Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The True Missionary Spirit in the Church the Measure of Her Christian Principle: A Sermon, Before the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, at Their Meeting in Springfield, Mass., October, 7, 1862
The kingdom Of God on earth; its actual condition when this prayer was Offered; the organizing principle and the far reaching design Of it; such are the leading thoughts presented by this single petition of Christ. 'the kingdom of God - the kingdom of the Redeemer on the earth - what was it then, when this prayer was Offered, one day before the crucifixion? Its King, a despised carpenter of Nazareth; its organized sub jects, twelve illiterate Jewish fishermen and peasants; one of whom had already sold the royal Head Of this magnificent kingdom, and was at this moment making preparations to seize and deliver him to his enemies. The kingdom Of Christ - on the evening preceding the day upon which Herod's men of war were to array its King in the purple robes Of a mock royalty, and to place upon his head, in the bitterest derision, the likeness Of a kingly crown-what were its prospects? How highly, then, did men value its prospective places of preferment, and those seats of dignity and power, which the sons of Salome had so eagerly coveted? We may see how highly, from the fact that the most shrewd of its adherents, the one man among their number who, because he was a man with a practical talent for this world's business, had been appointed high treasurer Of the kingdom, sold his place, hisprospective emoluments and his King, all together, for sixteen dollars and some cents, current money of the Jews.
One day more - where now is the kingdom Of the Galilean? Yonder stands an empty cross, bearing on its head-piece the title, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews. Where now is the man who, with a quiet audacity which, in the eyes Of worldly prudence, was mere midsummer madness, had dared to say, beneath the very shadow Of the Roman Eagles, and standing front to front with the Roman Procurator, Thou sayest that I am a king Where now is the aspirant to the royal honors Of the lineage of David A dead man, he fills a felon's grave, in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea. The sepulchre has been closed, and the Signet Of the hierarchy has been placed upon it. That long and troublous day ended. The sun, which had emerged for a little season from the deep blackness Of a mid-day tempest, has gone down in blood. The gloom of its setting has deepened into darkness. The Roman guards gather around the grave Of the crucified King, to watch and to listen. NO sound. Profound silence reigns in the sepulchre. The dead man sleeps soundly and well. And his disappointed followers, where are they? Scat tered, and skulking in the valleys of Jerusalem, and in the lurking places of Olivet.
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