A New Era in the Advancement of the Message by L. L. Caviness

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 12, 1915

A New Era in the Advancement of the Message

By L. L. Caviness

God is planning that his message is to go to the world in the immediate future with such rapidity as has never been seen in the history of the denomination. The unparalleled opportunities which now are offered for the preaching of the gospel in the Orient have brought a great burden of soul on Elder Daniells. Since his return from his extended travels in the East, as he goes from place to place and presents the needs as he himself has seen them, God's Spirit witnesses to the words spoken, and brings a conviction that much more must speedily be done, or God will hold his people responsible for the souls that might have been saved if these God-given opportunities had been used.

God has set his hand to prepare the necessary workers. The hearts and the minds of the young people in our schools have been turned in a marked way toward the work in the fields beyond. While the Foreign Mission Band is not a recent development in our advanced schools, its purpose has now become more definite, and the number of the young people planning definitely on work in foreign fields has greatly increased even in the last year. While in 1913-14

there were 245 such Foreign Mission Band members, the numbers for the school year just past (1914-15) increased to 509.

The great work just ahead of the young people requires greater consecration and greater efficiency. It is certainly, therefore, in the providence of God that a series of educational and Missionary Volunteer conventions are being held. Not only the motto but the very keystone of these conventions is expressed in the two words, consecration and efficiency. Both the Educational and the Missionary Volunteer Departments are planning to win next year, under God, more young people to Christ and to train more for service than in any year in the past; and with God's help they will.

Any great increase in the numbers of our foreign workers will require an increase in the funds of the denomination; and God seems about to bless in this respect also. In the past the work of the denomination has been crippled by institutional debt. The last year has seen a great movement to wipe out these debts. Some have been entirely paid, and others are being rapidly decreased. With the burden of debt removed, how much easier it will be to raise the means to support a great and immediate advance throughout the world.

With unparalleled opportunities in the unentered fields, a great increase in the number of young people definitely planning for foreign service, a rapid development in the efficiency of the Educational and Young People's Missionary Volunteer Departments, and the phenomenal movement for the rolling away of debt, it is unmistakably evident that God has set his hand to finish his work in the earth, and to finish it very quickly. God grant that we all triumph with it.

L. L. CAVINESS.