Mission Notes

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D. C. · Apr 13, 1911

At Emmanuel Mission, South Africa, a well thirty-five feet deep has been put down at a small cost, which will prove invaluable during the dry season. Over at the Barotseland Mission, the school has reopened, with an enrolment of fifty-five students. They are having plenty of rain, with all crops in splendid condition. Brother W. H. Anderson reports that their out-stations will all be self-supporting this year, according to present prospects.

At our newest South African mission, Tsungwesi, where Brother M. C. Sturdevant and his helpers have begun work, a school has been opened with an enrolment of twenty-three.

VERY heavy rains are reported from our Solusi and Tsungwesi mission stations. Brother Sturdevant writes that everything is flooded on his station. Brother W. C. Walston started the boys to market with a load of grain. A heavy shower came on when they were a few miles out from the station; and before they could outspan, the water rushed down, and the wagon had to be abandoned in midstream. The wagon and load went rolling over and over down the stream. The boys reported the catastrophe to Brother Walston, and the next day he went with them to recover, if possible, the lost property, or what was left of it. The wagon was found in good condition, and twenty bags of grain were saved out of thirty-two.

DESPITE all attacks upon the Bible, including Higher Criticism, there is today throughout the world a growing demand for God's blessed Word. Only about twenty-eight per cent of the British and Foreign Bible Society's output is shipped from London, the greater part being printed in other places more convenient for circulation; but the past year 2,845 cases of the Scriptures, weighing 333 tons, were sent out from London. On one day, Jan. 17, 1911, consignments of Bibles were being packed for Seoul, Madras, Colon, Adelaide, Sydney, Rio, Buenos Aires, Callao, Barbados, and Rangoon. The next day, January 18, the warehouse had orders on hand for 205,000 copies of the Bible in sixty-four different languages and dialects. This shows that the demand for God's Word is good throughout the habitable world.

BROTHER HAROLD MAYER, a Jew, laboring for his people in Boston and vicinity, expresses the conviction that the general sentiment among Jews is changing regarding Christianity. While they bitterly opposed the first work among them by our people, they now eagerly receive our literature where they are best acquainted with us as a people, and listen with more attention and interest to the story of the Christ. They seem astonished and ashamed that there is really a body of Christians who keep the Sabbath better than they do, also refuse swine's flesh, and beyond all this will, for the love of souls, instead of for money, come among them to labor. This brother tells how easily he can set a whole community of Jews discussing about the Messiah by entering a fish market or butcher shop, distributing some literature, and beginning to talk about Jesus to one or two. When a knot of listeners gathers, he leaves them to discuss the subject, while he goes into another place to do likewise. From among this nation, Jesus will surely gather a company to stand with victors' palms on the sea of glass.