15All the facts and statistics given in this chapter are taken from “The Call of Korea,” by H. G. Underwood, “The Korea Field,” and personal letters, and recollections and Mission Official Reports.
15All the facts and statistics given in this chapter are taken from “The Call of Korea,” by H. G. Underwood, “The Korea Field,” and personal letters, and recollections and Mission Official Reports.
Pentecostal Blessing—Special Meetings—Prayer Answered—Confession of Sin—Revival in Schools—Great Meetings—Bible Study—Effects of Blessings—Transforming Power—Holy Spirit Revival—Comparative Statement of Growth—Features of the Great Work—Union of Christians in Korea.
Pentecostal Blessing—Special Meetings—Prayer Answered—Confession of Sin—Revival in Schools—Great Meetings—Bible Study—Effects of Blessings—Transforming Power—Holy Spirit Revival—Comparative Statement of Growth—Features of the Great Work—Union of Christians in Korea.
The story of “How the Spirit Came to Korea” reads more like an extract from the Acts of the Apostles than an account of what could have happened in our modern matter-of-fact world. More than twenty-four years ago mission work was begun in this country, but before we relate that story of first beginnings, let us turn to the last page and look a little, as best we may at a distance, and see how God had been crowning and perfecting His work of grace there.
It seems to the writer, in looking back over the history of events for beginnings and causes, that the beginning as far as can be told was at the conference for prayer and consecration held by all the American missionaries of both Methodist and Presbyterian denominations in Seoul, August, 1904. There had then come upon all present, unexpectedly, overwhelmingly, a powerful impulse toward closer fellowship and entire union in work, and the conviction that the native Church in Korea ought emphatically to be one. Men were swept away with an irresistible tide of enthusiasm. No one wished or attempted to resist the mighty movement of the Spirit. All who were present testified to the blessed sense of the presence of the Spirit of Love. Heartsglowed; brother drew nearer to brother; misunderstandings, differences, divergencies of method, of creed, seemed trifling and insignificant; difficulties vanished away or were brushed aside; and they voted unanimously for a Council of Union of all the missions working in Korea, and for a United Native Church of Christ.
It was a blessed experience, but, as might have been expected, the powers of evil would never quietly submit without interference to a measure so calculated for their overthrow, so in keeping with the Lord’s will, and there forthwith sprang up in the minds of a few, difficulties, doubts, mistrusts and hindrances. Nevertheless, a similar meeting was held in August, 1905. A Union Council was then regularly organized with officers and rules. Plans were made and various committees formed to forward and perfect the organization of one United Native Church of Christ in the near future. Again one Spirit seemed to fill all hearts. One impulse of holy love to our Lord and to each other seemed to move us all to one supreme consummation—obedience to the dying command of the Master, and we all felt that He would follow this with still greater blessings.
In the fall of that same year, Dr. Hardie and other missionaries of Won San received a baptism of the Holy Spirit with power, characterized by a deep and searching sense of sin and God’s awful holiness and majesty. This experience was extended to the native Christians as well, and with deep repentance came a new feeling of peace and a greater zeal and consecration than ever before. To the other mission stations and communities of native Christians the news of this came, as well as thrilling accounts of what God was doing in Wales, in India and in other parts of the world, and a great longing filled all souls. “Bless me, even me, also, oh, myFather,” was the continued cry of their longing hearts.
Dr. Hardie came to Seoul and held meetings with some of the native Christians and the missionaries. Many felt that they had received a blessing, but there was no very marked or general revival.
At the annual meeting of our Mission, 1905, there was one afternoon set apart for a special meeting of the women missionaries for mutual conference as to the best means of bringing Koreans and themselves into closer and fuller walk with God, and to pray for renewed consecration. It was a solemn heart-searching time. They seemed to realize that all their efforts and prayers and desires had hitherto been but half-hearted compared with what they should have been, and ere they parted, they, on their knees, joined in a mutual promise to pray by name every day for the quickening and full sanctification of each other. It is not possible to put into words the deep impression made on the minds of most of the women present by the Holy Spirit, in that little meeting.
