As the week of prayer comes in the midst of the great missionary campaign, this solemn season is a favorable opportunity for personal examination, a review of past efforts, and for laying further plans. Every season of prayer like this should be an occasion for planting our feet more firmly and resolutely in the good way of personal service and soul saving.
The value of such spiritual occasions may be truly gauged by their effect on us. If they accomplish nothing more than to make us temporarily happy and self-satisfied, they will have proved a failure. If, on the other hand, we are led to consecrate our lives more fully as a willing offering for God's service, the value of the effort can not be estimated.
The missionary campaign has been thoroughly organized. Never before in the history of our work have more careful, well-organized plans been laid for the prosecution of a missionary enterprise, and never before have conference presidents and other officials taken hold with greater determination to make the work a success.
In all the plans for this missionary work, one purpose has been uppermost—to inaugurate lines of work which would be continued month by month and year14by year, without interruption. No unique features have been introduced.
The work began with an effort to extend the circulation of the REVIEW, a work in which we must persevere continually until every family of Seventh-day Adventists, and many others who would enjoy its precious teachings and reports, are blessed by the visits of our church paper. Then followed the circulation of the Signs of the Times leaflets and other message-filled tracts; then the special numbers of The Signs of the Times, the Watchman, and our foreign papers, the sale of books in the Home Workers' list, the holding of Bible readings, cottage meetings, etc. There is nothing new about these plans. These are the old methods by which we have worked since the birth of this people, and these are the means by which the majority of nearly every congregation have been brought to a knowledge of the truth of the third angel's message.
Which of these lines of work should be dropped when these winter months are over?—Not one. And this special week of prayer ought to be an occasion for renewed consecration to the blessed service offered through such practical means as these.
God has committed the work of soul saving to his church—not to a few persons, but to all. He has committed it to men instead of to angels, that by the gift of his service, the gift of his love, and by the exercise of his higher faculties, man himself might be fitted for the home above. Were it not for man's need for service like this in working out his own salvation, angels might be commissioned to do the work, and it would soon close. But this is not God's plan. He will use human means, in order that those who labor may, through their own work, be blessed.
By this personal labor we become co-laborers with Christ; by seeking after souls as he did, we learn to think his thoughts, to love as he loved, and to be spent for others as he was; and thus we grow into his likeness, and in laboring to save others, we ourselves are fitted for translation.
In the birth of every great reform, God has placed the burden of personal labor heavily upon individuals. Every denomination which has started out with new light from God has been intensely active, through all its members, in extending the blessed light given to them. But later, as each denomination has developed in wealth and strength and influence, the tendency has been for the individual to turn over his personal work to men specially set apart for service, or to institutions organized for that purpose. O that we as a people may escape from that constant impelling force which naturally carries us away from our early vigorous experience, when personal piety and personal consecration to service were the corner-stones of our hope!
A few familiar scriptures will show our individual relationship to the work which God will accomplish in the world before his kingdom is set up.
(The following scriptures may be read by persons in the congregation, as answers to the questions, and with such additional suggestions and instruction as time will permit the leader to introduce.)
What duty is assigned to every servant until the Master's return? Mark 13: 32-37.
What is the chief cause of our neglect of the duty assigned us? 1 Kings 20: 35-43.
Although the man who was charged with keeping the prisoner knew the penalty, if he should let the prisoner escape, yet he permitted various busy cares to occupy his time. What a confession this was—“As thy servant was busy here and there, he was gone.”
According to the prophet Jeremiah, what method of work for the world is to be employed in the last days? Jer. 16:16.
The spirit of prophecy, in referring to troublous times in the last days, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, states that those who love the truth, with their Bibles open, will be seen moving among excited throngs, reading the Scriptures, and laboring personally to set before them the truths for the time. The prophet Jeremiah represents God's people at this time as hunters, seeking for the lost upon every mountain and hill, and out of the holes of the rocks.
What should be the attitude of the entire congregation—elders, lay members, and children—when on the march to the heavenly Canaan? Num. 9: 15-23.
