The World Prepared for the Message by F. M. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 13, 1910

The World Prepared for the Message

By F. M. W.

DURING the last few decades, Providence has been preparing the world for the last great gospel message. A glance at the world's great array of facilities in rapid thought transmission as seen in the telegraph, the telephone, and the world-wide mail service, the rapid means of travel by railways and steamships, as well as the wonderful manner in which the nations of the world have been opened to the reception of the gospel, impresses us with the preparation which God has made for the doing of a speedy work in this last generation. Regarding the great change which has come in the attitude of the nations toward the gospel work during the last century, the Missionary Review for January, under the heading “A Century of Progress in Missions,” makes this forcible contrast of the condition of the world at the opening of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries:—

1810

Nearly every country in Asia and Africa was closed to the gospel.

The church did not believe in foreign missions.

There were practically no Protestant Christians in heathen lands.

Only one hundred foreign missionaries had been sent out.

The Bible was translated into only sixty-five languages.

Only a few thousands of dollars were given yearly for foreign missions.

There were no medical missionaries.

There were no mission hospitals or orphanages.

There was no native Christian ministry.

Missionary work was not recognized in American and British colleges.

There were no unmarried women missionaries, and no organized work for women.

There were no mission presses or means for preparing and distributing Christian literature in non-Christian lands.

1910

Practically every nation in the world is open to missionaries.

All evangelical churches are interested in missions. To speak against missions is counted a disgrace.

More than two million Protestant Christians have been gathered in heathen lands — besides all who have died in the faith.

There are nearly twenty-two thousand foreign missionaries in the world.

The Bible has been translated into about five hundred languages and dialects.

Total foreign missionary contributions amount to nearly $25,000,000 annually.

Thousands of medical missionaries in the heathen lands treat three million patients a year.

There are four hundred mission hospitals and over five hundred orphanages and asylums in foreign lands, operated by missionaries.

There are over six thousand unmarried women missionaries to heathen women and children.

There are about ninety-three thousand native pastors, evangelists, etc., working among their own people.

There are nearly thirty thousand schools and colleges conducted by Protestant missionaries in foreign lands.

There are over one hundred sixty publishing houses and mission presses, and four hundred Christian periodicals are published on the mission fields.

Thousands of college students are on the mission field, and thousands are preparing to go.

It is cause for gratitude to every lover of missions that during the last one hundred years God has so wondrously wrought in behalf of the heralds of the cross. Earnest men from nearly every Protestant denomination have given themselves to the work of the world's evangelization. Their advance has been marked by heroic endeavor, oftentimes with a sacrifice of life. These earnest, God-fearing men and women have paved the way for still greater triumphs of the cross in connection with the great missionary movement in which this people are engaged. Through their sacrifice and toil, we have facilities made ready to hand. In another column is shown the excellent progress made in our own denominational mission work during the last year. This we believe is but the earnest of a more mighty effort for the year to come. There can be no slackening of our pace. More than one billion souls in heathen darkness urge us on. Let us make the year 1910 the banner year in our missionary operations.

F. M. W.