Our New World by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Dec 7, 1905

Our New World

By W. A. S.

THE spreading forth of our work in the last ten years has given us a new view of the world. Events in far lands that once would have appealed to us with little personal interest, now come home to our hearts directly; for they touch the cause we love. Any one who follows the news of the world week by week, with our own work in mind, has striking evidence of the truly world-wide character of our missionary operations.

Is it a failure of the monsoon rains in India, with prospects of a famine, or further outbreaks of the plague in Bombay or Rangoon? We think of our comrades in the Indian field, or in Burma, and wonder what added cares and perplexities, or what fresh calls for help, these things may bring upon them.

When the war in Manchuria was raging, its terrors were brought closer home to us by the knowledge that day by day it was adding to the burdens of the workers in Russia and Japan. Some of our own brethren, Russians on the one side, and Japanese on the other, were facing one another at the front, not, of course, as active combatants, but nevertheless unwilling witnesses of the carnage and sharers in its perils. We pray for peace in the far corners of the earth with new fervor when we realize what war in any part may mean to our own brethren in the faith of this message.

Is it rioting or agitation against America in China? We watch to see if any reports show special unrest in the regions where our own missionaries are working. In recent letters our missionaries report the stir of this agitation in their territories—in Honan, Amoy, and in the Canton province. Dr. Miller wrote from Honan:—

Just to-day a proclamation issued by the governor of this province was posted up over the city, commanding the people not to buy American goods. Further, societies are organizing against Americans. We do not know to what extent this will go.

A few years ago news from Inland China would have had a far-away sound to our ears. Now it sends us to our knees to pray God to care for our own brethren and sisters who stand for this truth in the midst of China’s darkness.

Progress in railway enterprise in the African interior now means that our workers have a quick route to regions before to be reached only by weeks or months of expensive and wearing travel. The extension of the Cape to Cairo route across the Zambesi and well on beyond meant this year a safe and short journey for Elder Anderson’s Barotseland party. And news of native unrest, as in the German sphere of influence, leads us to think of our own stations in the far interior which might be affected by the spread of discontent. Whatever touches the great Dark Continent, south, north, east, or west, touches us directly to-day.

More liberal legislation in Ecuador and Bolivia means greater freedom for our workers there. A bad fever season in Central America and the West Indies means that our own brethren and sisters are fighting to maintain life and strength amid attacks of wearing, burning fevers. A cable dispatch bringing news of a hurricane over almost any of the Pacific island groups, leads us to watch anxiously for the next news from our mission stations among the islands.

As we read of turmoil and strife and revolution in Russia, we know it means anxiety to our own churches and isolated believers in Finland, in St. Petersburg, in the Crimea, or in the Caucasus. When threats of the powers to force the hands of the sultan are met by threat of reprisals upon Christians in Turkey, we pray God to care for our brethren and their families in Constantinople, Asia Minor, and Syria, where already they are acquainted with bonds and imprisonments.

This cause has grown out into all the world. It is a new world to us—the world-wide field of the third angel’s message and in every clime, and on nearly every shore our own representatives are battling for this truth to-day. It means that we must let God’s love for the world flood into our hearts, and that we must study to become better acquainted with the world that he so loved. In all newspaper reading remember that it is the field of the third angel’s message that we are reading about as cable news reports events here and there. Trouble and unrest increase. Out of some of these things the overruling providence of God may lead into intervals of greater freedom in pushing our work forward, but all the world over there is a steady progression apparent into times of trouble which will increase the difficulties of the way. Now is the time to work. Now is the hour to bring every reserve force into service, whether of men or of means. There is just one business for every Seventh-day Adventist—the quick proclamation of this message to all the world. W. A. S.