WHITER than ever unto harvest, the fields stretch out before us. It has been a busy year of advance. The everlasting gospel, in the setting of the threefold message of Revelation 14, is God's message for these last days; and the power of God is in it, converting hearts and transforming lives in every land.
Think of it! Last year, according to the statistical secretary's report, there were registered over a thousand baptisms a month in the homelands and mission fields. Nearly thirteen thousand souls were baptized into the Lord Jesus under the banner of the third angel's message. Such a report was never given us before; and during the same year, sixteen thousand new members were entered upon the church lists. The Lord is stretching forth his hand to save.
Photo by R. C. Porter
New fields have been entered this present year. The banner of this last message has been lifted on the Tanganyika Plateau, farthest into the heart of the Dark Continent. Nigeria is opened on the African west coast, and the Australasian Union has landed its first workers in the wild Solomon Islands, and on the island of Niue, or Savage Island, away in the midst of the Pacific. Three new languages have been annexed to the literature of the message in the Philippines, on the islands of Luzon, Panay, and Cebu. Manchuria is opened, not to speak of new provinces in China proper. A worker for Madagascar has reached Mauritius, a neighboring island, where he will labor for a time. Far away at the southernmost point of all the earth, work has been opened at Punta Arenas, on the Strait of Magellan. Then away toward the north polar regions, the Scandinavian Union reports the opening of our first mission among the Laplanders. We may yet hear of Laplanders drawn by the reindeer, sledgeing through the snow to the services of this week of prayer. And still another new tongue within the arctic circle will respond to the roll call of the peoples, giving thanks to God for the “blessed hope.”
Really, was there ever such a time for the extension of the work and the ingathering of souls? We cannot even speak of all the new records established. The first tent meeting has been held in Turkey proper, near Smyrna—held by permission of the governor, who declared that if our workers would preach the Bible just as it is written, in spirit as well as in letter, he would consider them messengers sent from heaven. The first church is organized in Borneo, in the East Indies. Our first contact with untamed cannibalism on the war path has been reported this year from the island of Atchin, New Hebrides. Amidst an uprising, with the slaying of the native teacher of another mission and the fleeing of the white trader, Brother and Sister Parker have told us of barricading themselves in the new mission home, where they were kept safe under the shadow of the Almighty until the fury of the storm was past. Now they send the glad word that heathen hearts are softening before the message of God's love.
A new union mission field has been organized in South America, comprising Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru. Peru reports the raising up of a company of Sabbath keepers through services in a Roman Catholic church. That surely is a new record. The church was the only building large enough to hold those who wanted to hear. The people said they had built it and it was theirs; so, out of deference to the feelings of the priest, a canvas was hung up in front of the altar, and day after day the message was proclaimed, the converting power of God attending it. Two hundred and thirty Indians have now been baptized at the Lake Titicaca Mission, and the truth is working mighty changes in a dark region where never before had the light of the gospel shone in. Yet, think of it, this new union mission in the land of the ancient Inca Empire of the Sun, one third as large as the United States, with over eight million people, has only three ordained ministers and a corresponding number of other workers. No wonder the brethren looking toward us hope that more workers may be commissioned to come to their help.
But now we must give place to testimonies from some of the great divisions of the field. Beginning with South America, Elder J. W. Westphal speaks:—
'Greetings to our brethren throughout the world gathered in this week of prayer service. Each year records progress, not only in additions to our numbers, but in the power attending the message and increased calls from those who want to know the truth. Where once the doors were closed, today they swing wide open, and seemingly of their own accord. In our large cities people are giving heed to the truth, and the Lord is using the simplest means to accomplish his purpose. Prayer meetings are made the means for the conversion of outsiders attending. In some instances they seem to be taken hold of by an irresistible power, resulting in an almost visible conflict and a happy triumph. Do we need more help? How can these conditions be met without it? The possibilities before us in South America are limited only by the number of consecrated workers and the means necessary to support them. Our training school is soon to turn out about a dozen young men and women, who should be put to work. We praise God for his goodness and his blessings to us.'
From Australasia, sturdily bearing its burden of evangelizing the island world of the Pacific, Elder J. E. Fulton bears this testimony:—
'Australasia, with its conferences on the continent and in New Zealand, its institutions, schools, sanitariums, and publishing houses, its thirteen island missions scattered here and there among the thousands of islands that dot our southern Pacific Ocean, representing brethren of various colors, nationalities, and languages, who believe in the same great world-wide message, sends greetings from under the Southern Cross to our beloved brethren in other lands. We pray that the week of prayer may indeed be a season of great blessing and spiritual refreshing; that the work of God may be quickly finished in every land; we pray that there may be a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon you all, and in this great blessing we all desire to share. In our field there is a quickening, and awakening zeal and activity to finish the work. A loyal people, willing to help, with schools full to overflowing with the flower of our flock, all give assurance that the work in Australasia can soon be done.'
