THE Lord led his people Israel like a flock into the land of promise. Over hard roads and through many difficulties, his was the guiding hand that always brought them forth. “For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them; but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favor unto them.” Ps. 44:3.
Again the Lord is leading a people into the land of promise, this time the eternal Canaan. The path is a longer one than that of Israel through the wilderness and across the borders of Edom and of Moab. The way now leads through every land and nation on earth. But we can see by faith the three angels of the advent movement still flying on before us, leading the way to every nation and kindred and tongue and people; and we have the promise of the divine Presence as we follow. Notwithstanding all the sin and unbelief, the neglect and lack of earnestness, for which we bow our hearts in repentance before God, we know that the Saviour’s promise is said:—
“Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”
Wherever we turn our eyes, we see the tokens of his blessed presence. The voice of the Good Shepherd is heard in many languages to-day calling in the words of the third angel’s message to his own. “Behold, I, even I,” he says, “will both search my sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.” Eze. 34:11, 12. Thank God, the gathering time has come.
“Long upon the mountains, weary,
Have the scattered flock been torn;
Dark the desert paths, and dreary;
Grievous trials have they borne.
“Now the gathering call is sounding,
Solemn in its warning voice;
Union, faith, and love, abounding,
Bid the little flock rejoice.”
Precious as this thought of the gathering time was to the early advent believers, yet more precious is it to our hearts now, with the gathering call sounding over land and sea.
From the reports this year it is evident that when 1912 shall close, we may count assuredly that eight thousand individuals or more have turned during the twelve months into the way of God’s commandments. We live so in the midst of tokens of God’s leading hand that the danger is that these things shall become common in our eyes.
The reports from the mission fields in the REVIEW from week to week are a continuous panorama of the closing work of God. Thirty years ago we did not know of a Sabbath-keeper south of the United States or Europe, nor was there a representative of this advent movement in all Asia. Now what wonderful reports come to us from the four quarters of the earth! They are so many and so striking that we must beware lest we take them as mere common reports of news, and fail to see that the Lord is working with mighty power before our eyes. “Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord.” Ps. 107:43.
Let us observe just a few of the things that have come to notice within the last three or four weeks prior to the preparation of this reading. The blessings manifested in China put our brethren there under the greatest pressure to respond. New China has made a hundred years of history in a year, and in our own work we have the evidence that the Lord is ready to do a quick work in hastening this message on. The China Union Mission Committee has sent to us this formal request:—
“Whereas, The work has already grown beyond the possibility of our present corps of workers being able properly to carry it, and should sickness overtake us there is no help to care for the work; and—
“Whereas, Only seven of the eighteen provinces of China proper have yet been entered in any way, to say nothing of her dependencies,—Manchuria, Tibet, and Turkestan; therefore—
“We most earnestly request the home board to send to China proper, during the autumn of 1912, not less than eight families of workers, to begin the study of the language, preparatory to active work for China’s waiting millions.”
Commenting on this action, Elder I. H. Evans wrote:—
“Everywhere—north, south, and west—splendid interests are springing up. Last week I received a letter from one of our brethren in Kulangsu, Amoy, stating that at one of the out-stations there were one hundred persons already keeping the Sabbath, and seven hundred inquirers waiting for some one to come and instruct them in the truth. Brother F. E. Stafford and Sister B. Miller have been conducting meetings in Shanghai. As a result of their work four men from the province of Szechuen (which has a population of seventy millions) have accepted the truth, all of whom are teachers, having come to Shanghai because of the revolution, accompanying foreign evangelists as teachers and instructors in their native dialect. This fall these men expect to return to Szechuen, and we have no worker whom we can send back with them. Three years ago Elder Allum was appointed superintendent of that field, but up to the present time it has been impossible for us to spare him long enough to make even a trip to that province. Now that we have four men from there who are keeping the Sabbath, have done some ministerial work, and are quite well educated, it does seem imperative that we have a foreign worker to send to Szechuen to guide and direct these men, and to open up the work. . . . We certainly can not leave China unwarned, when the people show such readiness to accept Christ and become Christians. The Spirit of God is striving with men in China, and it seems a pity that we can not step in with a trained corps of workers at this important time and reap a rich harvest of souls.”
During the last season Elder R. C. Porter made the round of mission stations in the South African Union. Our first work for the heathen was in Africa. We understand that three hundred souls or more have been won to this truth through the missions, and several thousand young persons, all told, are under instruction in our African schools. Of special tokens of the good hand of God in the work, Elder Porter says:—
THE FORSAKEN IDOL TREE
“I am glad to be able to report that all our missions are in a very prosperous condition. The old Solusi Mission [our first in Africa], with Elder W. C. Walston superintendent, gave me notice26when I was there that at the close of the year the mission would return all the money that had been appropriated to it by the General Conference for 1912, and declare it self-supporting this year, and, the workers hope, for the future. It is very remarkable how rains have fallen upon this mission farm, when other farms all about were suffering and receiving no rain. When I was there, all their early crops were matured. The late crops, however, were beginning to need rain very much. Elder Walston said that if rain did not come within a week, the late corn would not be more than half a crop. The matter was made a subject of prayer, and the Lord sent plentiful rains, so that the late crops are reported to be as good as the other. A grain merchant has informed Elder Walston that he had more corn on the mission farm this year than all the farmers in that section or in that district combined. It is the general talk of the farmers that the Lord has specially favored our industrial mission work for the natives, and they are sending in pressing invitations for us to establish out-schools on their farms.
