The spontaneous expansion of the church and the causes which hinder it

Many are beginning to perceive that we cannot establish a foreign Church governed and directed by foreigners, and then at some moment say: "Let us make it indigenous or native by process of devolution." If the Church is to be indigenous it must spring up in the soil from the very first seeds planted. One or two little groups of Christians organized as Churches, with their Bishops and priests, could spread all over an empire. They would be obviously and without question Native Churches. But if we establish Missions rather than Churches, two evil consequences, which we now see in greater or less degree everywhere, sterility and antagonism, inevitably arise. The equipment of small native congregations of Christians with full power and authority as local Churches would remove most, if not all, of the present causes of trouble. We should cease to talk of a native church as something to be attained after long years, or generations of probation. There would be native Churches at once which all men would recognize as native. There would be ample opportunity for the ablest and strongest native minds to exercise all their powers in the direction and advancement of the churches. Without further words we should have proved to all men that we do not preach Christ in order to extend our dominion as our enemies assert: we should have proved that we really mean the words which we now too often use without any demonstration that we really know their meaning -- that we desire to be helpers, not lords over other men's souls. - Introduction.