Calcutta, India by J. M. Comer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 21, 1916

Calcutta, India

By J. M. Comer

J. M. COMER

It is four years since I began work in Calcutta, and they have been four very busy ones. When I came here, we had a church of twelve members, meeting for services in the parlor at our treatment-rooms, on 75 Park Street. However, the way soon opened for securing a hall for our public services on Free School Street, and we have continued work in this place ever since. God has wonderfully blessed our efforts. We have had our share of disappointments and trials, yet we realize that we have had many rich blessings, for which we are truly thankful.

The year 1915 was our best year thus far. Twenty-three members were added to the church by baptism. In the winter of 1914-15, we were able to hold meetings for eight weeks in the Theater Royal, one of the largest theaters in the city; and when we moved to our own hall on Free School Street and began meetings there, a large number of interested people followed us, and new ones came in, of whom quite a number were finally brought into the church. It was a little expensive to conduct meetings in the theater, yet the results, we feel, have more than repaid us.

Our church in Calcutta is growing, not only in membership, but in personal experience and active missionary work. We have a strong missionary society, which is doing good work. It is taking a regular club of 2,000 copies of the Oriental Signs each month. Different members of the church are holding regular Bible readings each week, and three of those baptized last year came in as the direct result of the efforts of members of the church. This was a source of great encouragement to me as well as to these workers.

Our Sabbath school during the past year reached its highest membership, seventy-seven, and I think it would be hard to find a more interesting Sabbath school anywhere. One very encouraging feature is that many children whose parents are not members of the church are members of our Sabbath school, and through them the interest of the parents is being awakened to know more about this message.

All our Sabbath school offerings go to mission work. Last year our church raised more than 1,988 rubles. This is an average of 40 cents a week for each member.

Our church used 200 copies of the Harvest Ingathering Signs, for which we received 189 rubles. We had interesting experiences calling on some native gentlemen who seemed interested in our work here, and we also received good donations from them. We hope to use at least 400 copies of the Harvest Ingathering Signs this year, and we want 1916 to be our best year, not only in finances, but above all things in the winning of souls.

So far this year God has blessed us with eight persons baptized into the church, and we have at present eight or ten who are keeping the Sabbath and will soon unite with us.

One of our members who was baptized in February is now in Persia, in a place where the third angel's message has not been presented. He is a loyal Seventh-day Adventist, and I know he will hold up the truth in Persia.

Another brother is up in one of the native states. He is a dentist, and is there on professional business, but is also giving out literature and teaching the principles of the third angel's message.

A brother whom I baptized in April is in a new field in Burma where the third angel's message has not been given. He is headmaster of a government school in this place. After this brother was baptized, he ordered a complete set of Sister White's works, and a good supply of our literature to distribute. We are looking forward to the time when a call will come for a minister to go there and baptize those whom he has led into the truth.

Another young man, baptized in April, leaves us soon for Loma Linda, to take a medical evangelistic course to prepare for work in Persia. So from our work in Calcutta we can see the message carried to new fields.

In the face of all the evidences we have in the world today of the nearness of the end, I feel to consecrate my heart wholly and unreservedly to the service of God, and to work harder than ever before to win souls to the Master.