The Time to Work by Mrs. S. T. Belden

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Jan 12, 1911

The Time to Work

By Mrs. S. T. Belden

MRS. S. T. BELDEN

“OUR missionaries watch every move in the home lands that means help for the fields abroad. Every splendid gift from conferences or people for missions sends a thrill of joy around the world-wide circle of our work.”

I picked up an old REVIEW, and read this paragraph. Yes, that is very true. And my heart cried out, How long, O Lord, how long, ere the sowers will be ready, having the means in hand, to enter the many fields yet untouched, and others with only a beginning made?

If we all truly believed that the Lord is coming in this generation, there would be no holding back of men or means. Those of us who accepted the truth over fifty years ago are fast dropping away; there are very few of us left. It seems to me this generation can not be stretched out much longer. No time now to be adding field to field and house to house. Shall any hold on to their silver and gold to throw to the moles and the bats by and by? How much better to spend it now, in saving souls, and thus lay up treasure in heaven.

By our actions we show just how much we love the Lord, and long for his coming. Words are of little account if we say, and do not. Meanwhile thousands are falling every day into the grave, without Christ and without hope. Shall their blood be found on our garments when the Judge cometh? My heart aches when I read of the heathen pleading for teachers, and none to send to their help.

Is there a heart so hard that it can not be roused to action by these cries for help? Shall we sit with folded hands and let them perish? A tremendous work is before us if every creature must hear this warning message. Now we must work; the resting must be by and by, when the work is finished.

Norfolk Island, South Pacific Ocean.