Yates is arguing from results. Now he said, “If numbers are to be taken the Roman Catholics have greater evidence that God blesses and, owns their mission work than the Protestants.” That is what he said. I did not put “numbers,” absolutely, as evidence that the Foreign Mission work was owned and blessed of God. I showed that these men and women working in the cause of Foreign Missions are equal to others in piety, in earnestness, in consecration, and in intelligence, and certainly equal to my brother and myself. He says, “Brother Yates tells us what they have done and how much they have done, and if numbers prove any thing, they would prove the Catholics are more greatly, blessed and owned of God in their mission work than the Protestants.” Now, I am deflecting from the subject, because we are not discussing catholic mission work, but Protestant missions. Brother Potter has to go outside, because it will give him some material. But by your permission I will answer this further on in my speech. There are some good Catholics. He called them the mother of harlots, and all that. I am not a Catholic. I think I am as far from that as he is.
To get out of the dilemma I put him in on the nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand believing in Foreign Missions, he compared us to Christ-killers, and said Jesus belonged to the small party. He loves us, though. We are elected; born of the Lord; are converted; we are elected; and yet we are Christ-killers— all of us that are Foreign Mission men. He takes the Baptist Missionary Magazine, published by one of his Baptist brethren who went off when Judson turned to be a Baptist missionary; he distorts its language, and aims to array it against the cause it advocates. He ought to be thankful to the Missionary Baptist Church, for it has furnished him with all of his material to fill up his time here. But the Regular Baptists do not believe in working for money; no sir; it is against their doctrine of election. They do not believe in sending missionaries to save the heathen, and they do not do it either. I do not believe that this mission man that wrote in that magazine was ever in the Foreign Mission field at all. He may have been, but if he was he was a bad missionary. If he denies it, I have Vameter’s statement—a Missionary Baptist preacher and a missionary to Rome. He said in regard to advancing the Christian religion there, “I believe in saving souls first for Christ, and then if they won’t come and go with us, let them go where they will.” And then when he left for the United States, ministers of the Pedo-Baptist denominations that were working there in Rome, filled his pulpit in his absence. And Brother Potter said, “Why do the missionaries go among the Protestants of other denominations? Here one missionary will go and work, and they will get to hair-pulling, and another missionary will go there to fix it.” I would like for him to prove that.
He spoke of the Reformed Churches of Europe, whose religion was empty and Christless, and said they were Presbyterians; but he is mistaken. They are a certain kind of Lutherans. Maybe he will deny that. Now about the Roman Catholics: I want to ask you, my brother, do you put these Methodists, and all the Baptists, and the Presbyterians, and the Church of England, on the same basis with the Catholics? Do we receive members the same way they do? Do not Catholics merely sprinkle holy water upon them in receiving them as converts, and have them do penance for their sins? Do we believe such a doctrine? Don’t we believe just as much in the new birth and conversion as you? Are not these converts from heathenism examined under as strong a test as any candidate for church-membership in your Church, or any other? And yet Brother Potter stood up in the face of these men and women here, and compared us in our work with the Catholics. Now I will leave that for you to decide. We are both ministers. I want him to explain that.
I want to ask him further in regard to his objections to the way the Foreign Mission work is carried on. He speaks of men being sent out by a rich Board. He said that was no sign, no evidence, of their being called of God. Did I claim that? Did I not show yesterday morning, in carrying out the features of identity, how they were called by the Spirit of God? how they prayed? how they were examined? how this Foreign Mission work was begotten by the Spirit of the Living God? Did I not tell you how the Warwick Association, in 1792, gathered its churches together, and set apart a day out of each month for a monthly concert of prayer; and how the bugle-note of Jonathan Edwards sounded over the seas; how on both sides of the seas the Christian Church on their knees besought God to baptize the Christian world with the missionary spirit, and open up the way of entrance to the heathen world? Brother Potter has never noticed it. And I showed how Carey went out from England, after praying and laboring some eight or ten years, and how the great field of labor was opened up to him in India, and the indications of the Divine guidance and favor given him in the glorious results that crowned his efforts. My opponent is not interested in these items.
Now, about the Roman Catholics. There is a quotation I will give you from Professor Christlieb, of Bonn University, in Germany. Here is what he says about the Catholic and Protestant Foreign Mission work:
“Eighty years ago the total sum contributed for Protestant missions hardly amounted to £50,000. Now the amount raised for this object is from £1,2000,000 to £1,250,000; about five times as much as that of the whole Roman Propaganda.”— The Foreign Missions of Protestantism, page 18. Five times as much as that of the Roman Catholics, whose numbers are more than double ours. They number two hundred and five millions! and you must remember that every one of their members have to contribute liberally of their means for this as well as for any other Catholic enterprise. This Protestant world contributes for Foreign Missions about five times as much as this Roman Catholic Propaganda, or the annual amount contributed by the Catholic world for missions. That is the fund to which all money for missionary purposes in the Roman Catholic Church is contributed. Though the Protestants use their own liberty in contributing to the mission cause, and not more than one-tenth contribute to it, yet they give five times as much as the Roman Catholics. So much for your Roman Catholic work.
But I must attend to Paul; we have been talking about Paul, and I do not know of any better worker than Paul to talk about. We will turn to that proof text. 
Brother Potter said, “Brother Yates, you did not know that Paul engaged in a missionary tour before he was sent out.” This chapter xiii. of Acts is troubling him, and he went to Galatians, and I will read the same. I love to read that. I and going to stand with you, my brother, on Gal. 1:15-17: “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.” Brother Potter said he was preaching there. Where did he get that in the Scripture? Brother Potter, where did you find that passage, if you please? You are going to the Book; where did you get the idea that he preached in Arabia? I could not find it. If you can find it, my brother, you will do me a great service. I want it. I say emphatically it is not there. I am with the Book with you today, my brother. We are on the Book. Called from his mother’s womb; set apart. I suppose we all understand that. Paul, like the prophet, in his inborn constitution was fitted to be an apostle, and the grace accepted by him only set him apart and prepared him for the sphere of service to which he was adapted.
