As I was going out of the building, a woman said: "You ought to be ashamed to ask this town for five thousand dollars, with our church already in debt." I went away and wondered whether I ought to be ashamed of myself. Here is what happened: Next morning that woman telephoned to me, and I went to see her. "Mr. Cory," she said, "I have decided to give five hundred dollars." I said the customary thing, of course: "I would like you to sign an agreement to that effect." "No," she said, "I might change my mind." And later she sent me word that she had changed her mind. I went to see her, thinking she had decided not to give anything. "So you have decided not to give anything?" I said. "Who said that?" she demanded; "instead of five hundred dollars, I will give you a thousand." I never said a word about signing that time! When you get a contributor going in that direction, don't interfere. Next morning she telephoned: "Come over here as quickly as you can." When I got to her house, she said: "Mr. Cory"-her husband was a physician-"for the last two nights I have hardly slept. Something in this appeal of yours has inspired me to increase my gift to the amount needed to build the hospital you need!"

Well, the million dollars was raised, and I turned my face toward China. The proposal was made by one of our members that he would be one of a certain number of men to give another million dollars. Then we had the idea to include all our missionary societies and make it two million five hundred thousand dollars for our various interests; and at last came that incident of which Mr. Long has already told us-when he said he would give a million if the denomination would give five million in addition. When I telegraphed my wife that Mr. Long had decided to give a million, she telegraphed me in reply: "You will not raise the other five million because of Mr. Long's million dollars; you will raise it only if you will immerse the enterprise in prayer."

HOW ONE BUSINESS MAN'S INTEREST IN MISSIONS BEGAN AND DEEPENED

CHARLES A. ROWLAND, ATHENS, GEORGIA

I AM ASKED to do a very hard thing. But if my testimony will help other laymen, it is perhaps worth while for me to speak.

I have not been different from other business men. I was an average Church member, I suppose. I attended service regularly; was superintendent of a mission Sunday-school; a director in the Young Men's Christian Association, and took an active interest in the work. Altogether, I felt a smug satisfaction in thinking that

I was just about as good as any other Church member; when I compared myself with other Christian business men, I felt that I was doing all I ought to do. But my world was no larger than my local town. I hardly had a thought outside of it, except when occasionally I went for a few days into other parts of the State. But outside of my town and my State, I had no special consciousness of responsibility. I was satisfied.

In 1898 a friend of mine told me that he was going to attend the Student Volunteer Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, and asked me to go with him. Largely because the trip appealed to me, and for the sake of being with this friend, I decided to go. At that Convention in Cleveland-about sixteen years ago-I got the vision that has meant so much to my life. I saw there was something else besides my own town and my own State. For the first time I had a vision of the world, and for the first time I saw that I was responsible to my Lord and Master to do what I could to make Him known in this world. It came to me with an overwhelming force. I never shall forget the address of Mr. Wishard there. At that time he had been up and down this land leading men and Churches to support their own missionaries. This talk impressed me tremendously. I had a conversation with him about his great idea. It seemed to me that that was the place for me to take hold. The more I thought of it, the more the conviction was burned in on me: "If you mean business, here is your chance." I hunted up the secretary of our Foreign Mission Board at the Convention, and asked him how many missionaries were supported by individuals. Four or five were mentioned. He went on to tell me: "At present we have a medical missionary in Korea who is supported by a doctor out in North Carolina, and this doctor has written me. 'If you can get anybody else to continue the support of the medical missionary I am supporting, I am willing to go out to Korea myself."" That made it look pretty strong. I thought the matter over that night, and the next day I said to our secretary: "Tell that doctor in North Carolina to go to Korea, and say that I will stand behind his medical missionary," although at that time it took about twenty per cent. of my income to do it. But I thank God that He led me to undertake it. I put myself into the work then, and He has led

me on.

I think I never enjoyed a trip as I enjoyed the journey from Cleveland back to Athens. I was to be a "citizen of the world," as one of our speakers has said. I was to have a part in it now, and my influence was to go out to the ends of the earth. Then the thought came to me: "If this means so much to you, what about other men? Think of the crowds of men all around us; perhaps if they knew what you know, and had seen what you have seen, they would want to do the same thing." I began to think about how to reach other men and carry on this good influence and good work.

At that time there was a vacant room next to our office. I said to my partner: "I am going to fix up that room back there." So I got a map of the world, a desk, a table and chairs, and opened up a missionary office. I had no definite idea as to what I was going to do, but I wanted to get ready to do something. I cannot go into all the details more than to say that the first step I took was along the same line that brought to me blessing. I wrote to pastors of our Church to know whether there were not men who were able and likely to support their own missionaries. As names were suggested by the pastors, I sent letters to these men, asking whether they would not support their own missionaries. The Lord encouraged me by putting it into the heart of a man in Carrollton, Georgia, to support his own missionary, and he has looked after him sixteen years. From that the Lord has led me on in other things, as I was willing, and as I gave more time. There has always been something to do in that missionary office. I hope this testimony may help some of you men to see that the thing the Lord wants is willingness. He just wants us to be willing to get out into service. Oh, men, if you will do that, although you may not have any more conception of what you are to do than I had when I opened that office, I believe the Lord will use you and make you an advocate for Him that will lead other men into this blessed privilege which we who are in this missionary business know it to be.

I could go on to tell you how the work has developed in our Church, how at the Student Volunteer Convention at Toronto, in 1902, just four years after Cleveland, the Forward Movement for Missions in our Church was begun.

