Why Didn’t You Hurry? by William A. Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Nov 16, 1905

“Why Didn’t You Hurry?”

By William A. Spicer

A MISSIONARY has told us how he first received the call to go into distant lands with the life-giving message.

He was crossing the fields from his work one evening, when he saw his little boy running to meet him. Suddenly the little one vanished from sight. The father remembered some old well holes in the field, and knew the boy had fallen into one.

With all the speed that his agonized heart could give to flying feet, he ran to the rescue. To his joy he found the well shallow and empty, and the little one unhurt. But as he drew the boy out, the little fellow said with quivering lips, “O papa, why didn’t you hurry?” It had seemed to him such a long time of waiting—those few seconds of loneliness and fear.

It set the father to thinking of the millions in the dark lands abroad, who have fallen deep into the pit of ignorance and sin, many of whom long for a helping hand to lift them out. He had often thought that some day he might go. The experience with his own little one in peril helped him to understand that there is need for haste in rescuing souls from sin.

With our knowledge of the events occurring upon the earth, and with the final message of warning committed to our hands, we have a responsibility to do quickly all that God enables us to do, such as was never before pressed upon any people. The providence of God echoes the cry from all the ends of the earth, “Why don’t you hurry?” and the people to whom this marvelous message is just coming wonder that it had not reached their ears sooner.

Ecuador is now having a chance to hear the advent message. From that field Brother Davis writes:—

What a precious thing it is to find in these new fields persons who are hungry for present truth. But it has always been with a degree of shame that I tell them that the Adventist Church began over fifty years ago; for it always causes expressions of surprise, as if to say, Why have you been so long in coming this way? Thank the Lord that there is to be delay no longer.

Heaven is hastening the message on—away beyond our own efforts and co-operation. These providences by which the standard is set so often far beyond our frontier lines serve notice upon us that the Lord expects us to quicken our steps. When he says, Delay no longer, the inactivity that once delayed the work will only sever the slothful servant from the work.

May every soul during this coming week of prayer, and in this season of preparation for it, hear anew the cry of the waiting ones in all lands. We are to pray and work and give to hasten this message on just as we would if our very own were in the pit crying to us, Why don’t you hurry? Anything short of this means the loss of our own souls.

W. A. S.