Page:The future of Africa.djvu/195

blessed the wise efforts of faithful men and holy women striving to save souls and to glorify Christ, so we have every spur and incitement to press on in our work, looking for and expecting gracious results to follow faithful labors. With all our hopes and encouragements, however, we must remember that the Divine blessing waits chiefly upon those efforts of His people that are in accordance with the universal law of fitness. Random zeal and injudicious energy accord with no law of His government, and, as a consequence, bring forth but few of the fruits which are the result of His perfect system. The kingdom of God, in all relations, is marked by the presence and the power of this great principle, that is, the adaptation of means to ends. The law of order rules and reigns under the highest spirituality and the most exuberant grace. The Holy Spirit breathes, and vivifies, and enlightens, in strict accordance with the most rigid system. There is nothing erratic in the kingdom of grace. All the facts of Scripture, though at times seemingly confused and disarranged, have, nevertheless, underlying them great laws of regulation. There is a science of Scripture; so, likewise, there is a science of the application of Scripture. So far as the facts which may serve for precedents are concerned, God has given us but few in the Bible. The Acts of the Apostles seems to be the history mainly of missions among civilized people. What was the course of the immediate followers of the Apostles, in their work among the rude and barbarous pagans of old, we know but little of. We have, however, the whole broad field of modern missions for nigh three