Not long after, a little printed pledge to pray daily for the outpouring of the Spirit on the Korea missionaries, on the native Christians and on the heathen communities, was sent by one of the Southern Presbyterians to each missionary in Korea to be signed and kept if he wished. It was simply putting into definite form the leading of the Spirit in all our hearts, a united cry, “Bless me, even me, also, oh, my Father.” It was the cry heard in our little circles of prayer. It was the continued petition of our closets, the principal thought and desire filling our conscious moments. The natives were moved as one man with us. Some of the little churches held nightly meetings of prayer for this blessing. For months, even years, some had been holding these meetings before the foreigners began.
The women in some of the churches met regularly to pray for this. It was the chief theme of their requests at all their services. How they prayed in secret none but God knows, but each man and woman knew how he or she was led to besiege the throne, with a spirit that would not be denied, that with fasting and strong crying, continued in supplication before God. It was prayer divinely led, for even as the blessing was demanded, as it were, the weak flesh wondered how such large things as we were irresistibly impelled to ask could possibly be expected. We prayed that there should be Pentecostal outpourings; that thousands should turn to Christ; that the great class of the nobility, (as yet untouched), so bound down by caste, by custom and social usage, by political requirements and family duties and bonds, should come into the kingdom; that the church should be spiritualized; that Koreans, intellectually converted, should realize the hideousness of sin; and that we, natives and foreigners, might “comprehend with all saints what is the height and depth and breadth and length and to know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge and be filled with all the fulness of God.”
These were the prayers that had been unitedly offered by all the missions at the conferences held every year since August, 1904, at the churches, native and foreign, at family worship, in little neighborhood prayer-meetings, in the closet and as they walked the streets or went about their work.
As has been said, the first blessings had fallen upon Won San. The next report of which I have note is from Mokpo, where Mr. Gerdine held services in October, 1906, twice a day for a week, from whence the report came, saying:
“The word was like a scalpel, laying bare the secretsins and hidden cancers of the soul. Strong men wept like children, confessing their sins, and as they realized the Saviour’s forgiveness and peace with God, their faces shone and the church rang with hymns of triumph. Men stood six deep waiting to testify of blessing received, sins forgiven, differences healed, victory over self, and baptism of the Spirit. From the beginning the spirit ofprayer,intercessionandconfessionwas poured out in a remarkable way.”
In August, 1906, a Bible and prayer conference was held at Pyeng Yang, by the missionaries of that station, for the deepening of their own spiritual life. Dr. Hardie, of Won San, was present and “helped them greatly,” and Mr. Lee writes that there was born in their hearts the desire that God would take complete control of their lives and use them mightily in His service. Immediately after this, at Seoul, during the Annual Meeting of the Presbyterian missionaries, many of them received much blessing and aid in meeting Dr. Howard Agnew Johnson, who had already been greatly used in helping the Seoul missionaries. He went to Pyeng Yang later and stirred up fervent desire in the hearts of native Christians by telling them of the wonderful blessing poured into India, “and from that time natives and missionaries were praying for the blessing, till it came,” says Mr. Lee. To one looking back over the whole history of events, it had already begun. All the previous fall and winter we had seen that something wonderful was happening. A new spirit was abroad. There was a shaking and rustling among the dry bones. Christians were not only praying but working. Even those who had never done much hitherto, would go out into the country and spend several days or even weeks at a time, preaching to unbelievers and teaching Christians,the letters that came from other missions and other stations in all parts of Korea to the capital as booksellers and native helpers sent in their reports, all were of the same nature; “Not enough books, tracts and hymn books for those who want to buy,”—“The Bibles all gone. Unpublished new edition all sold in advance,”—“Churches and chapels crowded,”—“Inquirers multiplying,”—“Numbers of baptized and newly enrolled catechumens far in advance of any previous time,”—“Missionaries over-worked,”—“Hospitals paying their own running expenses better than ever before,”—“Many new groups formed,” till our hearts thrilled and we felt “this is surely the Lord’s doing and it is marvellous.” God was answering the prayers of His people.
In our churches the sight of the increasing crowds every Sunday deeply stirred us. To see the throngs which not only filled to suffocation the little buildings but stood crowding the windows and doors, was to us who had seen the first feeble timid beginnings of a little handful of men and women, beyond power of description, glorious and thrilling. We knew that this eager, anxious throng were there becauseJesus of Nazareth was passing by. At every service Christians came to the missionaries bringing those who had made their decision for Christ; from one or two to whole families. Idols were cast away and Christ was chosen. We could hear the Master’s stately steppings and we felt that the place whereon we stood was holy ground.