I see in the audience Dr. Alexander, of Kentucky. He will remember that in 1899 we began missionary campaign work; he was the first man to link himself with any such work. He was in college, and gave his summers to visiting Churches as a student missionary campaigner. He assisted in beginning this Forward Movement in our Church which resulted in virtually every missionary being supported by some individual or some Church. At that time there were only about 160 or 170 missionaries. I have seen the receipts of our Church grow since 1902 from $162,000 up to $631,000.

One of the things that has held me true and firm to this purpose and to this work was something I read. I referred a moment ago to Mr. Wishard. We kept in touch for some years. He was present at Toronto, and assisted in starting this Movement. He sent me a book in which was a quotation from Eugene Stock, then Editorial Secretary of the Church Missionary Society of London. That quotation gripped me so firmly that I committed it to memory. Though I have not seen it for many years, I believe I can give it to you:

In the great Eternity which is beyond, among the many marvels that will burst upon the soul, this surely will be one of the greatest, that the Son of God came to redeem the world, that certain individuals were chosen out from among mankind to be the first-fruits of the new creation; that to them was committed the inconceivable honor of proclaiming the glad tidings of salvation to their fellow-creatures still in darkness, and that they did not do it. Centuries were allowed to move slowly by, while myriads of the lost race were passing into that mysterious and awful eternity without the knowledge of Him who died for them. Those chosen ones in each age who knew Him were not without love and loyalty. They did glorify Him in their lives and sometimes by their deaths. They defended His truth; they cared for His poor; they gathered for His worship. But-but-the one grand purpose of their existence as the living spiritual Church, that they should be witnesses unto Him unto the uttermost parts of the earth, that they should 'preach the gospel to every creature'-this they failed to fulfil. Here and there an individual among them would rise to a conception of his calling; a Raymond Lull or a John Eliot would spend and be spent for the perishing heathen; but the Church, the spiritual Church, was asleep. At last some few members of it awoke. They stirred up others. The evangelization of the world was undertaken. Yet how feebly! And all this while, the Lord, whose promised advent they professed to look and long for, was tarrying because the work was not done that must be done before His return. In Eternity, we repeat, will any feature of the Past be more startling than this?

That is the
That is the

It gripped me tremendously, especially the truth contained in those last words: "Because the work was not done that must be done before His return." That is the work we are to do. work which the evangelization of the world is to do. work that is to bring in the Kingdom, and that is the work that you and I can hasten; and when I think of it it thrills me to realize that every day, when I do something to make this known, I am doing that which is to help bring in the Kingdom. This is what it means to me to be linked to this great proposition. I get great joy and deep satisfaction out of the thought that my life is reaching out to the ends of the earth. I get this satisfaction because I am doing what my Lord wants me to do, and I realize that my service and my work will help bring in the Kingdom and hasten the day. when this reign of sin shall be ended.

LAY NOT UP FOR YOURSELVES TREASURES
ON EARTH

A. A. HYDE, WICHITA, KANSAS

LAST NIGHT, after that stirring address by Mr. Mott, showing us the open doors in all parts of the world (there are very few closed doors now upon the face of the earth), I went to my room and copied these verses from the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew: "And as He sat upon the Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto Him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of Thy coming, and of the end of the world?"

"And this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come."

I am wondering whether Christ is not nearer His second coming than we have been taught to realize. It has been a subject that I have always avoided, but it has been recurring to my mind that the time set by Christ for His return shall be when this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached to all the nations. In view of that fact, what shall we say of the material things that we are seeking for so earnestly? Will the things, which we call our "assets" when we make our annual inventories, be treasures that we should like to show to God when He calls on us to give an account of our stewardship? How about our bank stock, our lands, our houses, and our mines? For a good many years I was a banker, and I know something about what good investments are, and of the satisfaction of making a success in business (and it is a great satisfaction to make a success of business). I believe that every man should put his abilities in his business with all his might, if the Lord has called him to a business career. Just as we expect the missionary or the preacher of the Gospel to put all his abilities into his work, should we not do the same? If God has given us abilities for making money, should we not use these abilities to aid in building up the Kingdom of God? Do we not know from experience, and from the testimony that we have had in this meeting, that God gives us the ability to make money? And if God gives me the ability to make money, will He not hold me responsible for the use of that money for the building up of His Kingdom on the earth, exactly in the same way that He holds the man responsible whom He has commissioned and given the power to preach the Gospel?

About twenty years ago I suppose I was worth somewhat more than a hundred thousand dollars, and I was making money rapidly; but the Lord took it away from me. I praise His name that He did so, for it was the best thing that ever happened to me. I learned a lesson, and now I am trying to lay up treasures in heaven. Just as the testimony has been to-day from other men who have spoken, my testimony is that there is delight, a perfect delight, in giving back one's earthly gains for the building up of God's Kingdom. During the last few years I have made it an invariable practice to turn down opportunities for investment, and I have many opportunities to make good ones. There is a comfortable feeling about making good investments and in getting good dividends. But the pleasure that comes from having money on hand for immediate use in building up the Kingdom of God is infinitely more satisfying and delightful; and we have the promise of God that these deeds will bring satisfaction and delight in the world to come. I wonder whether it is worth while for me to give illustrations of what I mean? I have had many of them, some of them quite recently. Just before I came here a letter came to my desk. It was an appeal