We will turn now to an author who is a pretty good man. Let us refer to Canon Farrar’s “Life and Epistles of St. Paul,” page i m6, and see what he, one of the most scholarly of men, has said. My brother will call up one man and not name him: he will take the Missionary Magazine, and read from it, and say, “Here it is—I have it;” and when I take up a book to read to you, he says, “No sir; you have to go to the Book the Bible.” But you have commenced the business of referring to other books, my brother, and I am going to help you. Now I will read the quotation I spoke of:
“No one, I think, who reads this passage attentively can deny that it gives the impression of an intentional retirement from human intercourse. A multitude of writers have assumed that St. Paul first preached at Damascus, then retired to Arabia, and then returned with increased zeal and power to preach in Damascus once more. Not only is St. Paul’s, own language unfavorable to such a view, but it seems to exclude it. What would all psychological constructions lead us to think likely in the case of one circumstanced as Saul of Tarsus was after his sudden and strange conversion? The least likely course—the one which would place him at the greatest distance from all deep and earnest spirits who have passed through a similar crisis—would be for him to have plunged at once into the arena of controversy, and to have passed without pause or breathing space, from the position of a leading persecutor to that of a prominent champion. In the case of men of shallow nature or superficial convictions, such a proceeding is possible, but we cannot imagine it of St. Paul.”
Now this which i have quoted is a mere matter of opinion; but my brother gave his opinion as a fact of Scripture—as a scriptural fact. If he had said it was his opinion, I would have let it go, but I did not want him to quote a thing as Scripture for which he had not a “thus saith the Lord.” But suppose my brother’s position is correct—what does he mean? It would injure his denomination. Does he claim that a minister is authorized to preach in his Church without being ordained? Do you accept the ordinances from such hands? None of us deny that Paul was called from heaven, and that was what he meant. He need not consult with flesh and blood. None of us deny that he was conscious of his call; and so is every man who is called. The Church is the temple of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit. And why should he be sent forth? What is the Divine design in it? It is that the Church may stand behind him, and that he may be a worker—a representative worker.
Now let me read again what I have already quoted, and I must hasten. Acts xiii. 1—3: “Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers, as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. And as they ministered to the Lord, and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.” There is where they were sent to the Foreign Mission work—right there. He will tell you, though, when he gets up.
But we have got another little matter. He said if foreign missionaries were all like Paul—if they would go out and labor with their own hands, and look after their own self-support—they would be the Foreign Mission men for him. He and Paul get into conflict again. I will read now i Cor. iv. ii, 12: “Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling-place; and labor, working with our own hands; being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it.” He says he was buffeted, and had no certain dwelling-place, and labored with his own hands. Turn now to Acts xx. 33, 34: “I have coveted no man’s silver, or gold, or apparel “—I do not suppose any Christian minister does: I read this to show where Paul was when he did this work with his own hands. To continue: “Yea, ye yourselves know”—speaking to the elders and ministers from Ephesus at Miletus—” that these hands have ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me.” He supported others while he was at Ephesus. We will now turn to 2 Cor. xi. 7—9, and see what Paul says about the Foreign Mission, work. I want you to listen to this now: “Have I committed an ‘offense in abasing myself that ye might be exalted, because I have preached to you the gospel of God freely?” He said he had abased himself. Have I. committed an offense in doing it? he asks. “I robbed other churches, taking wages of them, to do you service.” He was sent and paid for it, wasn’t he? He speaks of wages. “And when I was present with you and wanted, I was chargeable to no man.” The gospel was first with him. He was chargeable to no man. That is the reason he worked with his hands, so that his acts might not be misinterpreted. Paul, how were you supported? This brother does not believe in supporting a man that way. But Brother Potter says you are his man. Let us see how that is. “And when I was present with you, and wanted, I was chargeable to no man, for that which was lacking to me the brethren which came from Macedonia supplied; and in all things I have kept myself from being burdensome unto you, and so will I keep myself.” That is pretty good Foreign Mission doctrine. I am ready with him on that. Now 2 Cor. xii. 13: “For what is it wherein ye were inferior to other churches, except it be that I myself was not burdensome to you?” They were inferior in not supporting their minister, and other churches had it to do; and Paul adds, “Forgive me this wrong.”
I must spend a few moments on the question why the gospel should be sent to the heathen. I want you to listen to it, brethren. Let me state the object of Foreign Missions again. The object of the Foreign Mission work is to get the knowledge of God through Christ to the heathen. That is it. Take the gospel, and go with it, and preach it to every creature. And my brother says that revelation is not absolutely necessary; but the Lord said it was. You see they differ. Jesus said preach it, and “he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned.” My brother, what are they saved from? If they are saved before the gospel is sent to them, what is salvation? What are they saved from and saved to? The Lord said it was important, and hence he commanded that the gospel be preached to every creature.
We will go the Book again. 2 Cor. iv. 6: “For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” It is God presenting to them this Saviour—bringing him before them. How can he preach unless he be sent?’ and how can they believe on him of whom they have not heard? We are giving them the Bible—this blessed book.
Now, I want to show you what has been done. In 1883 it was estimated that the number of mission schools exceeded 12,000 in these countries you see here on this map, and that the Bible—this Book my brother is such a stickler for, though he will not do any thing to send it to the heathen—that this Bible had been translated into 308 languages and dialects, while its circulation during the eighty years preceding had reached an aggregate of 148,000,000 copies, and within the time designated the annual contributions for missions increased from $250,000 to $6,000,000. In the beginning of this century there were but 50 languages into which the Bible had made its way in 3,300 years. Since 1800 it has created 70 languages in which to carry its inspiration—this missionary work has—and has enriched in all nearly 300 languages with 15,000,000 copies of the Bible. O this blessed Book! This precious Book!
A little touch on his civilization. As my time is going, I will just notice one point in that. He has been telling us about Cecrops, the founder of Greece. That was very pretty; but that was legendary, my brother. The trouble with Brother Potter is, he has been quoting from Guthrie’s Geography. He made a mistake on that. I think I will bring him over an almanac this afternoon. Though Solon was not the founder of Athens, yet was he the great legislator and statesman who laid the stable foundations of the glory and prosperity of Athens. It was he who gave Athens her great institutions and her culture. There it is in that book (referring to Johnson’s Encyclopedia lying on the table, Vol. II. page 313). Then he described how they went up from that beastly state. I will not use his language.
