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The Enlarging Work

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Mar 9, 1905

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 82, No. 10.

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The Enlarging Work

By William Ambrose Spicer

THERE has been cheering expansion of our work into new fields in recent years. The work itself has forged ahead. New territory has been annexed almost without the effort of any man. The duty of our mission organizations has been to follow on after the extending work, lagging often far behind the compelling providences of God.
We have a new geography of missions to learn. Names not often on our lips a few years ago now designate lands where this message is winning victories. Within a few months we have had to learn in a new way of war-swept Korea, of Amoy and the Fuhkien province of China, Burma, Ceylon, Singapore and the Straits Settlements, Ecuador, Peru, Portugal, Cuba, and Barotseland, beyond the Zambesi. The work has pressed into new regions in all the older mission fields. It is coming literally to pass: “Thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left.”
This rapid expansion brings tremendous pressure upon mission finance. Just a little added to each of forty or fifty stations means a large sum total. And the natural thing, after the seed of truth has been planted in new and vast fields, and the fruits begin to appear, is a call for more help and added resources to cope with the stirring situation. The field of operations has extended in greater proportion than the increase of mission funds. In consequence, the Mission Board has had painfully but resolutely to settle down to the policy of sending no new recruits to the fields for the present, save as the ordinary income increases, or special cases are met by special funds.
This means no little disappointment to needy fields and to workers longing to go. But the fields respond nobly, and will press forward with the resources at command and join in praying for a great missionary awakening that shall build up the regular sources of income. As these are enlarged, the work may be enlarged.
Dr. Pierson has aptly illustrated this demand for enlarged income to correspond with growth in the field by the case of the healthy lad who is continually making new demands by outgrowing his clothes. He adds:—
If any are inclined to find occasion for fault-finding in the fact that the work of our missionary societies expands so as to exceed their income, I could take such to see a mother whose boy, though twenty years old, is still an infant, and can wear the same garments as ten years ago. But what mother would not gladly exchange such a cripple for a healthy, roistering boy, that it is impossible to keep in trousers and shoes! Never let us complain because God's work perpetually demands larger supplies: that is the grand evidence of its divine progress and success.
No complaint can come from us, at any rate, on this score; for our very existence demands constant expansion into new territory until every nation and tongue is brought within the bounds of our work. We must enlarge the place of our tent, and stretch forth the curtain of our habitation. This means increasing effort, and that is what we Seventh-day Adventists live for, and the only thing for which we are in this cause. If in a business-like way every believer plans to regularly sustain the mission funds week by week, it will be but a little time ere the Mission Board can again begin to send out new recruits.
As it is, volunteers for the fields are being held back for a time. Dr. Law Keen has arranged to work for the summer with our California friends in building up the San Francisco Chinese work, instead of going on to China. The Brethren Bond will work in this country for a time, instead of returning to Spain, a great field now for a time left with only Elder W. Robinson and his wife. Requests for increased appropriations in various fields are denied. The staff in the West Indies is to be reduced somewhat, to bring its operations within former appropriations. Thus, all round, the fields must feel the pressure as they endeavor to keep the growing work within the estimates of former years. The truth will march on, and will annex still more territory. This message is going to the world. But the situation calls for a continuous and systematic increase of the regular funds for missions. Isaiah's words are for us at this time: “Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations; spare not: lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes. For thou shalt spread abroad on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall possess the nations.” Isaiah 54.
W. A. S.