The Midsummer Offering by I. H. Evans

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 20, 1916

The Midsummer Offering

By I. H. Evans

WHEN Sabbath, July 29, comes, the time when the Midsummer Offering will be taken, nearly seven months of the year 1916 will be gone, and the year's close hastening apace. At the present writing our mission offerings are far short of the full twenty cents a week per member. It is hoped that the year 1916 will bring a large ingathering of funds for foreign missions and for the liquidation of the indebtedness on our institutions. Fifteen cents a week from each member goes to the Mission Board, and all above that is to pay the indebtedness on institutions in the Division Conference.

At the present time we have no available comparison of the financial results of the years 1914 and 1915. The statistics for 1915 are not complete; but it is hoped that the liabilities in the North American Division Conference were lessened, and we believe that still more will be paid in 1916 than in 1915.

Then, too, the mission offerings must have their full tally for foreign fields. Greater demands are being made on the Mission Board for men and means than ever before. Developments in the Far East have already grown to such an extent that additional facilities must be provided in most lines of our work. The sending of each new family calls for a new home. Schools must be supplied in many places for the training of those who accept the message. Facilities which were once adequate have already proved unequal to the needs, and additional machinery and equipment must be installed in several of the fields if we keep pace with the progress of the work. Reports from abroad are encouraging, and the possibilities of successful work far exceed anything in the past. It seems pitiful that we cannot meet the reasonable demands of our brethren for new recruits. If ever in the history of God's work large offerings and a united front were a necessity, they are now.

The omens of encouragement are numerous in both home and foreign fields. The people are anxiously inquiring the meaning of current events. Even in war-stricken Europe, the results of the labor bestowed have been encouraging and marvelous. Not only has the gathering of general funds kept pace with every previous year's record, but the tithes have been more abundant. This seems the more amazing when one thinks of the nations involved in war, and the existing conditions among the people.

God has given us in America great prosperity. Since the dawn of recorded history the world probably has never seen a time of such unprecedented prosperity as we are having in the United States. The demands for labor are constant and insistent. Wages paid are more liberal than ever before. Work awaits nearly all who desire it. Wages are unprecedentedly high, and, while living is expensive, yet there is a call for investments such as the world has seldom seen.

In the North American Division Conference this financial prosperity is almost universal. Of course, there must be some local exceptions, owing to storms and calamities uncontrolled by man; but generally the prosperity in the North American Division Conference is beyond anything ever known before. Then why should we not roll up a Midsummer Offering far exceeding anything ever yet given? A few years ago the Midsummer Offering frequently reached twenty-five to thirty thousand dollars. This year we could easily pass fifty thousand dollars, if we undertook it. The money given in the Midsummer Offering applies on the twenty cents a week, so that none need hesitate to give large amounts. We are hoping for the best Midsummer Offering in the history of the work. Remember the date,—Sabbath, July 29. I. H. EVANS.