Here is Peabody’s Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, entitled “Christianity and Science.” He dare not reject him. He is one of the most learned men in Christendom. On page 197, speaking of Greece; we have the following: “The primitive power of life and death over the child, though not legally repealed, had fallen into disuse” (that was in the days of Jesus), “in consequence less of growing refinement than of the massing powers that had been distributed into the more and more autocratic sway of the emperor; yet still there seems to have been not a little of tolerated, not legalized, infanticide in the case of feeble or sickly children, and of those whom it was inconvenient to bring up—a license claimed by Plato, sanctioned by Aristotle, and, so far as I know, accepted without contradiction in all classic antiquity.” They killed their children, then, in this beautiful civilization he speaks of being developed by culture. A beautiful civilization that, is without the gospel! So much for our civilization.
Now in regard to the fruits of the work, I will go to McKenzie, the great historian. I quote from his “History of the Nineteenth Century,” page 210. This writer was not a preacher, my brother, but he is one of the greatest historians of today. Well, says my brother, you cannot read that, you have got to keep to the Book. Upon what testimony do you take a member into the Church, my brother? Is not the evidence you demand the fruits of his inner life? We have it in the Book here:
“You shall know them by their fruits”— you shall know them by the quality of their renewed life in Christ Jesus. Paul tells us how it was with the Ephesians. I will quote what he says before I read from McKenzie. Somehow I cannot keep out of this Book. Ephesians ii. 2—5: “Wherein in the time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together. and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus.” Paul was here contrasting the former state of the Ephesians with their latter state—contrasting their state in sin before they embraced the gospel with their condition after they had become Christians. That is just why he went into the heathen lands; it was that this wonderful change in character and society might be brought about. Suppose an individual is arguing with me that Christianity is a failure, because it does not produce the fruits in the hearts and lives of men which it claims to produce when properly received; suppose I can point to a bad community that has been given up to vice and crime, and all manner of sin; suppose a minister has gone down there and held a meeting, and good results have followed. They have built a church; a church-spire now gleams there in the sunlight; men have become decent and respectable, devoted fathers, husbands and brothers; the women have become loving and faithful wives, womanly women. Those lately given up to vice have become Christian men and women; they love the Lord Jesus with all their hearts, and love God’s work; the voice of prayer is heard in the family; they love to speak and sing for Jesus. Would not that be an evidence that God had done work there? That is just the way it is in the heathen land. These are precisely the results that have followed the teaching and preaching of the gospel to the heathen by the missionaries. Now I will read the quotation from McKenzie:
“During the first quarter of the century all the great missionary societies of Europe and America were formed, and missionary work was organized into a system. The Churches fairly committed themselves to an undertaking from which they cannot desist until heathenism is extirpated. Colleges were established for the training of missionaries. A vast network of auxiliaries for the collection of funds overspread Protestant Christendom. The Bible was translated into many languages hitherto unwritten. Grammars and dictionaries presented to the learner the simple structure of these rude tongues. Teachers of the gospel were to be found here and there in heathen lands, facing with heroic courage the dangers of the Christian pioneer, hearing with heroic fortitude his inevitable and often fatal hardships. Among the snows of Labrador, under the fierce heat of the tropics, in our Indian dominions, among the Hottentots at the Cape, in the islands of the Pacific, among our own negroes in the West Indies, men had begun in simple faith, with means conspicuously inadequate, the gigantic work of driving out heathenism and replacing it with Christianity. A little later China was entered by the door, which England opened in her determination to force the use of opium on that empire. A few missionaries found their way into Japan. Dotted along the western shores of Africa, and seeking their way into the interior, are numerous mission stations, each the center of a benign influence, which is steadily extending its power, and preparing the restoration of that lost continent to civilization and progress. The sum of these efforts, viewed in relation to the vast proportions of the undertaking, is still inconsiderable. Great Britain sends out one thousand missionaries, and expends annually six hundred thousand pounds. The Continental Churches employ four hundred missionaries at a cost of a hundred and twenty thousand pounds. America contributes five hundred and fifty men and three hundred thousand pounds. In all, there are now at work in heathen countries two thousand Protestant missionaries, and the Churches sustain the work by an annual contribution of about one million sterling.
These attempts to Christianize the world have been progress for upward of half a century. There is yet no more than time to open an enterprise so vast; but already there are materials from which it is possible to estimate the prospects of the missionary enterprise, and the grandeur of the results which its success must yield the gains which have been in some instances secured may be trusted to guide us in forming our expectations for the future.”
This man says they faced with heroic courage the dangers of the Christian pioneer, bearing with heroic fortitude his inevitable and often fatal hardships; and my brother wants to know if there were any martyrs among the missionaries. I will just read on, for this is as good as any thing I can give you. Commencing on the next page, 211, I will read a few minutes on this, and then mix in a little from the Bible:
“In the Southern Pacific, not far from the equator, he the Sandwich Islands, members of a vast insular family which stretches five thousand miles from north to south. The existence of these islands was made known to Europe by Captain Cook, who himself perished here, murdered by the natives.” This was in 1778. Now look at the change. This is not a Cumberland Presbyterian preacher saying this. “Every advantage of soil and climate has been bestowed upon them.” (There is your Nature’s God). “The grove of bread-fruit trees around the village is itself a sufficient maintenance for the population. The cocoanut tree yields food and drink. Its bark can be converted into clothing; from its leaves the natives manufacture baskets and fishing-lines, and obtain thatch for their houses. The sugar cane, the cotton and the coffee-plants grow almost without human care. Many trees yield valuable dyes and gums. Fish swarm on the coasts. Nature in her most bounteous mood has profusely endowed these lovely islands with the elements of material welfare. But the inhabitants had sunk to the lowest depth of degradation. They fed on raw fish and the flesh of dogs. They had found among the products of their soil a narcotic root which readily produced intoxication, and they used it to excess. Human sacrifices were frequent. The family relation was unknown. Lasciviousness was without limit or restraint of shame. Two-thirds of the children born were strangled or buried alive by their parents. So given to stealing were the natives that expert divers endangered Captain Cook’s ship by carrying off nails which fastened the sheathing to the timbers. The population was rapidly diminishing under the wasting influence of the vice which prevailed.” Then he goes on to tell the result. He says that missionaries went there, and their influence steadily increased. “In a few years the observance of the Sabhath was enjoined by law, applications for baptism were received, and one of the great chiefs, an old man who had spent his days in war, died professing Christianity. Gradually, as the missionaries were reinforced from home, churches and schools were built, and the whole population was under the influence of Christian teaching. In the course of years the Christian marriage was adopted, a temperance society was formed, and one-third of the people were attending school.