In Pyeng Yang, fervent prayer was continually offered for a special manifestation of God’s power, by natives and missionaries in special daily meetings as well as in private. Just before Christmas special noon meetings were held by the missionaries for the Men’s Bible Training Class. These men from the country, said by Mr.Swallen, who had charge of the enrolment, to number about one thousand, had come up for the winter Bible class, from many villages and distant districts. Some had walked many miles, most of them bringing their supplies of rice with them. On January 6th, evening meetings for the Class and the people of the city began in the large Central Church which holds about fifteen hundred. As it would have been much too small for an audience of both sexes, it was arranged for the men only to meet in this building and the women were asked to meet separately in four different places, and the schoolboys in the Academy chapel. The Central Church was full of men every night. The meetings grew in power until Saturday, which was best day of the whole week. Sunday evening the expected blessing was withheld, but on Monday night the wonderful manifestation of God’s Presence came.
It was marked, as had been those in Won San and Mokpo, by “a spirit of prayer,” conviction of sin, confession and intercession. Awful and overwhelming conviction of sin was its most marked feature. Men wept, groaned, beat their breasts, falling to the ground and writhing in agony. Mr. Lee, speaking of one of those who confessed said, “In a broken voice he began to pray and such a prayer I never heard before. We had a vision of a human heart laid bare before its God. As he prayed, he wept. In fact he could hardly control himself, and as he wept, the audience wept with him. We all felt as if we were in the presence of the living God.”
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings, the same wonderful manifestations, the same overwhelming sense of the immediate presence of the awful glory of God. Mr. Hunt says of them, “Two or three most earnestprayers were followed by such an outpouring of the Spirit as I had never before witnessed—great strong men, half a dozen at a time, pleading for forgiveness and confessing their sins in great agony of spirit. From that day on there was not a day without some new proof of His presence with us individually and collectively. There was public confession of sin that brought agonized groans from the entire congregation. There were private confessions to God which brought strong men to tears. There were similar confessions to men, accompanied by restoration or other real mending of wrong. It was a time of praying such as we had never known before. The prayer meetings were crowded. The meetings held each evening in the big church were crowded, men only being admitted. Whole companies were reduced to tears. In the boys’ schools the work spread and to those at first most sceptical came the most bitter suffering. Between these schools had sprung up some bitter rivalry. By reason of the Spirit’s work among them, love and an earnest spirit of intercession has taken its place.”
On the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday the same manifestations of power were felt in the advanced school for girls and women, and at the Central Church Boys’ School, which had been experienced in the men’s meetings. On Thursday the Spirit fell on the primary school for girls. Mrs. Bernheisel went down to the girls’ school in the city and found the Spirit there also; she wrote, “The Spirit of God literally fell on us, and we couldn’t help but weep and confess our sins.” Saturday night the power fell upon the women of the church.
“All through the class, the women had been meeting separately,” says Mr. Lee, “but there had been no specialmanifestation among them, and it was decided to hold special meetings for them also in the Central Church on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings following. On Saturday night the power was felt and the women agonized over their sins and confessed as the others had done, and on Monday and Tuesday evenings the meetings for women being continued, God’s mighty power continued to be manifested. So great was the strain that one of the women became unconscious.”
Mrs. Baird writes that “it was a matter of regret to all that the Pyeng Yang college and academy was not in session at the time of the gracious visitations described by Mr. Lee. Several of the resident students were led through a very wonderful experience, and on all sides the earnest hope was expressed and the prayer offered that the beginning of the spring term might witness another wonderful manifestation of God’s power and that not one of the students might be left unvisited.” Several days before the opening of the school, “informal prayer meetings, attended as well by several of the Korean members of the school faculty were held in the Principal’s study. One morning, feeling burdened, he sought out his fellow (missionary) worker who had been much exercised in prayer and the two knelt together and prayed for the descent of the Spirit upon the school. It was at that hour that the storm broke in the study. Cries and sobs of anguish filled not only the room but the whole house.”
For two wonderful weeks the work went on among the boys, with whom meetings were held every day at four. “No attempt was made to lead these meetings. Indeed, leadership would have been impossible. All were prostrate on their faces and all alike except those who had already received a blessing were in an agonyof repentance. Sometimes they beat their foreheads and heads against the floor, sometimes they literally writhed in anguish,—then when there seemed no more power of resistance left they would spring to their feet and with terrible sobs and crying pour out their confessions. No human power could have dragged these confessions to light.”
