A Legacy of Service by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Oct 26, 1905

_A Legacy of Service_

By W. A. S.

THE following story of a Chinese convert and his wife is told in China’s Millions:—

They had a son, also a Christian, who, when but twenty-two years old, went into rapid consumption. Before his death he said to his friend, “I wish I had had more time to do God’s work.” This remark was told to his parents, and they felt that as God had left them strength and health, they must do what their son was unable for. They rented a little house in a village seven miles away, and then gave yearly the produce of eleven acres of their rice fields to support a preacher for this village. They have done this for the past eleven years.

It is a noble sentiment that leads a relative or a friend to endeavor to do double service to keep up the work of one who has fallen. Many a parent in the story of missions has sent some other young person into service to take the place of some child of his own, laid away in death.

And for every worker who dies in service there must somewhere be those whom the Lord calls to fill up the ranks. The fallen worker leaves a precious legacy to his brethren. Recently one of the pioneers of French missions on the Zambesi, François Willard, laid down his life. In his last will and testament he inserted this clause:—

On the threshold of eternity and in the presence of my God, I solemnly bequeath to the Evangelical Church of France, my native land, the care of the work of the Lord in Barotseland; and in his holy name I adjure them never to abandon it—and thus to despise and renounce the rich harvest that is to be expected as the fruition of seed sown in suffering and tears.

In these last days we are the heirs of all the centuries of Christian service. The work at which patriarchs and prophets, apostles and reformers, missionaries and pioneers have wrought comes now to our hands for finishing. This legacy of the ages lays upon this generation of believers a responsibility that can be discharged only by the solemn and businesslike consecration of life and means and all to service. W. A. S.