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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 11, 1909

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 10.

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China

By W. C. HANKINS

W. C. HANKINS
A short time ago Elders B. L. Anderson and N. P. Keh, and the writer spent a few days at To Kang. The day after our arrival we spent in visiting among the surrounding villages. In one village there was quite a little crowd of men and boys who gathered to look at the foreigners, and thus gave Elder Keh an opportunity to speak to them.
He began by asking them if they would be glad to harvest the rice; they answered that they were always glad to harvest when there was any rice to be harvested. Then Elder Keh proceeded to give an adapted version of the parable of the wheat and tares, using rice instead of wheat, however. To illustrate the great truths more forcibly, he represented the rice-stalks and the tares as holding a conversation together, and told how the tares boasted of their superior size and beauty.
When the rice told how the farmer cared for it, the tares immediately claimed that the farmer tilled and watered them just as much as he did the rice.
How strongly this brought to mind the fact that the wicked enjoy the protection of God because of the presence of God's people in their midst.
Then, too, there were other points of this parable that stirred my heart to greater consecration to the Lord's work. He went on to ask if a tare could, of itself, become a good stalk of rice, or if man could turn it into a good stalk. No, of course that was impossible, was the general verdict. Then he showed them that it was just as impossible for a bad man to become a good man through his own power or any power of man, but that God, who created the heavens and the earth, is able to make a tare over into a good stalk of rice, and a wicked man into a righteous one, for it would be only creative power that could do either, and such a change would be a re-creation.
This little talk was as simple but, withal, as powerful a presentation of the gospel of salvation through Christ as I ever heard. How grateful we should be for such a gospel and the wonderful light that has been given to us concerning it.
The next day was the Sabbath. In the morning Elder Keh preached a good sermon on baptism, after which Elder Anderson led two of the brethren forward in the ordinance that signified their desire to be dead to this world. In the afternoon we celebrated the ordinances of the Lord's house, and, as the writer spoke to the little company assembled there, the Holy Spirit was present to give to him a fuller conception of the meaning of these ordinances than he had ever had before, and helped to present it to the brethren. During the ordinance of humility, there was no confusion, but everything was done quietly and according to gospel order.
When the day was over, we felt deeply impressed with the similarity of what had taken place that day in that little, dirty Chinese village, to the celebrating of the same ordinances in a small church at home. Truly this gospel makes of one mind and one heart all those who accept it, in whatever part of the earth they may be found. The two men baptized at that time, make eight who have been baptized since the first of the year, and a total of twenty-eight who have been baptized in this province.
We hope that our brethren in the home land will remember this field in their prayers. Satan is working hard to counteract all the good that is being done here, and we need the prayers of God's people.
Kulangsu, Amoy.