“Christianity made its way steadily until, in twenty years, it had become the accepted faith of the nation. The deeply ingrained vices of the old days were hard to conquer, and many disappointing falls grieved the missionaries. But upon the whole the progress in virtue kept pace with the progress in faith. The people became quiet, orderly, and industrious. From among themselves an adequate number of young men were trained for the ministry. It was deemed that the Sandwich Islands had ceased to be a field for missionary operations. The nation was Christianized. The native Church afforded men enough for her service, and means enough for their support. Fifty years from its opening the mission was closed.” Those islands today are baptized in the sunlight of heaven.


MR. POTTER’S THIRD SPEECH.
BRETHREN, MODERATORS, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:

It becomes necessary for me to notice some things in the speech that has just been delivered. The Bible says in one place that, the first shall be last and the last shall be first, and I was just thinking that if Brother Yates had a good speech written off by somebody else besides himself, he would be a splendid hand to deliver it. However, I do not want to incur a laugh on Brother Yates, for he does not relish that very much.
MR. YATES: I enjoy it if it does you good.
MR. POTTER: I never call on people to laugh. They will have to laugh of themselves, or refrain, as they see fit.
MR. YATES: That is right.
MR. POTTER: If Brother Yates, as a debater, causes people to laugh, I cannot help it; I am not responsible for it. I want to notice a few items in the speech we have just heard.
To begin with he refers again to Acts xxvi. 17, where the apostle was addressed by our Saviour and called to preach to the heathen; and, if you will remember, his own quotation represents the Lord as talking to Saul of Tarsus; it does not represent the Church as talking to him or any one else, but the God of Heaven. He points out a field where he intends him to preach: “ Into that country where I” [the Lord] “now send thee.” Remember that Brother Yates said yesterday, and I call on him to know why he said it—he has forgotten it, I presume—that the commission was given to the Church through the apostles. The only text he noticed in proof of that question was that the ministry was called and separated unto the Lord—“separate me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have called them. And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them they sent them away.” I admit that the commission is given to the ministry; the ministry was the men that laid hands on Saul and Barnabas. The Lord had called them to work. I do not object to any thing of that kind. I am not here to oppose the spread of the gospel. That is not the issue between Brother Yates and myself. I am not here to say that Peter, Saul, or Barnabas, or any other man, then or now, is doing wrong to go forth and preach the gospel in obedience to the commission. The work known today as the Foreign Mission is the work we are discussing. We have come here to discuss that.
He then says he will give a text, and gives the commission again, the very thing he gave yesterday: I referred to the commission yesterday and showed that it was given to the eleven. He has not referred to that; he has not disputed or questioned that. It stands today just as I left it the other morning in my first speech. I called on him to tell us, if the commission is delivered to the Church through the apostles, what the pronoun “ye” has for its antecedent in this commission, he has forgotten about that. Well, that is best for him. When one gets into a hard place it is best to get away from it as soon as possible. That is the safest. Then he goes to Romans i. 14. However, he quotes more, but here is the part he lays stress upon: “I am debtor both to the Greeks and the Barbarians, both to the wise and the unwise.” Brother Yates considers that to mean that Brother Paul owed something to the Greek and Barbarian, that bound him to take the gospel to them. The brother does not tell you how the contract was made, or how Paul became indebted to them. He does not explain that. But he infers from the language that Paul thought that he, was indebted to them, and that he must take the gospel to them because he owed it to them in the form of a debt. Brother Yates did not tell us why he said that; let us tell why. He goes on and finishes the 16th verse, which says: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” There is no one here to deny that; but he says that I say that it is not the power in even case. Of course he has allusion to the eternal salvation of the sinner; he has allusion to the regeneration of the ungodly; he has allusion to the conversion of an ungodly man to the Lord, and he makes the proclamation of the gospel, the publication of it, to the people necessary. He charges me with believing that the publication of that to a man is not necessary to the salvation of a man in every case. Does Brother Yates believe it is? What do you understand by that? Does he think or believe that the gospel must be preached to every person, or else that person not be regenerated? That is the thing he is talking about. Is not that your understanding of him? I want him to tell. I am going to charge it on him, that this is just precisely what he means, and he fights me for not believing the same thing, that in order to the regeneration and eternal salvation of a sinner, either here or among the heathen, the gospel must be preached. Brother Yates, when you preach, do you ever preach to little babies? Now if the gospel is essential in every case of regeneration and salvation, you had better go to preaching to little babies. Do you preach to idiots? If the preaching of the gospel to a person is necessary to regeneration and salvation, you had better go to preaching to idiots here at home. There is no man in this country, who has common sense enough to preach to a congregation like this, who ever preaches a word to little babies, or idiots, or lunatics. Now if the gospel is God’s only medium of communication to man, of communicating his Spirit, then they are left out of the scrape. Because I say that it is done sometimes without this, Brother Yates blames me. He says, and charges that I say, that the gospel is not in every case the power of God unto salvation, according to his version of it. Not only that, but I again charge on him what I did in the first instance yesterday morning, the universal damnation of all the heathen; and he said yesterday evening he believed if the heathen did the best they could according to the light they had, they were saved. Did they have the gospel? If they do they are not heathen; they are enlightened if they have the gospel light.
He then refers us to Psalm lxxii. 16, in connection with the parable of the sower recorded in Matthew xiii.; and of course, as he explains those two quotations together, if I notice one it will be an answer to both. Let us quote this Matthew xiii. which explains the test in Psalm lxxii. 16. The Saviour said, “Behold, a sower went forth to sow; and when he sowed some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up: some fell upon stony places where they had not much earth; and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up and choked them; but other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some a hundred-fold, some sixty-fold, some thirty-fold.” Here is the parable. According to the Saviour’s own explanation there are four different descriptions of ground, and he compares it to the human heart. That ground by the wayside is the human heart. That ground that is stony is the human heart. That ground that is thorny is the human heart. That ground that is good is the human heart. Now, Brother Yates would have us believe that the object of sowing the seed in the human heart was to convert it and change it, or make it good, or turn it to God. That is not the object, is it? I ask you farmers, is that what you sow seed for, to change the condition of the ground? Is that the object? No, that is not your object in sowing the seed. If it was the Lord’s object it did not do it. That seed that was sown by the wayside left the ground in the very same condition it was in before. I want Brother Yates to notice that. That is his own text. That seed that fell in stony places did not remove the stones, but left it in the very same condition in which it found it. That seed that fell among the thorns did not choke the thorns out, but the thorns choked the seed out; and in all three of these cases there was a failure to bring forth any fruit to perfection. Other fell into good ground.” What do we understand by that? The ground was necessarily good, or else the seed could not have fallen into good ground. It was good at first, the seed did not make it good; there may be ever so much of that good ground among all the nations of the earth for aught I know. We do not see any fruit, for perhaps the seed is necessary to be sown in order to receive the fruit; but it is not necessary to sow the seed in order to make the ground good. It is not necessary for the regenerate, because he is the man that has the good heart; and I will prove that by Luke vi. 43. I connect that with the heart. The Saviour says: “For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. For every tree is known by his own fruit. For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble-bush gather they grapes, A good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is good.” (It is not conversion there). “And an evil man—” that is, the man that needs converting—” out of the evil treasure of his heart bringeth forth that which is evil.” Those are the only classes of men written of in the Word, and one of them is regenerate, and has a good heart.
