A People Aroused by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Nov 30, 1905

A People Aroused

By W. A. S.

MISDIRECTED though it was, the zeal of the old Crusaders may teach us a lesson. They were a people aroused. And that is what we must be in these closing days of the message.

Peter the Hermit and others had preached that the glory of the cross demanded that the tomb of Christ should be wrested from Moslem hands. It was an argument that appealed to men in that age of superstition and chivalry.

With the cry, “God willeth it,” the people of Europe began to equip and send armies to the rescue of the so-called holy places. One writer says:—

No nation so remote, no people so retired, but, gaining the intelligence by common rumor, commenced preparations for the mighty enterprise.

The Welshman forsook his hunting, the Scot his native mountains; the Dane forgot his wassail-bowl; the Norwegian left his fishing-tackle on the sand. Whatever was stored in granaries or hoarded in chambers was bartered for military equipments.

It increased by contagion; it grew by communion; it spread from house to house and from bosom to bosom; it became a universal desire—an enthusiasm, a passion.

Princes labored like peasants at the forge or in the armory. High-born dames abandoned their embroidery, and employed their delicate fingers in fabricating garments for the retainers of their lords.

There was no lack of volunteers to go. “Europe,” says the historian, “appeared to be a land of exile which every one was eager to quit.” “Nor have all the centuries since the close of the Crusades,” says Myers, “witnessed another such universal and profound movement among the peoples of that continent.”

We have on hand a very practical missionary crusade. There is nothing of the fanciful or sentimental about the cause that has made us a people. Carnal weapons and carnal energies will not avail. But the issue fairly faced must stir us profoundly. A warning message is to be carried through every land.

There never was so soul-stirring a cry raised in the earth as this call to men to prepare to meet the hour of God’s judgment.

No one can believe what Seventh-day Adventists profess without acknowledging that the cause of the third angel’s message demands the whole-hearted devotion, and enthusiasm, and burning zeal of the people who represent it. We are not only to sing,—

“Love so amazing, so divine, Demands my life, my soul, my all,”

but we must now actually devote life, soul, and all to the finishing of the work.

Seventy-five thousand Seventh-day Adventists, distributed over every continent and on the islands of the sea, and moved by one common impulse to finish the work, and to finish it now, could quickly do it by the grace of Christ.

When a whole people are found willing, it shall be the day of God’s power. For this impulse from heaven let us earnestly pray. The cry of the mission fields calls for it. In the gifts for missions this week of prayer there must be solemn and enthusiastic devotion of means to the missionary advance.

“O for Jerusalem’s trumpet now, To blow a blast of shattering power To wake the sleepers high and low, And rouse them to the urgent hour.”

And the voice of God’s providence is indeed sounding the trumpet of alarm in Zion to rouse us to go forward. Ministers and public laborers must yield themselves to go anywhere at God’s bidding. Every business—in the shop, on the farm, everywhere—must be conducted as a help to this one great purpose of our existence. Christ is coming. The world must hear the message. Pray God to send laborers now. Pray God to send means at this week of prayer season. There can be no turning back; yet the mission fields suffer for lack of means and of workers. The arousing impulse from Heaven is what we need. We shall receive it as we receive the Holy Spirit for service. W. A. S.