Mission Notes

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · May 23, 1907

EVERY inch of advance in mission work has been contested by the arch-enemy, from the very day the founder of modern missions—William Carey—was accepted as a missionary to India, down to every point of attack upon heathenism at the present time. Why this bitter opposition? It is evidence sure and certain that the devil counts on this well-planned attack upon his strongholds as something worthy his steel, hence blocks every line of advance with all his power. And nowhere does he succeed so well as in the home land, in cutting off supplies for Christ’s ambassadors and warriors in the forefront of the battle. Brother, sister, at home, think about this. Has he not attempted to belittle in your mind the work of missions, by seeking to belittle your offering? Did he ever succeed in his attempt?

SOMETIMES very useful people, even men and women whom God is using to accomplish most noble service, are not noted for their attractiveness, and may even be classed as the very opposite in point of winsomeness. It may be of encouragement to some tried worker whom God loves, when he feels almost alone in the world, so far as human companionship is concerned, to think that some very noted men must have had hours when these same feelings stole over them. It is written of Robert Morrison, that man of valor who succeeded in translating the Bible into Chinese, that socially he would pass for a failure. “Robert Morrison took himself seriously. Sprightliness was no more to be looked for from him than from one of the Puritan fathers. His letters are as grave as ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ though less interesting. . . . His manners, though always respectful, were not winning. Small talk he never condescended to, perhaps from inaptness. Beyond the weather, this self-contained man had few topics in common with others. The very intensity and unusualness of his aims made him solitary. Take him all in all, he was one to respect and admire, rather than to love.”