Note how every eye was fixed upon the cloud, watching it by day and night, ready to march, ready to camp, as the cloud might indicate. None was doing his marching by proxy. Every soul who would reach Canaan must be in the ranks.
What is the promised reward to all who labor? Ps. 126: 5, 6.
(Note to the Leader.—It may be well to follow this section of the reading with a season of prayer. The whole congregation may be asked to consecrate themselves to this personal work of saving others. After the special activities of the missionary campaign, there is likely to be a tendency to drop the burden. This season of prayer should have particularly as its object the consecration of personal talent and time to this great work of carrying the gospel from door to door and from heart to heart.)
Encouraging Fruits From Past Labors
As we plan our work for others, it will be a source of encouragement to know the means by which people are brought to accept the third angel's message.
The following instructive statistics, gathered and compiled by A. J. S. Bourdeau, missionary secretary of the California Conference, are based upon replies received from nine hundred and seventy-two church-members, representing thirty-nine churches in that conference.
Slips of paper were passed, on which the individuals were asked to write (1) name and address; (2) the name of the minister, Bible worker, book, paper, pamphlet, tract, or any other means which was chiefly instrumental in leading them to become Seventh-day Adventists; (3) whether the Bible alone had been the means of changing their belief.
Of the nine hundred and seventy-two persons replying, the means of bringing them into the truth were as follows:—
Labors of gospel ministers ........ 321
From reading our publications:
books, 73; periodicals, 70; tracts, 45; other publications, 24; total... 212
Born into the truth, or through home influences .................... 180
Through cottage Bible readings ... 139
Through reading the Bible alone... 55
Other personal efforts ............ 44
Institutions, Sabbath-schools, etc. .. 21
Most Interesting Cases
From the most interesting replies received, Brother Bourdeau has selected the following. These are long stories condensed into one or two sentences:—
1. Reading The Signs of the Times at the bedside of his brother.
2. A sick lady in a Catholic hospital. A nurse loaned her a copy of “Great Controversy.” Result: her conversion to present truth, much to the dismay and anger of the nurse who brought her the book. Nurse was not aware of the nature of the work.
3. Inviting a Seventh-day Adventist to ride with him in his wagon fifteen miles. The Seventh-day Adventist talked the Sabbath all the way, and the man could not throw the subject off his mind.
4. A tract sent from Colorado to Canada.
5. Invited to attend Seventh-day Adventist meeting by his own pastor, a Methodist.
6. Started in to read his Bible, with the firm determination to prove that Sunday, and not the Sabbath, is the rest day.
7. A Catholic friend handed him a bundle of religious papers, among which were two copies of the REVIEW. The reading of these, together with two tracts on the Sabbath and immortality questions.
8. Taking the same course of Bible readings from the same Bible worker who had been the means of converting her mother.
9. Had been living in the mountains for ten long years, away from any church. Some one sent her The Signs of the Times and other reading-matter occasionally.
10. A daughter writes: “Mother bought ‘Great Controversy,’ It did the good work.”
11. A wife: “I accepted the truth through my husband and the Bible.”
12. One copy of The Signs of the Times, purposely dropped in the road by a Seventh-day Adventist hunter, who remembered to take some papers and tracts with him. Picked up by a man on his way to church. It became the means of converting him and his entire family—four.15
13. A bundle of The Signs of the Times loaned to a family bitterly opposed to the truth. The papers, utilized as wall-paper all over the house, were read by the young rancher while waiting for his mother to prepare the meals. He next ordered some tracts from the Pacific Press, and accepted the truth. Mother and sister subsequently followed.
14. The reading of Canright's book against Seventh-day Adventists.
15. Seeing a copy of The Bible Echo in a store window in Melbourne, Australia, led to an investigation.
16. His wife's godly life—an experience of fifteen years—led him to become an Adventist.
17. A sick boy, overhearing from his bed a Bible reading being given to his parents in an adjacent room, by a Seventh-day Adventist minister.
