The Dark Side Urges Us On
By W. A. S.
Our missionaries delight to tell of the bright side. We are urged on by opening doors and Macedonian calls. But the dark side is always with them. And this somber side also urges us on. The curse is devouring the earth, and we must hasten in amid a world full of perishing souls to cry out the message God has given us. If we forget this, or plan our lives regardless of it, we are surely most guilty of all people. No one can believe what we profess without bending every energy of soul and body to the hastening of the work. In the years since we entered India, the plague has slain its millions. Still it drags on, although former visitations in history have been of much shorter duration. In a recent letter, Elder W. W. Miller, of Calcutta, writes of an encouraging and stimulating meeting with some Bengali inquirers who desired baptism. He adds:— On our way out and back we met three funerals. The persons had died of the plague. About thirty are dying every day in a district near us. A man died on the doorstep of one of Mrs. Miller's patients; but the health officer fumigated the premises, so they feel there is no danger. A shopkeeper died in the bazaar [market]. He was carried out, but his goods remain as they were when he died. Earthquakes have been the order of the day. Towns are in ruins, and hundreds of people killed; but notwithstanding all this, the message moves forward, and the Lord keeps us. Some one must labor until the work is finished; then we can all rest as we behold the beauties of the earth made new. That is just a glimpse of the dark side. What a spectacle this dying world must present to heaven. No wonder that intensity fills the universe. The Lord will make a quick work at the last, as the time comes to finish the gospel work. We have surely reached that time, and must lay every plan in life with this in view. In the last talk Sister White gave in Washington she said: “Light after light has come to me that the work will be wound up when we least expect it.”