p. 17 | Opportunities Improved and Neglected

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 2, 1916

Opportunities Improved and Neglected

By Charles S. Longacre

A MOST interesting account has been published in the daily newspapers concerning religious liberty work in Peru. The following interesting news item is taken from the Minneapolis (Minn.) Journal of Feb. 6, 1916:—

“The announcement to the world a short while ago that religious liberty had been granted in Peru, has just brought to light the fact that a native of Minnesota, who spent most of his life in Winona, was responsible for the decision of the legislative body of that country. Ferdinand A. Stahl, who has been a medical missionary in Bolivia and Peru since 1909, is the man who brought the change. Mr. Stahl is the son of Mrs. Therese Kraft Stahl, 789 West Fifth St., Winona, and he also has an aunt, Mrs. Bertha McElligott, who resides at the same address.

“Since engaging in missionary operations in Peru, Mr. Stahl has been laboring to Christianize the Indians in the vicinity of Lake Titicaca, the highest fresh-water lake in the world. His interest in working for religious liberty was aroused when several Indian followers of his religion had been placed in prison.

“Mr. Stahl appealed to the courts, on the grounds that the Indians had been placed in prison because their religious convictions differed from those of the state church, and the judge ordered their release. Together with some of these Indians, Mr. Stahl started agitation among the legislators, with the result that the inhabitants of Peru can now worship as they see fit.

“Mr. Stahl has done considerable work among the Indians along medical lines, having been graduated as a nurse, at a Battle Creek sanitarium. He is the superintendent of a Lake Titicaca mission.”

This shows what a wide-awake Seventh-day Adventist can do under God for the cause of religious liberty in the countries where religious intolerance has held sway for centuries. Sometimes we are prone to think that we are the creatures of circumstances, and we compromise lazily with our surroundings, when God intended that we should be masters of the situation.

MOSES wrote: “Jehovah will make thee the head, and not the tail; and thou shalt be above only, and thou shalt not be beneath; if thou shalt hearken unto

the commandments of Jehovah thy God.” This promise is for God’s people now as well as for those who kept his commandments anciently. If there is any place in the world where the principles of religious liberty should be brought to the attention of the lawmakers, it is in these priest-ridden countries. What God has done for Peru through the earnest efforts of Brother Stahl and others, he is anxious to do for other countries where religious oppression is hindering the free passage of the gospel message.

Over two hundred Sunday bills before State legislatures in the United States have been defeated during the past two years. In fact, every effort which has been made has been successful. All the drastic Sunday laws that are now upon the statute books in the different States were placed there because no voice was raised in protest against them at the time they were enacted. These experiences afford us striking illustrations of what can be accomplished under God if we improve our opportunities, and what terrible consequences follow if we neglect our opportunities to do good.

“We are not doing the will of God if we sit in quietude, doing nothing to preserve liberty of conscience. Fervent, effectual prayer should be ascending to heaven that this calamity may be deferred until we can accomplish the work which has so long been neglected. Let there be most earnest prayer; and then let us work in harmony with our prayers. It may appear that Satan is triumphant, and that truth is overborne with falsehood and error. . . . But God would have us recall his dealings with his people in the past, to save them from their enemies. He has always chosen extremities, when there seemed no possible chance for deliverance from Satan’s workings, for the manifestation of his power. Man’s necessity is God’s opportunity.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. V, p. 714.

C. S. LONGACRE.