Last Noble Lecture Yesterday

Rev. Charles Cuthbert Hall, D.D., h.'97, delivered the sixth and last William Belden, Noble lecture on "Christian Missions and the Modern World" last evening in the Fogg Lecture Room.

Dr. Hall began by answering those who advise that the West leave the East alone in its religious beliefs. He showed that such a course would be impractical, that Christianity came from the East and to the East it must go. The East and West are one in reality, and their religious needs are essentially the same. Christianity satisfies this need and in reality is acceptable to the East as well as the West. The people of the East are fighting the West, on Christianity.

Dr. Hall then considered the attitude of Christ toward mission work. He recalled the time when Christ led his disciples into the open fields. The work they began grew wider and wider in it influence. It was stimulated by the opposition to Mohammedanism during the Middle Ages, and this stimulation was most marked in the period of the Crusades.

The new mission movement had two distinct motives, philanthropic pity for the moral condition of the heathen, and dogmatic intensity to spread Christianity. The spirit has since grown better and broader because of the growth of humanism and of the increased knowledge of the spirit and life f the East.

In closing, Dr. Hall emphasized the noble work that can be done by the man who devotes himself to religious effort, and pointed out the need for university men in this field of work at home and abroad.