18 ]NTER-SE~[INARY lIISSIQNAUY AI~LTANCE.activity a fad, a by-play, an U enterprise "-. something apart from theeasentlal life of the Church itself. I know not how better to concludethan with the earnest prayer that the great Head of the Church wiIIcause this annual meeting, with all its brotherly conferences, to contribnteto the strengthening of your organization, to the increase of itspower, on one the hand O\·er its members, on the other, over studentsand teachers, and the churches which they serve.The World Crisis.ADDnE~s lJY REY. J. T. )IC CRORY, PITTSBURG, PENN.. I am most happy, my young brethren beloved, to address you atthIS the tirst eveomg session of your ninth annual convention. It hi,certainly, 3 most thrilling and suggestive sight to see these hundredsof candidates for the Gospel ministry gathered from all parts of our~road hl..nd to this historic city, to consult and confer together concernIDg the IDterests of Immanuel's kingdom. The growth of this AII,'a. h' ~IS ~omet 109 phenomenal and is certainly one of the signs of the times.It IS. less than a dozen years since your speaker left the halls of thesemInary, and yet he does not remember during his entire course to haveheard .su~h a movement even mentioned among thE" students. Yes,surely It Ie one of the sigos of the times. And, as we gather here underthe very shadow of that old Bunker lIill monument may we t'd I h h' ,no lOu.g~ t e o.pe that a mightier revolution than was inaugurated in thepohucal aft" .. of the world by the battle it commemorates has al db' d . . , rea yeen maugurate III the Ideas and methods of world evangelizationpartly, ~t least, thr~ugh the instrumentality of this organization? I~addresslDg you to-mght I s.hallendeavor 10 stir up your pure minds bway of remembrance and ID~l'lrd your earnest consecrated h yte i · th ' earts togrea r zea 10 e cause of {Jl lr adorable King Jesus N 11b d . . 0 e ort wille ma e to bring forward an, new thing thoughhi d ., you are convened int s mo ern Athens, but rather, going back eighteen hundred and .years, and getting ciose to the man of Nazareth and catchin u fiftywords that fall from the gracious lips of that g p thegreatest of all teach Ishall speak to you of the CRISIS OF TUE Wo' ers,· RLD.. J esus Is ID J erus8lem. It is the first day of .ki ' paSSIOn week H ispea ng to his dIsciples and others who are about hi f th' e sevents of that sad week, and he shudders as h f mo. e dreadful'bl .'. e arecasts hiS Own tfJ e 8uuerlngs, and 1D an agony of soul cries t h' h erhII ' 0 IS eavenly J
INTER-SEMINARY MISSIONARY ALLU.NCE.longer to endure the sight, culls fol' flood. from beneath and floods fromabove, and drowns the guilty race, and washes the world from its sickening,unutterable pollutions, Even then tbe evil did not cease. AsthE' world was repeopled, abominations abounded more and more amongmen. The very atmosphere seemed surchargcd with a malignantmoral malaria that infected every soul. SiD ahounded; crime rankled;vice festered; lust, in bestial foulness and unblushing front, stalkedabroad, and evil seemed to dominate the world. No wonder the vengeanceof heaven was let 100:3e again and again upon men, and tribesand cities and nations smitten with bolts of wrath, consuming themwith fire from the skies, desolating countries with famine and pestilenceand war, and literally stamping out of existence whole tribes and peo·pies under the terrible tr.ad of quaking judgments for their intolerablecrimes. Nor has this awful force of evil suspended for one moment,at any time, in any age or any clime, its dreadful operations. From thevery beginning up till this solemn hour, it mnst be confessed, there hasbeen a tremendous force that makes for wickedness, holdingsway in theworJd, and working awful and appalling evils among men. At thesame time there has been always and everywhere evident in the marchof events another force in direct and determined opposition to theevil. Sometimes, as has already been suggested, this power thatoppo~~s t~e evil a.nd m~ke s for righteousness has shown itself omnipotentIn Us maDlfestatlOns of force in contending- with sin and crimeIt has, without a figul'e, hurled the red·hot thunder bolt out of the Sky:~as sh~ken the earth untIl It has trembled upon its everlasting foundatIOns,till oceans have been upheaved and cities submerged and thewhole face of nature changed. And yet it must b. confessed that forthe first four