Daily Reading for May 23 • Jackson Kemper, First Missionary Bishop in the United States, 1870 (transferred)
Constrained by the love of Christ, that love which induced him to humble himself even to the agonies and the death of the cross to rescue us from unutterable woe, we are to prove our faithfulness by a deep and abiding interest for the spiritual welfare of our fellow beings. God has commanded—and he who has tasted and knows that the Lord is gracious, will delight to fulfil his will. . . . Daily do we pray thy kingdom come—to come with power and peace to every heart, as well as to our own. And who is not anxiously solicitous for the honor of his Lord,—who does not cherish an intense desire to enlarge his Master’s kingdom—who is not ready to make some sacrifices for Him who died that we might live?
This high commission—this magnificent effort—the Church HAS assumed. Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it. By gratitude and love then, and every motive that can sway the human breast, is every member thereof bound to seek for the mind that was in Christ Jesus; and, as he imbibes that spirit, to watch and pray, and strive with increasing earnestness, that there may be one fold and one shepherd. . . . In the ordinal the ministry is alluded to as appointed for the salvation of mankind; and in reference to a newly consecrated Bishop, we pray for such grace, that he may ever more be ready to spread abroad the Gospel, the glad tidings of reconciliation. The highest council of our Church, erred not then when she openly declared that the field before her is the world; and that every baptized person is pledged to support the sacred cause of missions.
From The Duty of the Church with Respect to Missions, Being the Triennial Sermon, before the Bishops, Clergy and Laity, Constituting the Board of Missions of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America, Preached in St. Paul’s Chapel, New-York, Thursday Evening, October 7, 1841 by Jackson Kemper (NewYork: The Board of Missions, 1841). http://anglicanhistory.org/usa/jkemper/duty1841.html