At the beginning of the school term the usual curriculum was laid aside, the first week was devoted to Bible study and prayer, reserving the evenings for devotional services with the whole school. On the first evening one young man after another sprang to his feet and testified to a sense of pardon, peace and joy. But these were only a small part of the three hundred young men and boys present, and many remained “cold and lumpish as ice.” The battle was between our God and His forces on one hand and all the hosts of Satan on the other. Students who had received a blessing spent hours of every day in prayer andsome spent whole nights on their faces before God.
At the meeting of the second evening, before ever the leader took his place, the tide of prayer began rising and though three young men arose one after another and attempted to lead in prayer, their voices were not heard in the tumult of intercessory supplication that broke out. As prayer continued, the building began to resound with groans and cries. Many fell forward on their faces on the floor.
At this meeting and two that followed it was noted that while most of the Presbyterian students had been reached, the body of Methodist students was still largely untouched. The local Methodist preacher, an unusually able manhad from the first been opposed to union in the school or in any other way, and had used his influenceagainst it. He had longed for a blessing on his people and when it fell first on the Presbyterians was jealous and displeased, and it was feared in several quarters that he was using his influence both in the pulpit and the class room to throw discredit on the movement. Special prayer was therefore made for him by native and foreign members of both denominations. On Friday evening the break in the Methodist ranks began. One young man after another, members of a band who had agreed together that they would stand out against the prevailing influences, gave up all pretence of resistance and cast themselves on the Lord for mercy. At midnight there were as many as fifty risen to their feet awaiting their turn to confess their sins. During the evening many threw themselves on their knees before the preacher and confessed that they had done wrong in yielding to his influence. Conviction seized upon him and at the close of the meeting this proud man was weeping in the arms of the missionaries and sobbing out penitent confessions of coldness, wilfulness and jealousies. During the remaining evenings there was little disposition to resist the Holy Spirit. Then the Lord began pouring out His blessings upon the Methodist congregations in the city and the same wonderful manifestations were exhibited here that had been seen elsewhere.
Mr. McCune said of the men’s meetings. “The room full of men was filled with voices lifted to God in prayer. I am sure that most of the men in the room were praying aloud. Some were crying and pleading God’s forgiveness for certain sins which they named to Him in prayer. All were pleading for the infilling of the Holy Ghost. Although there were so many voices there was no confusion at all. It was all a subdued perfect harmony. I cannot explain it with words.”
“We missionaries had our union meetings with the Methodists one week before the class began. They were a source of the richest blessing to all of us and when we were closing Thursday evening it being suggested that we continue the meetings for the next week or so at noontime, we decided to do so. Daily we have been waiting there and praying for the Holy Spirit.We have no leader for the meeting. Each one who enters the room quietly kneels down and as he is led prays.”
“We find that these meetings of ours are blessedjust in proportion as we spend the whole time from first to last on our knees in prayer or proffering requests forprayer or thanksgiving,precluding much conversation or discussion, even upon the progress or incidents of the revival.”
The blessing fell on both Methodists and Presbyterians, on missionaries and natives. Mr. Noble, of the M. E. Church of Pyeng Yang says, “We are having the most wonderful manifestations of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the native churches that I have ever seen or heard. Perhaps there has been no greater demonstration of Divine power since the Apostles’ days. At every meeting the slain of the Lord are laid out all over the church, men and women are stricken down and become unconscious under the power of conviction. The whole city is mourning as people mourn for their dead. Many spend whole nights in their homes agonizing in prayer, either for their own pardon or in behalf of others. The people break out in spontaneous prayer. Hundreds of voices fill the church with a murmur that has no more discord than would the notes from so many instruments of music.”
From Syen Chun Miss Samuels writes of the coming of the Spirit in power in January. Mr. Clark wrotefrom Seoul, “During the past month, February, the most marvellous working of the Holy Spirit in the hearts of Christians in this city has been the subject of daily conversation. Revival meetings have been in progress in all the churches. I am reminded of the history which records the wonderful results that followed the preachings of Whitfield and Wesley.”
So the power spread like wildfire from station to station and from little country group to group, at the country classes and among both Methodists and Presbyterians, time and space failing here to give extracts from all the thrilling reports that were sent.