He has a good deal to say about what I said about the book of Nature. That was his own proof-text yesterday to prove that the heathen were without my excuse—that they did not have the law, but simply have the book of Nature, the invisible things which are seen from the creation of the world, and that ought to show them as being a revelation to the people of the character of God, and that he is the author of these things, and that ought to have convinced them that there was a God, and therefore they were without excuse. I said if that left them without excuse anciently, why not now? I did not say it did—but why not? I say there is a book of Nature for men to read; the apostle teaches that in that case.
Another thought: He says that I am at issue with Paul in connection with that case. Then he quotes another text that cuts his throat, whether it does mine or not; and maybe we will both be down here in a pile. He says they did know there was a God, and quotes a text to prove it. I had reference to that in this way—that if they did know him they would surely respect him in the sense in which it is used in Christianity, where, if they do know God, they are born of him, and in that sense they would love him. Then he refers us to the angel flying in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach to them that are on the earth, as proof of the Foreign Mission work. I will not notice all his texts; they are all about the same; none of them have Foreign Mission in them. He did not tell us particularly what part of that text referred to Foreign Missions, and I believe I will wait until he tells us what word, or what part of that text, made him think of Foreign Missions. My judgment is that no part of that text made him think of Foreign Missions, but that it was the pressure of the work today that made him think of that text. He accused me yesterday of getting up and laughing here. I am not a great laugher, but I laugh when I feel like it. I never put on a laugh, but if any thing tickles me, look out; I will laugh then.
Now I want to show you what made that laugh. There is a difference between the attitudes in which he and I stand here on these expressions. I do not stand in the same attitude on the subject of Regular Baptists that he does on the subject of Foreign Missions. I am not standing in the same position on Associations that he is on Foreign Missions before this audience. I am not standing here in a position relative to church clerks that he is relative to Foreign Missions. Do you know the difference? While we have Associations, while we denominate ourselves the Regular Baptist Church while we have clerks in our churches, we do not publish a challenge in the Gibson County Leader, or in any other paper, challenging the world that opposes the Regular Baptist Church, clerks, or Associations, that we will meet any respectable man, who comes with the endorsement of his Church, and affirm that Regular Baptist is authorized, so far as the Word is concerned, in the Holy Scriptures. He has done that relative to Foreign Missions. Had he not done that, he would not have been in this trouble. He has obligated himself to prove it. He has got himself here. Whenever I challenge a man to meet, me on any question, and affirm the proposition myself, and select the wording and forming of the proposition, I am not going to say to my brother that if he will prove something else that I certainly believe it will be impossible for him to do, then I will prove my proposition. That is the very thing he did yesterday. He comes up the first day of this debate, and says if I will show Regular Baptist Church in the Scriptures, or Associations in the Scriptures, or church clerks in the Scriptures, in the very next chapter he will show Foreign Missions. That is an admission, at least, that Foreign Missions are further from the Scriptures than Regular Baptist, or Associations or church clerks, for it comes in the next chapter afterwards—not before. So it is further from the Bible than I thought he would admit, for he says that Regular Baptist, and all those things, are entirely out of the Bible, and Foreign Missions does not come until the next chapter. That is what we are here to discuss— Foreign Mission—whether the Bible authorizes it or not.
Another thought: he says, in talking about the salvation of the heathen, that I believe in a doctrine—that is, he is not sure—but that I believe the doctrine that God saved all the heathen before the world was. However, he should know what I believe before he undertakes to tell the people. I believe that God had a purpose, and entered into a covenant with his Son before the world was, to save a certain people; and I believe they will he saved, in “every nation, arid kindred, and tongue, and people,” of every age, down to the end of time. I believe just exactly what the Cumberland Presbyterian Church used to believe, and do yet, if they have not revised it. I will bring Brother Yates’ Confession of Faith over here after dinner, and show it to him; the old one of course. I will not trust to the new one, because it is revised; I will show that it is just exactly what we believe on that subject. I do not know but what they borrowed it from us. Calvin is said to be an inheritor of the doctrine of the Waldenses, and we claim the Waldenses to be our people, originally. So says some ancient writer in Jones’ history. That is Cumberland Presbyterianism, as published in their Confession of Faith. They use language that is strong enough for me and my brethren when they speak of a covenant God made with his Son, “unto whom he promised a seed, and to be by him in time redeemed, called by his Word and Spirit, justified by his grace sanctified and glorified.” That is old Baptist doctrine. That is what I believe. Brother Yates, will you fight that doctrine? It may be that he will. You see Presbyterianism undergoes revision. I believe I will not join the Cumberland Church; but I do not say any thing against them, because I believe they are Christians. I believe they are as good Christians as I. But I do not believe I will join the Church, because they may revise tomorrow if I were to join today, and it will not be what I joined. While I believe in progression in some things, I do not believe in progression in religion. A truth that was a truth yesterday will be a truth at the judgment day. In religion, a truth yesterday, or when the Cumberland Church was organized, will be a truth when Gabriel sounds his horn. So let us not revise religiously. Let us not be so progressive as all that.
