Home Missionary Report for Quarter Ending March 31, 1916
By Edith M. Graham
THE home missionary report for the first quarter of 1916 has many encouraging features. All but two of the lines of work show a gain, and several of them a large gain. This is partly due to the fact that we have secured reports again from the Unions in Central Europe and South America, but gains have been made over and above these reports. We find 10,689 more people reporting, which shows they have joined this line of organized work. The figures run into large totals. More than a million periodicals were circulated, and well over half a million tracts. The missionary visits and Bible readings together total over two hundred thousand. More than eighteen thousand replies were received to missionary letters. All this was done by only 28,495 of our members. If we stop for a few minutes to consider these figures, we can see that they mean that several million people, scattered over the larger part of the earth, were brought into contact with the truth in different ways during that quarter. If we multiply the work by four, it shows that a year's work of this kind by our lay members will have an appreciable part in the finishing of the work. The Lord has blessed the efforts of his people to the salvation of 695 souls, to our knowledge; but there will be other fruits gathered in from this work. In this report some changes in organization are shown. Japan and Korea are grouped together as the Northeastern Union Mission, and the Philippines are included with Malaysia in the East Indian Union Mission. The Spanish West Indian Islands are grouped in the Northern Latin American Union Mission. The work in the North American Division showed a gain in thirteen out of seventeen lines of work, and the foreign fields gained in the same number of items, though not in the same ones. Their losses were chiefly in the Christian help items, and those in the North American Division were in the distribution of books and periodicals. A considerable share of all the work reported was done by the Missionary Volunteers, for as church members they are represented in this report of church activities. As we look at these figures, let us take courage and press forward. Every such sheet represents an outward step in the finishing of God's work. Let us unite to swell the figures into larger and yet larger totals.