isa-normaladvance-1914-00086
| Description: |
86THE NORMAL ADVANCEWyt £?>tubent Volunteer ContentionFAUN McKAMEYTHE Seventh International Convention of the
Student Volunteer Movement for Foreign
Missions was held in Kansas City, Missouri, from
December 31, 1913, to January 4, 1914.These Quadrennial Conventions are an out¬
growth of the Volunteer Movement which came
into existence nearly a generation ago—the first
convention having been held in Cleveland, Ohio,
in 1896.The distinctive and very significant purpose of
this movement is to furnish the Mission Boards
of the United States and Canada with student
volunteers who are capable of ministering to the
physical, mental and especially the spiritual needs
of our brothers groping in ignorance and darkness
in non-Christian lands.Further, it is the aim of the movement to cause
students, whom God has not called to go to the
Foreign Fields, to build up at home a strong
foundation on which world-wide expansion of
Christianity may be established.The movement has not been found wanting in
efficiency. Within the past twenty-six years 5,882
of its missionaries have gone out to give their
lives to the work of establishing the kingdom of
Christ. They have been sent by more than
seventy Mission Boards. The largest number of
these volunteers (1,739) have gone to China and the smallest number (26) to Arabia. It has been stated that two-thirds of the student volun¬ teers go out from Canada and the United States— the Christian colleges of all the other nations combined furnishing the other third.One of the most potent means of carrying out the object of the movement has been developed in the Volunteer Conventions, which are the largest gatherings of Christian students in the world,and which give convincing evidence of the wonder¬ ful spiritual solidarity of the students of North American colleges.These conventions afford a splendid oppor¬ tunity for a review of the volunteer work done in the preceding student generation, and for the making of plans to be carried out in future years.The watchword of the movement is The Evangelization of the World in this Generation. Its realization, however, will never be brought about until each student volunteer and each indi¬ vidual Christian makes this watchword the governing principle of his life. He must feel that God has called him to do his part in bringing every living man into the presence of the living Jesus Christ. The plans of the church must be made to sweep the most distant horizon. Colleges and universities must stand shoulder to shoulder in the great work, strengthening their Christian Associations, organizing Student Volunteer bands, and canvassing for Mission Study classes. The world must remain unevangelized so long as there exists indifference to the ideal and purpose which should ever be our guiding influence. In the words of a gTeat misisonary, We must indeed be more terribly in earnest.The recent Convention at Kansas City was marked from beginning to end by unity and ex¬ ceedingly great spiritual power. It sounded out the call for missionaries to a body of five thousand delegates and awakened them to the fact that each is his brothers keeper. It filled these dele¬ gates with a new enthusiasm to aid in the evan¬ gelization of the world. It carried them to the mountain top where they might catch the vision and then sent them back to their schools, alive to the pressing need of the hour and determined to make permanent the impressions of Kansas City. |
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| Source: |
http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/32534 |
| Collection: |
Indiana State University Archives |
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