On the denominational work I want to talk a moment. He accuses me of teaching something that I do not teach, by the use of the Roman Catholic quotation I made yesterday evening. He has told us all the time of the grand results of the Foreign Mission work. He brings them forth as evidence of the blessing and owning of God. That is the best he can do. Just bring it on, Brother Yates. Is success an evidence? That is the question. What do you think about it? Does Brother Yates think that the success of the Foreign Mission work is an evidence that they are owned and blessed of God? What do you think after hearing his speech this morning? What do you think after hearing his eloquent quotations and headings from these historians? Does it not sound as though he thought we were to judge the tree by its fruits? Has he not said so much here this morning? Now just for the sake of showing him an institution that has done as much as any other denomination, I referred to the Roman Catholic Church. I did not undertake to equalize him with the Roman Catholics—nothing of the kind. I believe our Presbyterian brethren believe as much in experimental religion as we do, and as much in regeneration, and that it is as essential to eternal salvation as we believe it is, so far as that is concerned; but while we believe that, if the result of mission work is to be taken as an evidence that God is with them, then the Roman Catholics have the best evidence of any denomination in the mission field today that God is with them. That is what I used that quotation for. Brother Yates must not miss my arguments that way. He misses the proposition, and misses my arguments, and sometimes misses his own. Again, on the denominational work, Brother Yates said I said the Baptists went over there among the Presbyterians. I said Lutherans; that it was the Lutheran and Reformed Churches of Europe that the Missionary Baptists say, as I read you from their own works yesterday, were as much a mission field for soul-saving work as any other lands in the world. Who said that? A Missionary Baptist. That they ought to send missionaries to Europe to work among Lutherans and Reformed Churches, because their pulpits are filled with men who are unsaved themselves, and therefore incapable of affording saving grace to others. I do not think it necessary to send missionaries to the Lutheran Churches in Europe. If it is, why not send one to the Lutheran Church over in Evansville? Brother Yates ought not to speak of the Missionary Baptists as my brethren. They seceded and went into tile Foreign Mission work.
He infers, again, that my witnesses are not reliable. They are “not reliable.” He quotes reliable missionaries. I wish I could have seen Brother Yates beforehand, and found out what one or ones of the missionaries among the religions of the Protestant world were reliable, and what ones were unreliable, so I could have known from whom to quote. Whether they are reliable or not, Brother Yates hugs them in his arms in the proposition, for he embraces all the Protestant denominations in the world, and the Missionary Baptists are among them. It may be that missionaries are not reliable; I do not know. They get things mixed up terribly. I know what they say; it is not my business to find out whether it is true or not. They are Brother Yates’ subjects, and it is his business to find out whether they are true. He is talking about them, and says they are all good, and their labors are owned and blessed of God, as well as his own. I do class Brother Yates with the Missionary Baptists in the Foreign Mission work. He said himself that this work was not denominational. I quoted from one man yesterday—and, by the way he was in the field once, or else he is not reliable, sure enough. The title of the book is “The Great Commission, and is Fulfillment by the Church.” It is written by Mr. Carpenter, who was a missionary, and perhaps is now, to the Karens of Burmah. He says he was a missionary, but I do not know whether he was or not; and I do not know whether Brother Yates can tell or not. In fact I do not know lust how to tell to a certainty who are missionaries. Brother Yates thinks they are not, all reliable. I am sorry that is so. Then he refers to the Apostle Paul robbing other churches, and receiving wages from them “to do you service,” and so on. The apostle was serving the churches at that time. He was a preacher—a pastor of a church. Brother Yates does not claim to be a Foreign Missionary, I presume; yet he serves churches in this country. Paul served churches in that country.
Again, Brother Yates accuses me of saying something about Paul that I did not say exactly. About his going to Arabia, Brother Yates said that I said he preached there. I asked Brother Yates if he did not know that Paul took a missionary tour before the apostles laid their hands upon him, and then I quoted the text where Paul himself says, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.” Brother Yates says the Bible does not say he preached there. I do not say it does; but I do not know what he went for unless it was to preach. He quotes from a man who says he probably went there to be by himself for meditation. It was a long trip to go for meditation. The Saviour said go into your closet to pray secretly. He did not say go into Arabia, or some other foreign country to pray and meditate.
Romans X. 14: “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom. they have not .heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach except they be sent?” That is a Foreign Mission text. “How shall they preach except they be sent?” I do not believe they preach at all successfully unless they are sent. There is no difference between Brother Yates and me on that text, unless we differ about who it is that is to send them. That is the only difference that can arise. I do not believe they can preach successfully unless they are sent. If a man would come to me and say he was going to preach, and yet did not claim to be sent, I would not take much trouble to hear him. It is a necessary qualification for a minister that he must be sent. If he has no commission he has no authority, for that is what the commission is. Whoever has the right to command others is the one that sends. I call attention to Matthew ix. 37, 38, as an explanation to that word send. “Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest.” That is the way they must be sent; the Lord must send them. You are not to get up a Missionary Board to send them. That is not the instruction of the Saviour; it was foreign to that. The disciples did not happen to think of that; nobody else ever thought of getting up a Foreign Mission Board, to send missionaries abroad, until the seventeenth century. The Church stood 1720 or 1730 years before anybody thought of getting up a Foreign Missionary Society. The gospel had been preached further and more successfully by the apostles before that time than since, with all the many institutions and expediencies of the foreign missionary operations; That is what we propose to show—that the Lord was in the work.
I want to correct a little mistake concerning Japan— not of my own, but of my brother’s. I do not admit that missionary operations have been the means of regenerating a solitary soul. I did not admit that. I asked him if it had. I will tell you what I believe. I do not believe the Foreign Mission work, as carried on by the Protestant world today, is now, ever has been, or ever will be, the means of adding a solitary, single one to the number that shall be finally saved. Now you have it. I want you to understand it. I have not admitted that they have been the means of converting a single soul that would not have been converted without them, for I do not believe they have. There is where I stand. It is not a hard matter to understand a Regular Baptist, if you will take their own word for it.
We are not here to be explained by others; we are here to speak for ourselves. Just as sure as Brother Yates takes the position that the Foreign Missionary Societies save a solitary soul that would not have been saved without them, just that sure he makes Jesus Christ a failure. He charges Jesus with leaving out a very important institution, that was never thought of for nearly seventeen hundred years, that was necessary to the salvation of souls that never would have been saved without it. Let him take that position if he wants to if that will be his manner of preaching Jesus.
