What Is Your Response?
By A. G. Daniells
EVERY month brings cheering reports from our mission fields in all parts of the world. Our missionaries at the front tell us how the hand of the Lord is opening doors for service in many directions. They are working to the utmost of their strength, and their labors are being blessed of God. But the vast unentered fields about them appeal for help which they can not render; so they pass the appeals on to their brethren in America. As these earnest, well-founded calls for help come to us, we thank God from the depths of our hearts for the abundant resources he has provided in America to help the whole world. We are profoundly grateful that America, where we have sixty thousand believers, is not passing through the shocking revolution now going on in Russia. What could we do for a perishing world under such circumstances? God has given us the tranquillity and prosperity we are now enjoying in the United States, that we may be able to render the greatest service possible to benighted souls in the darkness of all lands. No other people on the earth are being prospered as are the people in America, and Seventh-day Adventists must take a broad view of their obligations. It is proper to thank God for his gifts, but he requires a right use of them. They are bestowed upon us to impart to our fellow men. Our Father does not give so abundantly that we may retain and consume all upon ourselves. We are to share with those less favored than ourselves. Will this now be done by our people in America? The week of prayer is here. On the last day of this season of worship we are to make the offering of 1905 to the mission fields. What sort of offering will it be? Shall we give as God has prospered us? Shall we give according to our abundance and the pressing needs of men and women dying in heathen lands without hope? Or will the gifts be made in obedience to the selfishness of the natural heart? This year has been one of great financial prosperity in America. Every sunset during the year has added three million four hundred thousand dollars to the wealth of the farms of this country. Indeed, Mr. Wilson, Secretary of Agriculture, in his report issued in November, says that every sunset during the last five years has added this enormous amount to the wealth of our farms. With this there has come like prosperity to all classes. There is a profound conviction in the minds of many of our ministers that now is the time for our people in America to make large gifts to the cause, that the purpose of God in giving this prosperity may be realized, and that this favor may be extended to us by the Lord to enable us to finish his work in the earth. Brethren, let us be wise. Let us discern the hand of the Lord. Let us unite with him in his plans. Let us pour the means he has given us into his treasury, and thus pass on to others the gifts intended for them. Who can be satisfied to make small gifts when he is abundantly able to make large ones? Who can have a clear conscience in giving a dollar when God has enabled him to give one hundred? The mission fields of this denomination are your fields. They never presented a more encouraging outlook. But they8never appealed more earnestly for help. The Mission Board never needed money more than now. What is your personal response to this situation? May God help you to make it.