And now what were the results of this wonderful revival? Was it a mere wave of emotionalism? Korea had known Christianity for many years but never before had anything been seen like this.
What results can it show as a seal to its divine origin? “By their fruits ye shall know them,” said our Lord. “Men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles.” Satan does not cast out Satan, and here on all sides we see following these revivals sinners converted, those who had done wrong making confession and restitution of money and goods, the churches crowded to overflowing with inquirers and new believers, the coffers of the Lord’s treasury filled, and men of different denominations lovingly joining hands, putting away old jealousies, forwarding the Lord’s kingdom shoulder to shoulder. Let me quote again a few particular instances mentioned by men working in different denominations in various parts of the field.
Mr. J. Z. Moore, writing to “The Korea Field,” says, “Many incidents could be told but two must suffice. A young man who had been a Christian for some time received a strange new fire into his life and went to hisparents, who were not Christians, pleading with them in tears. They gave up keeping the saloon they had had for twenty years and are now earnest followers of Christ. In two large towns about a half mile apart there were two quite strong groups. Ever since I have had the work I have been trying to get them to unite and build a church, but a church quarrel has always frustrated not only our plans for the church but the Lord’s work in that section as well. The revival came and there was great confession in agony and tears, of pride, jealousy and hatred, and now they are united in the building of a large tile-roofed church. Besides the Bible study classes, nearly every one of the larger churches and some of the small ones have had revival services lasting from one to three weeks. The native preachers having taken part in the Pyeng Yang revival took the lead in this work,which has resulted in transforming churches all over the circuit. These meetings were times of heart-searching prayer, confession of sin and restoration and straightening up of the past in so far as was possible. This was followed by a real sense of sins forgiven, joy in the assurance of the new birth and baptism of the Holy Spirit in cleansing and power for service.”
“These revivals,” he continued, “have taught me two things. First, the Korean is at heart and in all fundamental things at one with his brother of the West. In the second place these revivals have taught methat in the matter of making all life religious, in prayer and in a simple childlike trust the East not only has many things but profound things to teach the Westand until we learn those things we will not know the full-orbed Gospel of Christ. Best of all,” he adds, “this revival has written another unanswerable chapter of Christianevidences. The old gospel of the cross and the blood and the resurrection now has become a free, full and perfect salvation to multitudes and has taken literally hundreds of lazy, shiftless and purposeless Koreans and turned them into very dynamos of evangelistic power. Not only this, but it is proven that Christianity does satisfy the spiritual needs and hunger of the people.”
Mr. Clark writes from Seoul: “The most conspicuous thing, in the whole church life for the year was the great Holy Spirit revival in February. The church was shaken as never before and, purged as by fire, now under the guidance of the Spirit they are reaching out for others. The three city congregations were never so much one in thought as now. It has been a beautiful year of growing together.”
Mr. Cram writes from Song Do: “I thank God that His mighty transforming power is realized by the Korean heart in definite expression.”
Mr. McCune writes: “We have not been counting the new believers as we did in previous years. There will surely be in all four churches, Methodists and Presbyterian, in Pyeng Yang, at the close of the meetings not less than two thousand new believers, if we may judge from the way they seem to be coming now.”
Mr. Gerdine, of the Southern Methodist Mission, wrote, September, 1906, “The past year has been one of large increase in numbers throughout the church in Korea. It is probable that thirty thousand new believers have come in during that time.16Our own church has shared in the general prosperity and advancement. This is true not only of the district as a whole but each circuitwill show a good increase over last year. Here is a comparative statement of growth:
16This refers to the whole Church, the 2000 above referred to being in Pyeng Yang alone.
16This refers to the whole Church, the 2000 above referred to being in Pyeng Yang alone.
This is the growth in one church after the revival spirit had fallen upon many of its leaders in Won San and it has not been less wonderful in many of the others.”
Mr. J. Z. Moore says there has been a gain of at least one third in membership over the last year, (in many churches it has been 50 per cent).
Mrs. Baird says, “The night schools in the city were shaken. There were meetings in all the churches for the unconverted and between twelve hundred and two thousand came out at that time for Christ among the Presbyterians in Pyeng Yang alone. At the meetings of the missionaries there were sacred times, all hearts melted in a wonderful solvent of love. Work spreads to the country classes and churches like holy fire.”
The money given by the churches of the Presbyterian missions nearly doubled the amount contributed the previous year.
