News from Persia and Nigeria

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 17, 1914

News from Persia and Nigeria

Good news comes to the Mission Board from Elder F. F. Oster, dated Maragha, Persia, October 6, the letter having taken two months to reach Washington. “For five or six weeks,” Brother Oster writes, “all communication from the outside world was cut off. Mail is beginning to come again. We are especially glad to see the good old REVIEW. Soon after the war broke out I made a trip to Urumiah, going by horse through Kurdistan. All along the way I preached the message.” Elder Oster reports many interested. At some mission stations he was invited to present studies on the Eastern Question. The country was greatly stirred with the prospects of difficulty between Turkey and Russia. “We are of good courage in the Lord,” he says; “our lives are in his hands, and we need fear no evil. All these troubles speak in no uncertain tone that Jesus is soon coming, and we rejoice in the thought.”

From Elder D. C. Babcock, in newly opened Nigeria, we learn that already several Sabbath keepers are reported. Speaking of the breaking of communications for a time by the war, Elder Babcock says: “We wondered just what to do, as no word had been received from the brethren in Europe. While I could expect nothing else but that our brethren in America would stand by us, yet when I read the circular letter from the Mission Board, telling what the brethren were doing, it sent a thrill through my soul and gave renewed courage.” Our brethren of the British Union had filled in the gap in supplying immediate funds to these outlying fields, and now that Elder Dail, the secretary of the European Division, has his headquarters in Holland, he is able to keep in touch with all the fields so far as communications are possible.