Let missionaries by all means listen to what is said in favour of new views, let them modify or change their views if they think they see scriptural authority for the change, but I am profoundly convinced no shifting of our doctrinal position will secure success. Looking over the whole field of foreign missions since the end of last century, it is undeniable that God has done great things by them, for which we have abundant reason to be glad; and we know the teaching by which the desert has in many places blossomed as the rose. New phases of doctrine have yet to win their triumph. We must look in another direction for a greater degree of success--to more unreserved devotedness to Christ on the part of both missionaries and those who send them out; closer communion with Him; a higher degree of attainment in the mind which is in Him; a more persuasive deliverance of our message, and a larger effusion of God's Spirit.
[Sidenote: THE HEART'S OPPOSITION TO THE GOSPEL.]
The great obstruction at home and abroad to the acceptance of Christ as the Saviour is moral obtuseness, a dormant conscience. Our Lord's words throw a steady light on man's neglect of the great salvation, "_They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick._" Till men know they are sick, and recognize the deadly nature of their sickness, there will be no application to the Great Physician. In addition to the indurating effects of sin everywhere, the people of India have been for ages so drugged, I may say, with pantheistic and polytheistic teaching, that if man's moral nature had been destructible it must have been destroyed ages ago. Happily it can not be destroyed. Perverted, stupefied, dormant, though it is, it still exists, and to it we can therefore address the message of Heaven, while we look up to God to make it effectual by the teaching of His Spirit. When man knows himself to be a sinner, when he knows what sin is, then, and only then, whether in India or in England, he casts himself with joy into the arms of the Saviour.
I am surprised when Christians speak as if only a modification or a new statement of doctrine was required in order to achieve full and immediate success, as if they had never read such passages as "_The carnal mind is enmity against God_;" "_The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God_;" as if they were ignorant of the facts by which these statements are so amply and mournfully attested; as if they had never heard of One who appeared, as ancient sages longed to see, clothed with perfect virtue and dwelt among men, and was yet rejected and crucified by them; as if they knew nothing of His apostles, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, and yet had to lament over many hearers to whom their message was the savour of death unto death. Musing over the controversies of the day, the wish has often arisen in my mind: Would that the nature of sin was not kept so much in the background! Would that it was seen in its offensiveness to God and injuriousness to man--persistently daring high Heaven, while corrupting, degrading, disquieting, and ruining man! Would that the scriptural view of sin and sinfulness, which receives such ample confirmation from human experience and history, was more considered in the adjustment of doctrine! All readjustment in which the nature and effect of sin is not kept steadily in view must lead to serious error--error which misrepresents God's character and government, is inconsistent with facts meeting us on every side, and must prove most hurtful to man. I am convinced that while on some points there has been progress, and wise modification of doctrine, on the subject of sin the theology of former days was truer to Scripture and fact than the theology of our time.