Now I will prove what I have said. I want to show you this gospel revelation that I do believe in. I want first to refer to Japan a little while. I said, according to the statements of the missionaries themselves, that they did not have ten thousand Church communicants in Japan today. You know there has been a good deal of noise about Japan. I gave that from missionary figures themselves. I did not make them. I have them in their own publications. Whether they are reliable or not, I leave Brother Yates to show. I will read you the following from a missionary paper, the Baptist Missionary Magazine, August 1885: “There are now 120 Protestant churches in Japan, with 7,791 members. Who said that? A missionary. A man that my brothers is fighting for. How many? “7,791 members, a gain of 2,200 during the year.” I take that from page 374 of the paper I named. Now I presume these Baptist missionaries know about as much about Japan as Brother Yates does, and that is what they say it is. I want to read you a little more about Japan. I do not know whether those 7,000 are converted or not; they are in the Church. It is not an evidence that a man is converted whenever you get him into the Church. It is not so in this country, I know. We often get people into the Church in this country, that prove very demonstratively afterwards that they never knew any thing about grace, and it may be so where it is so easy to “capture souls for Jesus Christ” in heathen lands. It may be so there. Let us see what they say about Japan:
“Japan, the Sunrise Kingdom, is said to comprise 3,850 islands, large and small, and with an area of 155, 520 square miles. The population in 1876 was 34,338,404. It is the most progressive nation in Asia, and the people are called the Yankees of the East.” Education is general, and a larger proportion of the people of Japan can read than of any other country in the world. They are ready to receive Western ideas, and buy and read the Bible and Christian books with avidity, but as yet chiefly from curiosity. The religions of the country are Shintoism and Buddhism, and by recent decree all religions are placed on an equality as to privilege in the empire. Missionary work in Japan is very encouraging.” I quote that from “The Missionary Handbook,” published by the American Baptist Missionary Union. Very encouraging they say missionary labor is in Japan. Nearly three-fourths as many people there as there are in our United States, and 7,791 members of Protestant Churches in Japan. They buy and read the Bible and Christian books with avidity. That is encouraging. But chiefly from curiosity. That is what missionaries say. O how encouraging! What grand things they are doing in Japan! Now if that is not reliable, it is one of Brother Yates’ men. It is a man that belongs to the Protestant world. He says it; I do not make it.
I want to speak again in regard to Paul’s trip to Arabia. I want to show you the difference between Paul and others. He did not stand and wait. He went immediately Now let us see. That is Bible missionism, and we will contrast it with modern missionism, and let you be the judges yourselves. I now take a quotation from the “Baptist Circular,” published at St. Louis, Missouri, as quoted by Coffey in his history: “The best of men stand waiting; only the money is wanted.” What is it? The best of men stand waiting. Paul did not wait. What are they waiting for? Waiting to be imbued with power from on high? No; that is not it. What are they waiting for? For the money. Brother Paul was not in that crowd. Brother Yates may have been, but Paul was not. What does this look like? “Pray for the Lord of the harvest to send forth missionaries.” Somebody must have been praying, and they must have been praying very successfully, for they have a large number of men, and the best men. Pray for what? To get them into the field? A large number of men are ready now. They will never go until the money is ready. They are waiting for the money. That is what they say themselves.
I will now take a look at one of our modern missions to the heathen, and learn the difference between them and Paul the apostle. I will give a report of a mission to Japan—just one denomination to one nation for one year—giving the expenses of the mission:
For the salary of the Rev. N. A. Brown, D.D 1,200.00
His mission work, rent, and Bible work 3,037.66
Salary of T. P. Poate 1,200.00
His mission work 1,069.58
Salary of the Rev. A. A. Bennett 1,200.00

Amount carried forward $7,707.24
Amount brought forward $7,707.24
His mission work and rent 957.13
Salary of Miss C. A. Sands 500.00
Her mission work 1,240.00
Salary of the Rev. F. 1-I. Jones, ten months 833.33
His personal teacher and mission work 280.37
His outfit 500.00
His passage 726.26
Salary of Miss A. H. Kidder 500.00
Her mission work and rent 1,198.60
Salary of the Rev. C. D. Fisher 1,000.00
His mission work 373.83
Salary of Miss M. A. Whitman 500.00
Her personal teacher 111.05
Salary of the Rev. H. H. Rhees 200.00
His mission work,including $132.22 collected in the field 5,200.00
Salary of the Rev. G. H. Appleton, is months 916.67
His personal teacher, rent, and mission work 600.00
Special grant 500.00
Total amount of Japan Baptist Mission, for one year $20,844.48
That is modern missionism I have the book here from which the report is taken—their own report of their expenditures. That is one mission to Japan by one denomination among all the Protestants of the world—a mission to Japan amounting to over $20,000. This looks to me considerably like a matter of dollars arid cents. And let me state again, this mission society is over $5o,000 in debt. And yet my brother gets up and tells us that the eternal interests of the heathen are dependent upon this work. Let him dare to say that money is not necessary to run it. I dare him to say that it can be run without money. He will not do it. Now, money is essential to the salvation of the people, according to the modern mission work. Now, after all this, how far have they got in Japan? I do not know how many other denominations are working there, but today, according to the same authority, they have 7,791 members. That is all the Protestants together in Japan. What would that be in the United States? What would that be among the people of the United States from the Mississippi River east? and Japan has about as many people as that, if not more. That is what they are doing in Japan.
Now I want to show you what they did anciently. And I want to say first that the apostles and their successors did not have the advantages that people have today. They labored under great disadvantages. In the first place, there were no such things as mails and post offices in their day nor for about 1,400 years after the apostles began their work. Notice how inconvenient, how much difficulty there was in communicating from one man to another, in different localities. No mail, no post-office, nothing of the kind; and if I wanted to send a message or letter to Brother Yates from Cynthiana, I must employ my own messenger or carry it myself. No such thing as sending letters or messages by mail for two, or three, or even twenty-five cents, at that time, nor for a long period afterwards. Second, They had no telegraphs or telephones by which to send news from one city or locality to another. Third, Their means of transportation and travel was not like ours. Instead of going by rail or by steamship, whey they traveled by land they traveled on foot or with camels, and when they went by sea it was by sails and oars. 
Fourth, They did not have the use of the printing press, by which to print tracts, books, and papers, or even the Bible. The Bible was only in manuscript, and a copy could only be afforded by few. 
Fifth, The Scriptures they did have were not compiled in their present form for some time after the days of the apostles. 