18. The reading of one tract—“Elihu on the Sabbath.”
19. Accepted the truth through Bible readings given while picking grapes.
20. Became an Adventist by reading a Danish tract, “Both Sides of the Sabbath Question,” handed him by a young man one Sunday morning on his way to church, on street corner in Christiania.
21. Seeing one of our brethren quit work Friday night, led him to think and investigate.
22. One tract, “State of the Dead,” led him to attend Sabbath-school, which, in turn, led to Bible readings, the reading of our large books, and to Bible lectures by our ministers.
23. Going to work for a Seventh-day Adventist.
24. An infidel, eating lunch with other workmen, when a Seventh-day Adventist canvasser, failing to sell any publications, gave the Sentinel to one of the workmen. Was led to think of the Sabbath question, through conversation with the workman who had the Sentinel. Had no Bible in the house. Went to a neighbor, and offered a load of wood for a New Testament. Read it through, and accepted the truth.
25. Read “Thoughts on Daniel and the Revelation” ten years before hearing a preacher. Says the Lord sent him across the continent to hear preaching by Elder ——, of California.
26. Through meeting Brother B. O. Wade, one of our missionaries in Japan. Now an active missionary, and publisher of Japanese Seventh-day Adventist literature.
27. Through boarding with Elder G. H. Baber in Valparaiso, Chile, South America.
28. Through the Adventist argument on the question of spiritualism.
29. Through lectures in Stockholm, Sweden.
30. The entire Baptist church of Riceland, Minn., was advised by its pastor to study the Bible to see which day is the Sabbath. The sister writes: “Six of the fifty members, of which I was one, began keeping the Sabbath.”
These figures are powerful witnesses of the fruitfulness of humble efforts. They afford food for thoughtful study, and should be cause for sincere rejoicing. Note the following points:—
1. While the gospel ministry stands at the head, as it should, of the means for bringing the light of truth to the knowledge of the world, still the greater volume of the work was accomplished by inexpensive, humble means.
2. One fourth of the entire number were brought into the truth directly by reading our books, tracts, and periodicals, and not only so, for according to the reports, nearly every other person was assisted and instructed by the printed page.
3. What an encouragement and incentive to parents it must be to know that one fifth of the believers in present truth are brought in through home influence.
It appears, from our experience in the tract and missionary work, that the dear Lord watches with peculiar tenderness and care over little seeds sown by the wayside—those little acts inspired wholly by love by which we set no store, kindnesses which we forget to count when summing up what we have done. Because human pride was laid aside, and the deed sprang from a divine impulse, God could use it and multiply it exceedingly to his glory.
An interesting illustration of this was given by W. C. Sisley, manager of the International Tract Society, of London, when presenting his report of the publishing work in Great Britain. A canvasser had become disheartened, and feared that he was accomplishing but little. He decided one morning simply to scatter a few little leaflets on the second coming of Christ. One of these was dropped into the letter-box of a wealthy man, who read the tract with great interest. Though not a member of the Seventh-day Adventist church, he decided to assist in the circulation of this leaflet. So he wrote to the International Tract Society, and obtained terms for printing fifty thousand copies; then he hired newsboys, and had these circulated from door to door through the city where he lived. One of the fifty thousand leaflets fell into the hands of another gentleman, who decided upon the same course of action, only he pushed the work still further than the first, by securing one hundred thousand copies of the leaflet, paying for the same, and distributing them at his own expense. Thus one leaflet, placed in a mail-box that morning, when the agent felt that he could accomplish nothing, resulted in the circulation of one hundred and fifty thousand leaflets telling the glad news of Christ's soon coming.
(Note to the Leader.—If time will permit, it may be well to open the way, at the close of the reading, for a brief praise service. If the congregation is not large, perhaps all can speak a few words, stating how present truth was brought to them, and how they are resolved to continue their efforts to carry it to others. By remarks and suggestions, make the social meeting as practical as possible, looking toward a continuation of active personal missionary work in the church.)