A Year-End Look Over the Fields by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 7, 1911

A Year-End Look Over the Fields

By W. A. S.

What ought we to see, according to the prophetic picture of the closing gospel work? We ought to see a movement, spreading to every nation, bearing the cry, “The hour of His judgment is come,” and calling men from the traditions of the Papacy to the keeping of the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. That is the prophetic picture.

What do we see? As we look out over the world in this last month of the year 1911, we see this: The advent movement in the north and south and east and west of every continent; on every continent the judgment-hour cry is lifted; and on every continent the message is bringing out a people keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. That is the picture that we see as we lift up our eyes and look on the fields.

What the “sure word of prophecy” declared ages ago of the closing gospel work, we see fulfilling before our eyes. Long strides have been taken by the message in 1911. Thousands of new voices have this year been added to the number thanking God for the “blessed hope.”

Not so many missionaries have been sent out, probably, as in some former years. Yet when the list is published, it will be found that the irresistible pressure has thrust forth a larger number than was contemplated at the beginning of the year. God grant that the gifts to sustain them at the battle’s front may be found also to be larger than estimated at the beginning of the year.

The European Division has entered Persia. On May 18, Brethren F. F. Oster and H. Dirksen crossed the Persian border, and that ancient land of Cyrus and Darius is brought at last within our missionary boundaries. New forces are headed for Upper Egypt, hoping ere-long to open the Egyptian Sudan; and in Asia Minor the new Armenia Mission has been organized. The Central Asian fields have also been organized as the Siberian Union Mission.

In these days of rapid expansion we must needs be earnest students of geography if we but keep track of the lands and tribes to which the work is hastening. Strange names announce to us that the message is penetrating “the uttermost parts of the earth.” For instance, here is an extract from the minutes of a meeting of the European Division committee, fixing the five fields of the new Siberian Union:—

1. That the Volga field contain the Don territory, and the governments of Astrakhan, Saratof, and Simbirsk.

2. That the new Ural field be composed of Samara, Orenburg, Ufa, Kazan, Viatka, and Perm.

3. That the West Siberian field consist of Uralsk, Turgai, Akmolinsk, Semipalatinsk, Tomsk, Tobolsk, and Semirechinsk.

4. That the East Siberian field take in Yeniseisk, Irkutsk, Transbaikalia, Yakutsk, Amur, and Coast District.

5. That the Turkestan field contain Ferghana, Samarcand, Syr-Daria, Transcaspian Territories, Khiva, and Bokhara.

We must keep wide-awake to follow the flight of the message to-day by our prayers and interests and gifts.

Elder F. G. Lane, of the West Indian Union, reported the first baptisms in Venezuela, South America, this year; and in Peru the work for the Indians of the high Andes has been placed on a permanent basis by the location of a mission station under Brother F. A. Stahl.

South Africa has one new main station established, under Elder M. C. Sturdevant, at Tsungwesi, in eastern Rhodesia, and the various South African missions report new out-stations.

Australasia has plans for opening work in the island of Niue, mid-Pacific, and in the New Hebrides group, though we can not say whether the laborers have already been sent forward.

Representatives of the message are in the Shan States, of Burma, next to the Chinese border. Dr. Ollie Oberholtzer Tornblad reporting that Brother Tornblad and herself have found a good location where they can combine business and missionary enterprise.

Last of all, the Canary Islands have been added to our list. Brother B. B. Aldrich and family are just landing there to unfurl the first standard of this message to be planted in that group.

Thus, though the financial need in fields already entered called for a holding back from the opening of new fields this year, much new territory has been added. The work itself breaks forth, as the prophecy says, “on the right hand and on the left.” Every year the divine command urges us on, “Spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes.” There is to be no end to this commanding pressure, until the Lord appears, no place to stop.

The sealing message follows the sun-rising round the earth. And every hour of the twenty-four, now, commandment-keepers of some nation or tongue greet the break of each day with prayer and praise for the blessed advent message. “From the rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same,” saith the Lord, “my name shall be great among the Gentiles.”

“We thank Thee that thy church unsleeping, As earth rolls onward into light, Through all the world her watch is keeping, And rests not now by day or night.

“As o’er each continent and island The dawn leads on another day, The voice of prayer is never silent, Nor dies the strain of praise away.

“The sun that bids us rest is waking Our brethren ’neath the eastern sky, And hour by hour fresh lips are making Thy wondrous doings heard on high.”

This advent movement is of God; and it is marching swiftly on along the path marked out in prophecy to triumph in our day. To triumph with it will demand now our soul, our life, our all.

W. A. S.