Sixth, They had no Christian country to start from. The Jews, their brethren, had crucified their Lord, and were ready to kill and crucify them for the testimony which they bore for Jesus. And, with all these disadvantages, I want to see what they did. God was with them. We want to sec how it compares with our present modern system of missions. With all these facts before us, does it not seem a Mission Board was as badly needed at that time as at any time since? Is it not strange that our Saviour did not tell them to tarry at Jerusalem until proper arrangements could be made by the organization of a Board, and a sufficient amount of funds could be raised, instead of telling them to tarry at Jerusalem until they were imbued with power from on high?
We will now see where Paul and those other missionaries went, before Missionary Boards were ever thought of: “The Christian religion was introduced into Sweden and Norway in the ninth century. The gospel was preached in Lapland, by ministers from Denmark and Norway, before the inauguration of Foreign Missions. Christianity was introduced into Russia in the tenth century. The gospel was preached in England by the apostles and their disciples. Christianity was first introduced into Scotland by some of the disciples of St. John the apostle. The Christian religion was introduced into France long before Foreign Missions were introduced.
The gospel was preached in Belgium long before modern missionism. Long before the Reformation the gospel was preached in Germany. In the Austrian dominions the Bible was known by the people before the Reformation. The Protestants worshipped in bohemia and Moravia prior to the Reformation. The Christian religion was taught in Prussia without the aid of Foreign Missions. In Italy the Waldenses suffered more bitter persecution from papal Rome during the dark ages than in any other part of the world. In the support of the gospel, under Christ’s plan, in all these countries, the servants of God, in humble obedience to the great commission, were self-sacrificing, God-fearing men; and instead of being supported by appropriations from the State, or wealthy Mission Boards, or Church endowments, they were only clothed with the authority of the commission from the Lord; and from their undertakings to fulfill it they exposed themselves to the most violent persecutions, and suffered the most cruel punishments that the merciless hand of paganism could invent for nearly three hundred years, and then were ground under the iron heel of papalism for about twelve hundred years. Driven from one country to another, their property often confiscated, many of them burned at the stake, many of them imprisoned, banished from their homes, often their Bibles taken from them and burned, they still persevered in the goodly work, and the gospel of our blessed Saviour spread in the midst of flames, and the streaming of innocent blood of men, women, and children, who were hunted and butchered like the wild beasts of the forests, women drowned, their daughters sewed up in sacks and cast out for beasts of prey to devour. In addition to all other aggravations, to put an end to this glorious work of publishing the name of the blessed Jesus as the only Saviour of the lost, and defending his Word as the only standard of Christian faith and practice among a bigoted priesthood and Church dignitaries, the Inquisition was invented, and became one of the devil’s instruments to put a stop to the devotedness of these godly people. They were determined that Christ’s banner should not continue to be unfurled and wave in the light of the gospel. Yet in the face of this opposition the gospel spread, and the God of heaven blessed their labors, until we and our children today are reaping the rich harvest that has come of the gospel seed sown by them.” There is where we have got it from, instead of from the Foreign Mission work. It came from them. This missionism was, and is, authorized by the Holy Scriptures, and it has always been owned and blessed of God. It is as foreign from the present Foreign Mission work of today, as Aaron’s golden calf was from being the God of Israel. It is an insult to those holy martyrs of old to talk about there being an identity between their missions and the modern Missionary Societies. God was with them. They did not have to take an army of men to conquer the people, and let the apostles preach to them. They did not have to get a decree from the Governor, to allow the apostles to preach. But they went, and you and I owe what gospel we have today to the Lord, through them. The blessed privileges that we today have, reading the Bible, hearing the gospel, and from it understanding God’s will, we owe to them, and not to the Foreign Mission work. Hence, I want to show you they were not backed up by money; not only that, but that they were opposed to it. I refer you to Jones’ History of the Christian Church, page 356:
MR. YATES: Is he a Baptist?
MR. POTTER: No, sir, not that I know of.
MR. YATES: I guess he is.
MR. POTTER: All right. Mr. Yates says Mr. Jones was a Baptist. He will be against him if he was a Baptist. However, I will quote him anyhow. Baptists have a right to show what they believe.
MR. YATES: he was dishonest. I will show he was dishonest, this afternoon.
MR. POTTER: This is not Jones, but a quotation Jones gives in his history from another man. We will see whether that man was honest or not.
“Hence these most ancient Reformed Churches of the Waldenses, if they rather continued not pure since the apostles’ days, denied that tithes were to be given, or that they were ever given in the primitive Church, as appears by an ancient tractate inserted in the Bohemian history. The pastors of the poor Waldenses, the ancient stock of our Reformation, without the help of tithes, brought up themselves in trades, and especially in physic and surgery, as well as in the study of the Scripture, which is the only true theology, that they might be no burden to the Church, and, after, the example of Christ, might cure both soul and body, through industries adding that to their ministry which he joined to his by the gift of the Holy spirit.” Again: “The Waldenses, our first reformers, both in the Scriptures and primitive example, maintained those among them who bore the office of ministers by alms alone. Take their words: Our food and clothing are sufficient, and administered and given to us by way of gratuity and alms by the good people whom we teach.”
That is the way it was spread. No man that is acquainted with the history of the Church will dare say the Waldenses did nothing and made no effort to support the gospel. They dare not say the Waldenses made no sacrifices for the propagation of the gospel, the dissemination of the divine truth—this divine ray of light—and were ready at all times to expose themselves to the most bitter treatment for the sake of the gospel at that time, and the bones of those holy martyrs bleach upon the mountains of Italy who had been burned at the stake for the sake of that gospel. They taught, and argued that the primitive Church taught, that some one must support those who worked. God blessed the work.
Again, on the subject of the fulfillment of the commission, Brother Yates would make you misunderstand me. I recognize the brethren and sisters of Brother Yates’ Church as just as good people as I dare be. I recognize the fact also that there are hundreds and thousands of men and women among those missionary laborers that are good Christians, and born of God. Good men may sometimes be mistaken. He called upon me this morning to prove that. He said I must necessarily say these men were self-deceived or hypocrites. I do not know why I must necessarily say any thing of that kind. I do not see the point. I do not think it is necessary for me to say that Brother Jenkins is self-deceived or a hypocrite because he is not a Regular Baptist. I have no right to say it. I believe he is a Christian. I differ from him, and believe he defends something as being right, or in the Bible, that is not taught there, but is differently interpreted by myself and others. That does not say he is dishonest or self deceived, or that he is insincere in his pretensions.
On motion of Mr. Potter, the debate was removed to the church of the Regular Baptists.