In Louisiana by E. L. MAXWELL

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 10, 1908

In Louisiana

By E. L. MAXWELL

In this conference we have two churches of colored people, one ordained and one licensed minister, and one Bible worker. Our field consists of six hundred thousand colored people, only about thirty-five per cent of whom can read or write. These people have to be taught the truth just as if they were children. Hence our greatest need is carefully trained teachers, who can and will go right among them, and instruct them in the truth in detail.

I find that the colored people are easily interested in the truth, and while many of them lack the moral courage to make the sacrifice required to live it, there are many others who develop into good Sabbath-keepers, and are willing to bear reproach and persecution for the truth's sake.

While they are easily interested, they learn the truth slowly, and this fact makes labor among them more expensive than it would otherwise be. Yet when they are fully enlightened, they are just as faithful in paying their tithes and their offerings as any of the white people.

Sensationalism can have no part in work among the lowly in the South. Long, patient effort is necessary to develop workers from the raw material. These people being nearly all tenants, or unskilled day laborers, make only a bare living, and are therefore utterly unable to support their own work. Our conference is not yet able to support even our work for the whites, therefore a constant stream of means must be kept coming this way to support the work for the colored people.

The call of the world-wide field stirs a heaven-attuned chord in the heart of every loyal Seventh-day Adventist; and while we rejoice to give for those far away, let us also remember these at our own doors in the African mission field of America. E. L. MAXWELL.