Pledges for a certain number of days of evangelistic work have become common and at one of the Bible classes held in Seoul, men promised in addition to otherChristian work and precious pledges, an average of seventeen days apiece for the coming year,—enough in all to make one man’s entire time for six years, and the rule is that these pledges are more than kept, most of the people exceeding the time promised.
These are simply a few of the results of this great work of God in Korea. In every station and village, in large cities and country districts, the fruits are being gathered. Let those who are permitted a share in it thank God.
Before finishing this very incomplete review, there are several features of it which should be noted.
1st. It was preceded, as has been noted, for a period of three or more years, by a constantly increasing desire and fervent united prayer of missionaries and natives—desire and prayer undoubtedly inspired by Him who intended to give—for the Gift of the Spirit.
2d. It simply fell upon the people waiting before God in insistent, believing prayer, without having been worked up in any way by exciting appeals to emotion.
3d. It came to a people who, during a knowledge of Christianity of some twenty odd years, have never had anything of the kind in their religious life, and have never shown signs of great excitability in their deepest Christian experiences.
4th. It was marked, everywhere the same, by a realization of the awful blackness of sin, consequent upon an acute sense of the immediate Presence of the terrible Majesty of the Most High and followed by agonizing repentance, confession and restitution.
5th. Wonder and regret have been expressed at the kind of sins confessed by some of these native Christian people. It must be remembered that they were Christians who had come out of heathenism with no previousChristian training and breeding, that they were living surrounded by heathenism, but poorly instructed, and some of them, no doubt, had never been more than intellectually converted.
It must be remembered also that the Apostle Paul addressed admonitions to early Christians, whom he evidently considered real Christians, who had had the benefit of his inspired teaching and who had seen the miracles, and perhaps been present at Pentecostal outpourings, who were guilty of the darkest sins on the calendar.
Again, is it not a fact that when we come to God or our brother and confess in a general indefinite sort of way to general indefinite sort of sins, when nothing in particular seems to us to be an intolerable burden of sin, there is little genuine repentance, only a half pleasurable sentimental feeling of regret that we are not as perfect as we could wish? This repentance meansnothing. When men confess particular sins they are really repentant. And again, one of our most well known pastors in a large city said with deep emphasis, when this wonder was expressed, that were the Spirit of God to come with the same power to our American churches, the revelations of depths of sin would not be one whit less appalling than those in Korea.
It is, however, greatly to be deprecated that those who have heard these confessions should make them a subject of idle gossip. They belong only to the confessor and his God and, perchance, the one who was wronged. It seems to the writer an awful thing to meddle in such a matter, sacred to the Holy Ghost.
6th. And this seems to the writer an intensely significant fact. This revival was preceded, accompanied and followed by a burning desire on the part of thegreat majority of all Christians of every denomination and nationality in the country, for union, for one Church of Christ in Korea, an uncontrollable, Heaven-inspired conviction that there in Korea, then, at once, if possible, the Lord’s last prayer while on earth for His Church must be fulfilled, and that we must be one in effort, in aim, in name, as we were already in heart, that the differences and old worn-out historical divisions of the Occident must not be foisted upon the Orient, that in the words of the devoted Bishop Harris, we missionaries had not gone across the Pacific to establish a Methodist or a Presbyterian church, but to advance the kingdom of the Master, that native Christians were not converted to Presbyterianism, Methodism or any other sect but to the Lord Jesus. This was the spirit which preceded and followed the revival and which in Pyeng Yang, where the power was felt by the greatest number of people and perhaps in the most overwhelming way, seemed more general than elsewhere, and right here I feel impelled to quote the words of Mrs. Baird in regard to the daily prayer-meeting of the missionaries alone of both denominations.
“All denominational lines seem wiped out forever and we wonder that we could ever have attached importance to them or have allowed ourselves to be cramped by them.”
But everywhere small jealousies have to a great extent been put aside and a beautiful spirit of mutual love and generosity prevails.
Thus hath God wrought. He has made bare His mighty arm and shown His mercy to one of the weakest and most despised of the peoples, for that is His will and way. He made His ways known unto Moses, a poor shepherd of a despised race, His acts unto the children ofIsrael, a nation of slaves, and He has glorified His Holy Name in little, enslaved, despised Korea. “For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: that no flesh should glory in His presence.”
Transcriber's Note:Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.
Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.