thousand years of our hil:!tory the advantages were not soevidently on the side of goodness as to leave no doubt concerning thtinaloutcome. It is true, indeed, that some even in those far-ofI t' e. f . IIDessaw signs 0 certaIn and glorious triumph for the Cause of truth.They wrote as though r?cording the history of a glorious reign of right_eousness and peace, whlch, standlDg out againstthe dark back-ground of~hose sorrowful ages, made a pictul'e beautiful as a dream of the morn-109, sweet and fresh as a vision from some unfallen world 'I'h. . d d'd . ' ey sangInspire poe~ 1 ,lD such lOfty, thrilling strains of coming victory tha;their songs stIll start the pulse and warm the blood now aft thf B h h er ousandso years. ut, 0 ! t ese men had a telescope wbich brought into viewan age Bod a world that were off mnny centuries in the fut d· k • ure, an theysang 0 f a t rlUmpu that IS.yet to be accomplished.What then?Theconte8t~ d urlDg the"le first four thousand years-the fse orty dark andd readful centurH's-were but the skumishing incid t tIen 0 the greatBtrugg e, t h e fore·runnel'S of the pitched battle of the .th Ii hI' h great campaigne g lng t at went before and prepared the way for the d ,. 'battle of the war.eCidIDg•'I'HE WORLD CRISIS. 111Tbis crisis was precipitated by the coming of God's own and oDlybegottenSon in the flesh, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, UpOD thearena of earthly conflict, and taking up the gage of battle on our behalf,and settling at last, and once for all, the Cjuestion of rulersbip over allthe forces of creation. That was tbe crisis, Then was fought the battleof the ages. All the forces engaged in that mighty conflict, so faras the cause of righteousness was concerned, were summed up in thatone person, Jesus of Nazareth. Tbe final contest had begun years before,after" fast of forty days in the wilderness, and bad swept on overmountain and plain and even out on the tossing billows of the sea, butwas concluded at Gethsemane and Gabbatha and Calvary. That battlefieldwas scarcely two miles in circumference. Beginning down in tbelonely garden, in tbe dread midnight hour, wben all the powers of darknesswere burled in d eadly persistence against a lonely man, it sweptaround and up the mountain side, through tbe gates, and into the veryheart of Jerusalem, There for weary hours was held a hand-to· handcontest, till at last when tbe sun had rise n and was half was up theeastern sky, one side seemed to g ive way, and the battle, in mightysurges, swept out through the western gate to Calvary. The event wasan agonized prayer, a shameful betrayal and arrest, desertion by hisfriends and the awful hiding of His Father'S face, an arraignment beforea most unrighteous t ribunal, a travesty of justice in condemnationof immaculate innocence to crucifixion, a crowning with thorns, an unmerciful scourging that flayed the tender flesh frDm back and loinsand death upon a cross amid curses and scolfs aud ribald jeers, andstrange sights and 'sounds, and darkness dire, and a world-convulsion.That was the crisis of this world. From that most cursed andmost bleS!:ied moment, the future was secure-evil shall be overcome,goodness shall dominate tbis world; tbe powers of darkness are putto flight, and it is only a question of time, and that time fixed in the uuchangingpurposes of heaven, when the last vestiges of the devil IS badrule shall be swept from earth, and Christ sball reig n su preme. There wasthe turn oLtho tide, From that moment all the forces of this world whichhad been burled so persistently and successfully against righteousnesswer~ marshaled under a m ighty leader, and turned against evil. Not thattbese forces were all at once and completely arrayed to figbt, for allthat was in them, on behalf of righteousness, but, that they were beingswung into line, and such an organization of them was begun as couldnot fail in the end to produce a resistless force for good. Our meaningis that the social, political, educational, industrial, commercial andspiritual agencies of the world were given a new direction, and thatfinally they would all be marshaled under tbe banner of the cross saone grand and resistless army for the complete salvation and conquestof the world. It is true that just at tbis point we may enCO'lnter someserious objection. It Is held by many that tbe world crisis of wbich
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