“While I was at the Barotseland Mission, Elder W. H. Anderson made arrangements for the sale of a sufficient amount of produce from the farm to insure making good his promise that the Barotseland Mission would be self-supporting for 1912. That mission has been greatly blessed this year in raising large crops of potatoes, while other farmers have raised but few. There is a Catholic mission just across the river from ours, and once during the summer when rain was badly needed, there came a storm which blew down and destroyed about half their corn crop, while on our mission side of the river there came a beautiful soaking rain, without any wind to damage the crop. In many ways the prospering hand of God has been manifested.”
Here is an experience of God’s presence in the far Philippines. One of the colporteurs had reported an interest in a certain place, and a Filipino evangelist was sent there. Elder E. M. Adams wrote:—
“Last Sunday our evangelist returned from this place, and reported thirteen new Sabbath-keepers. He said that they had started a fund to build a chapel. He also said that they were so eager to hear the truth that they would scarcely let him sleep. The evangelist himself received a new experience from this. He came back with his face shining—a new man in Christ. A few weeks ago he asked to be excused from the ministry, but when he came back he said, with tears in his eyes, that he was sorry that he had ever made such a request. He said that on Sabbath, while he was away, he was opening his meeting by prayer, and had not prayed long when the people fell upon their faces, weeping. He looked around, wondering what had happened, and could not speak. Then he was strengthened, and finished his prayer. He said as he thought how God had committed to him his Holy Spirit, and also as he thought of his past life, he felt very unworthy, but desired to yield his whole life to God and be faithful in his service.”
“Last week a man came to us the second time, asking for some one to go up to his province, as there were some of the people keeping the Sabbath, and they desired instruction. We are planning to send them help in a few days. Truly the Lord is going before us and preparing our way.”
How our brethren in the needy fields are longing and praying for more workers is reflected in a letter to the Mission Board from Dr. A. C. Selmon, editor of our Chinese paper, who last season attended general meetings in several provinces, as fully reported in the REVIEW. “There is surely,” he says, “a wonderful opening of the ears of the people to hear.” He found this specially manifested among the non-Christian people, heathen hearers standing up by scores before heathen neighbors to confess their sins, and to ask to be taught the way of salvation. Dr. Selmon adds:—
“This greatly encouraged all of us, and especially was it a great help to our Chinese church. Our Chinese brethren seemed to get a glimpse of the power that there is in this last gospel message, and to see that there is in it an antidote for every ill and sin that is in the world, and that it is not only adapted to the people in Babylon, but especially to the idol-worshipers of China.”
And after telling, as others have again and again, of the needs and calls beyond their reach, he cries:—
“Whom shall we send? We can not get men here on the field, and so our arms are outstretched to you, brethren in the home land, and we are pleading that you quickly do something to help us. Surely our work in China is in a critical condition. Not because the Lord is not blessing and making openings that we can not fill; but because we are so tied down and short-handed that we can not spare the time to establish these churches and companies in the truth as27they should be established. Our prayer is that you, brethren, will move heaven and earth to get us a good company of people out here this fall. Unless we can have them, it means that we must give up our work in some of the places which we have opened up.”
Truly the situation is a call to prayer that shall indeed move heaven and earth. And this is the season of prayer. Pray for these fields, brethren and sisters. Pray God to protect the workers. Pray that he may move every heart in the making of gifts at this time, large gifts and small. And pray the Lord of the harvest definitely to send forth laborers.
There remains so much land yet to be possessed. We have but entered in. There is no place to stop or rest until the work is done. All the fields can echo China’s cry of unentered territory and the need of workers and of means. While Japan, Korea, and the East Indies are smaller fields, they are none the less in need of workers. I saw this need also only a few months ago in South America, where a little band of our brethren is courageously facing one of the hardest undertakings in the world,—the carrying of the message through fanatically Catholic regions. I dared not so much as hint that any assurance could be given them of increased appropriations for new workers another year. But think of their situation! There is the Peruvian Mission, having a territory equal to all the United States west of the Rockies, with two ordained ministers. There is the Argentine Conference, into which, as far as area is concerned, nearly twenty-nine Pennsylvanias might be placed, and it has four ordained ministers in the field. Mexico and the Spanish fields of the West Indian Union are equally destitute. Elder E. C. Boger, of British Guiana, reports as still faithful a single family in Dutch Guiana, who for years have hoped for the coming of a worker. Elder Boger adds: “The lights along the border burn brightly.”
In India we are working in eight or nine of the hundred languages. The most populous part of Africa still lies untouched by Seventh-day Adventists. It is said that in those vast regions stretching from the West Coast to the Egyptian Sudan, one or two squares a thousand miles on a side might be marked out, in which there is no missionary of any society. Our brethren in South and East Africa are pushing northward toward these regions. The little band in West Africa is heroically struggling to form a base from which its members can push eastward in among the millions; and our brethren in Europe have their eyes on the Egyptian Sudan. What a call it is to pray for men and means, that the far-separated but converging lines may be moved steadily onward!
A Kongo missionary of another society reports a touching story of waiting Africa. “One day,” he says, “as we waited at Leubo, some men came who had walked about one hundred seventy-five miles. They had heard that if they would build a church in their village, a teacher would come to teach them the way of salvation. They had built a church, then had waited and waited. The church had rotted down, but no teacher had come.”
The many tribes unreached, the hundreds of tongues silent as yet in the message, and the vast areas stretching out unentered are not difficulties to dismay or discourage; rather are they inspiring incentives to prayer and sacrifice; for the promise is sure that God will send the light to every tongue and people. His hand is leading; may God give us grace to follow fast.