It seems but a few years ago that we were bidding Godspeed to the first workers turning their faces toward Australia and New Zealand with this message. How truly God has wrought in developing this strong missionary base in the very midst of the great island world of the southern seas!18
Elder W. B. White speaks the word for Africa:—
'We have every reason to be encouraged. God is good, and his mercy endureth forever. Many hearts, both European and native, seem open for the truth, and we feel that now is our time to work. Since reaching these shores a year ago, my heart has been cheered by seeing over one hundred and fifty persons follow the Lord in baptism. The coming year we look for a yet larger harvest. In one mission field, where we have thirty-eight outschools, there are nearly five hundred native young men and women in the Bible classes, which means that in a short time, when they are fully instructed and established in the truth, they will, if faithful, receive baptism. In all our cities and at all our mission stations, the turning of souls toward the light greatly encourages us. We long for more workers to gather in the harvest. We thank God that, though the last rainy season has brought attacks of fever to quite a number of our missionaries, one being prostrated with the dread black-water fever, no lives have been sacrificed. For this we do praise the Lord. We have scarcely any one to work for the Europeans in our large cities. Here our need is great. Our hearts are filled with gratitude to you, brethren and sisters, for what you are doing for us here. You are sending us your sons and your daughters, and they are faithfully laboring for God, and your mission gifts are sending the light out into the darkness of the vast regions of heathenism spreading before us. We ask the prayers of the church.'
Following this word from Africa comes a testimony from the great Asiatic Division. Elder R. C. Porter, of Shanghai, speaks:—
'From every part of the occupied portion of the field comes a note of courage and advance. There is growth in tithes and offerings. The basis of this growth is a longing to pass the blessed message of Christ's soon coming to those in darkness. The call of the unoccupied fields in this division is pitiful. I have ridden twenty-four hours continuously, by fast express, from Mukden to Peking, over the finest territory in the East, in which we have not one voice raised to give the message. As I beheld the thrift of the people, their unstinted industry, yet their devotion to superstitious worship at heathen shrines, my heart was burdened with an unutterable longing to see the message established in this great territory.
'We are just entering Manchuria, on the north. The province of Szechuan, on the extreme west, which has appealed for help so long, now has a mission station, and already a number are keeping the Sabbath. Central China has reached northward and gathered in souls. Returning from Peking to Shanghai, we saw an earnest Chinese worker selling papers at the station, going from window to window. We requested a China Inland missionary to ask him where his papers were published. ‘At Shanghai,’ he replied. ‘By what denomination?’ I asked through the interpreter. ‘By the Seventh-day Adventists,’ was the answer. Then we enjoyed an old-time love feast there on the platform of that railway station. I asked where he obtained his papers, and he told us that he had formerly been a Presbyterian minister, but had accepted the truth a few months since, starting out at once to bear the message to his people. Wishing to reach out into unworked territory, he had loaded his wheelbarrow with literature at Yen-cheng, Honan, and wheeled it three hundred miles to Chunte, where we met him. How many of us are making a like sacrifice to reach the people in the unoccupied regions?'
VOLCANIC ERUPTION, KAGOSHIMA, JAPAN
'Advance moves have been made in every mission field in China, and in Japan and Korea. New recruits have made possible the opening of two new provinces in the Philippines. Malaysia is advancing, her new recruits being thrown out in a long, thin line, through a territory as great as the British Isles. In the Celebes Island, yet unentered, a native became interested. He has ordered, sold, delivered, and paid for three shipments of our books. Thus God's providence is going before us, showing that the time is ripe to enter this field. But the workers are wanting, and an increase of means will be required to enter these open doors. How long shall they have to wait? In passing you this brief word of courage in the Lord, we join you in prayer and consecration for the finishing of the work.'
