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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 16, 1911

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 88, No. 11.

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Java

By R. W. MUNSON

ALL the signs warn us that the end is very near. Our day of opportunity is nearly done. The harvest is great, but where are the reapers? Who will gather in the sheaves?
If the thirty-two million inhabitants of Java were to march past us, five abreast, day and night, beginning Oct. 1, 1910, the last day of February, 1911, would pass before the last man had gone by. Let them march in single file during daylight only, and March 1, 1915, would arrive before the last one had passed. During those fifty months, 3,200,000 births and 2,200,000 deaths would have taken place. Every year at least half a million are dying without Christ. Think of 43,800 funerals every month, 1,400 every day, 60 every hour, one every minute, in Java.
The people here are very poor. Many toil for fifteen shillings a month, or sixpence a day, and keep a family. Millions exist, thousands are destitute, hundreds starve. Cholera kills its thousands, superstition its tens of thousands. Like a mountain, superstition stands in the way of good sanitation, sane medical treatment, and real advancement.
The people say the government wants human heads to lay under the foundations of new bridges and public buildings, and the inspectors, with the convicts employed to do the work, are employed in this task of garnering human heads, infants as well as adults. No reasoning, no argument, avails to change their opinion. Nothing will convince them. Mohammedan hajis and priests work on the ignorance, stupidity, and superstition of the people to the advantage of Islam. Riots and bloodshed often result, for the government must maintain order, even at the cost of human life.
Do you not pity the poor people of Java? Would you like to exchange places with them? Their spiritual as far exceeds their mental darkness as their moral destitution exceeds their temporal.They are dying without God, without Christ, without hope.
Who will deny himself that Christ, in the person of these poor people, may be spiritually fed and clothed? Christ died for them; what have you done for them? For the love of Christ and in his dear name we plead with you to give and pray for Java. R. W. MUNSON.