No Turning Back by William Ambrose Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Feb 8, 1906

No Turning Back

By William Ambrose Spicer

THE reports from the mission fields have not much to say of the difficulties. However these abound, the grace of God for courage still more abounds. There is no thought of turning back, among the workers. Now and then a laborer may have to fall back for a new hold on life. But the Mission Board correspondence shows that the greater the difficulties encountered, the deeper the needs of the fields take root in the heart of the worker.

While at 'home the believers are praying and sacrificing for missions, depend upon it, the laborers in the fields are enduring hardness as good soldiers. We are all one family in the faith of this third angel's message, and it is not out of place to allow now and then a glimpse of correspondence not intended for publication, but which speaks from the heart the spirit that holds the missionaries to the line of outpost service in spite of difficulties.

Last season was a particularly trying one in the fever districts of Central America and the West Indies. In the latter field, Elder Sweany, for one, had a serious struggle for several months with the fever. He writes us that he has apparently won the victory over it, and adds this declaration of undaunted missionary faith:—

I believe with all my heart that if a band of men, whose hearts God has touched, will report for service anywhere, at any thing, to do and dare, live or die, for the advancement of this cause, it will speedily be finished, and then we can all go to our eternal home to stay. The evidence that God wanted us to come to the West Indies was as clear and satisfactory to us as if we had heard his audible command, and the devil and death can not scare or drive us from this place, until the Lord, in some way, as plainly orders us elsewhere. We were equally clear in going to Trinidad, and also in coming here to Grenada. We have seen trouble and difficulty everywhere, especially here, but our courage has never wavered, and our fondest hope is that we may stay at the front till the battle is over.

Our minds never turn to more favored fields or pleasant places; but we do often, often think and plan and pray for the unconquered countries, with a willingness and longing to help answer our prayers. For many fields we know we are not fit, and are not very well equipped for any place, but 'there's surely somewhere a lowly place in earth's harvest-field so wide, where we may labor, through life's short day, for Jesus the crucified.'

Our hearts leap for joy as we note the advancement of the message in all the earth. We rejoice most of all, in the rapidly increasing instances of the direct providence of God in fields we have not yet reached. It will henceforth keep us busy to follow the advancing providence of God, as it sweeps through the waiting nations.

Another letter comes from Dr. Hetherington, who was compelled to retire from Central America, on account of his wife's health. He writes from Arizona:—

Now, I have been planning to make a special donation to the Mission Board, but the more I thought over the matter, the more I felt that it would be a blessed privilege to pay back to the Board an amount equal to what they had to expend to place me in the foreign field in the first place. I feel impressed to do this now, for I am confident that the Board would be able to place one (possibly two) more workers in the field if they had this amount. So instead of making a special donation this year, I want to ask the privilege of paying this sum to the Board (about four hundred dollars), as I am able.

It makes me happy to plan this, and I trust it will meet with your approval. The Lord is good in giving me health and strength and the ability to make my work self-supporting, and I am willing to trust him.

My heart is still turned toward Central America. If the Lord is willing, we hope to return to that field next spring. My wife is steadily building up in health, and we are trusting God for the rest.

So through all the needy fields the laborers are working, and enduring, and planning to devise ways and means to hasten the message on. Personal contact

with unwarned millions presses the burden of the work heavily upon their hearts. We must stand by them in sending forward the means and men with which to work. W. A. S.