Prof. H. R. Salisbury, of Lucknow, speaks for India and Burma:—
'As we join our brethren and sisters in the great world circle of prayer, our hearts cry out for more power—power to rightly represent the Saviour of mankind; for in heathen lands more than in all others, our success lies in exalting Christ in our lives, as it is written. ‘And the heathen shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes.’ In this non-Christian land of the Indian Empire, with its three hundred and twenty million souls, we have the fewest laborers, in proportion to the population, of any of our missions. Hinduism, Buddhism, and Mohammedanism have surrounded themselves with well-nigh impassable barriers to stop the progress of Christianity; but the Lord of hosts has given us the sword of the Spirit, so that in faith we can say, ‘Their defense is removed from over them, and the Lord is with us: fear them not.’
'Truly the Lord has wrought for us this year, so that our hearts are filled with courage; for in the face of great odds there have been more baptisms, more inquirers after the truth, and more new territory entered than in any year in the past. Especially have we prayed this year that we might know how to reach the hearts of the seventy million followers of Islam, who more than all others stubbornly refuse to accept the world's Redeemer. In this, too, we have been greatly encouraged, for while some, like Nicodemus, have come by night to study the Word, others come to our public meetings, and some have openly confessed that Jesus is the Christ. We long for the fulfillment of the words of the Mohammedan of Bokhara, who said after reading the story of the cross: ‘I am convinced that Jesus Christ will conquer Mohammed. There is no doubt about it, because Christ is King in heaven and on earth, and his kingdom fills heaven and will soon fill the earth.’
'Pray for us in India, that, in view of the great task confronting us, our faith fail not, and in the midst of this heathen darkness the light of truth may shine brightly in our lives.'
This reading, made up several weeks before the prayer season, cannot give the latest words from our brethren in the European Division. From all parts of Europe our brethren have told us of the good it has done them in this time of calamity to know that the believers in other lands were praying for them, and making special gifts to stand by the great mission work that the European Division has been carrying in Africa and Asia and other parts. Elder Conradi's first message from out the war zone told it in these words:—
'Our hope is in God, who guides the destinies of the world, and who will protect his own, and will not allow his cause to suffer too terribly in the crucible of affliction. We know that our brethren in other lands will stand by our missions and brethren who are cut off from our division treasury. Remember us at the throne of grace.'
In all Europe our brethren have been earnestly spreading the message by voice and publications amidst the strain and stress. Elder J. C. Raft, of the Scandinavian Union, wrote:—
'The effect on the people of what is now taking place is such that I believe it will mean a new impetus to our gospel work. People are asking with wonder what these things mean, and many are19thinking seriously. Our workers as well as our people in general are making it a business to seek God in a special manner. The fearful events now transpiring are waking us up, telling what will soon come. They are unmistakable signs of the times. We are making special efforts to win souls. We are hoping and praying that the angel of peace may soon return to Europe, and that we may yet have a little time of quiet in which to finish, with renewed power, the work God has committed to us. We are especially glad to know that our American brethren will not forsake us, but are praying for us.'
Elder F. A. Detamore, writing from the East Indies, says:—
'People are coming to our missionaries for light on the present situation. Some who were convinced before are taking their stand. I can see as never before that erelong men will be running to and fro seeking the word of the Lord when it is too late to find it. It is evident, also, that many will come out fully for the Lord in these closing scenes. My heart burns for these poor Mohammedans. We have a tremendous task on our hands to tell them this message.'
Indeed, we Seventh-day Adventists do have an Eastern question of our own to settle, as Brethren Salisbury and Detamore suggest, in telling their burden for the Moslem peoples. One eighth of all the people of earth are Mohammedans; and how little we have yet done to reach them!
So, midst wars and rumors of wars, the message moves on. There have been flood, and famine, and pestilence, and revolution, but the message moves on, winning victories that are the surest signs of the nearness of the end.
'Thus bad and good their several warnings give
Of his approach, whom none [unsaved] may see and live.
Faith's ear, with awful, still delight,
Counts them like minute bells at night,
Keeping the heart awake till dawn of morn,
While to her funeral pile this aged world is borne.'
Elder Kuniya, of Japan, tells how he pleaded with the people of Kagoshima only a little time ago, to give their hearts to God, telling them that some day that smoking volcano at their door would send forth destruction and death. This year came the terrible eruption, with the great loss of life. In sending a picture of the volcano in action, Elder Kuniya tells us that he is returning again to Kagoshima to preach this message. 'I shall pitch a tent once more,' he says, 'to warn the people.' By judgments abroad in the earth, and by God's mercies displayed in saving power, the appeal is being made to the inhabitants of earth to turn to the Lord. With greater courage and greater earnestness in our lives than ever before, may we pray and give and go in the service of our coming Lord.
