NEVER yet has come to us a week of prayer that did not mark another year of missionary advance. That is something to thank God for. Every turn in the road grows brighter with promise. Every year calls to us in louder tones that the warning message is speeding on, and that we are to follow hard after in our praying and giving and going.
Who can ever weary of watching the progress of the message? The news of the fields will never become an old story with us. We are seeing the hand of the Lord at work. We are watching in these days the work that prophets and kings and angels have looked forward to through the ages.
Isaiah saw it in vision. He saw the redeemed being gathered in the last days to Zion. He heard the world scoffing as the people in whose heart is God's law went forth with the last gathering message. He saw that people rise and shine. In his joy, he cried out by inspiration to that favored people:—
“How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth! Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing: for they shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion. . . . The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God.” Isa. 52: 7-10.
All the prophets and saints have longed to see this day. Daniel and John pointed out the very time when the message would be heard, and in The Revelation it was seen actually reaching every nation and tongue, leaving everywhere it touched a people keeping the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus. We are face to face with it all to-day. We are seeing just what the prophets talked about and longed so to see, and all the word will be gloriously fulfilled.
This very year has marked a new era in this missionary advance. Did not all our hearts burn within us as we read or heard the reports of the recent General Conference? With one voice, brethren from all the four quarters of the earth testified that the power of this blessed message is transforming lives and building up a successful work in every land it touches. And what a cry of need came to us in this united call from the fields! Rolled into one voice, it is a cry like the sound of many waters calling, “Send us help.” Our embarrassments are not those of lack of success. The victories everywhere, the opening doors, the souls looking this way for help, the crying need, place us where the only possible thing for any believer to do is to cut loose and cut down, and throw every available resource of means and time and strength into the service.
What the delegates told us at the Conference about open doors, and the reports that constantly come, correspond exactly to these words from the spirit of prophecy:—
“Our General gives the command, ‘Go forward.’ Thousands are thirsting for living truth. The Macedonian cry is coming to us from every direction, ‘Come over and help us.’ Time and again I have had presented before me a vision of people across the broad ocean, standing in perplexity, and pale with anxiety, earnestly inquiring, ‘What is truth?’ They say: ‘We want the bread of life. . . . We want to find the old paths. We want to come back to the simplicity of gospel religion.’ My tears flow as I see this picture rising vividly before me. The voice from heaven pleads, ‘Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.’”—Mrs. E. G. White, in “Stewardship Series,” No. 1.
Think of that brother in Siberia traveling two thousand miles to find one of our ministers who could teach him this message! Then think of two or three ordained ministers in that whole vast country. A church elder away in Russian Turkestan, Central Asia, reports a baptism with three hundred people gathered at the riverside, some to scoff and some to pray. So pressing was the crowd, the believers had to wade out to a little island, and there, with the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit, true souls followed their Lord in baptism. We had no thought of the Turkestan region as a near field for our work three years ago. Now the message is stirring the people there.
From Riga, Russia, Sister J. T. Boettcher sends us a word for this service, Elder Boettcher being away in the south, looking for a site for their Russian school. What cause for thanksgiving, by the way, that a school in Russia can now be planned for! A little time ago it could not have been mentioned aloud. Here is the message from Russia, a letter sent to the Riga headquarters from the believers away in Manchuria, near the Chinese border. They have never seen a minister, and write from Harbin:—
“DEAR BRETHREN: You write us that Elder Loebsack is in the city of Akmolinsk, Siberia,—that is pleasing to the Lord, and causes us great joy,—but if you knew how we long for a minister to come to us as soon as possible! Here are many souls who wish to be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. I will not write much, for you have already heard of the Seventh-day Adventists in Harbin. Christ says, ‘Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.’ On the eleventh of August a child of one of the brethren in Harbin died. We accompanied the body to the graveyard, and at the funeral many people were there, both Chinese and Russians, who wondered greatly that we had no leader. But we know that Christ is our leader.”
Thank God for the first light of the message kindled in Manchuria! Turn where we may, we find hearts now seeking to find those who have the truth for this time. From the Balkans, Southeastern Europe, Elder Hinter reports an experience. As he travels, he scatters tracts and papers. One night recently, at a late hour, a knocking was heard at the door of his dwelling in Bucharest, Rumania. Some one opened the door, and found three peasants standing without, who had walked from a village about fifty miles distant. On being asked why they sought the house of Mr. Hinter at such an hour, they replied:—
“We seek the way of salvation, and have heard that from this man the way of salvation may be learned. We have received a paper with his address, and so have come here on foot to receive instruction.”
From away in the Cook Islands, in the South Pacific, an islander who had received the Rarotongan paper and some books, writes:—
“My joy is beyond expression. There came a young man to our shores, Tonga by name, and sold many books here. He sold a case full in just a twinkling. Now the result is this, that there is no use of any missionary preaching unto us fables. . . . Send us more and more light.”
Down in Africa there is real heart-hunger. “The natives come hundreds of miles to our stations,” said Elder Edmed at the General Conference, “to plead for teachers.” Elder R. C. Porter,19of the South African Union Conference, who has recently visited the Rhodesia stations, writes:—
“The need is for means to open up more out-stations and equip them faster. The instruction to us is to step faster, and our burden is to set these darkened lands all ablaze with the light of the message. Every station established is a torch that lights the territory for miles around, so let the money flow into the treasury that more torches may be lighted, for the African darkness is very dense.”
East Africa has opened new stations, and our workers have reduced a language to writing, and put the four Gospels into a tongue that never before spoke the Word of the living God.
But the most populous part of Africa is that stretching from the Guinea Coast, West Africa, eastward along the Sudan to the Nile; and set at the west gateway of this region is our West Coast mission, with only two foreign men and their wives and a little band of loyal helpers. Two families should have gone this year, but Elder D. C. Babcock told us at Conference that with each additional worker going now, about a thousand dollars must go along, too, for a mission station. So we are waiting, and West Africa is waiting. From every quarter the West Coast mission hears calls to come to plant stations. Elder Babcock says:—
“There are not less than one hundred million souls in this territory. If ever Christianity did anything for a dark land, if ever anything was accomplished for those in heathen countries, let us arise now and do something for this neglected field. I do earnestly appeal for a decided move in West Africa the present year.”
Yes, brethren, that was a true picture given us in the quotation from the spirit of prophecy—thousands hungering for the living truth. What a call to us who have that living truth. Brother Santee voices it for us in song:—
“The world is hungry for Jesus; from many a far-off shore
Come pleadings that stir the workers to efforts unreached before.
They are calling for other workers, for the work half finished falls;
We are near the close of the harvest, and the Master for reapers calls.
“The world is hungry for Jesus, and nations are in the dark; They would fly to some place of safety, like the weary dove to the ark;
They would hear of the ‘Friend of sinners,’ and hearing, their hearts are stirred;
’Tis the ‘gospel of the kingdom,’ and to them we must carry the word.”
TENT-MEETING IN JAPAN; CONDUCTED BY ELDERS W. D. BURDEN AND H. KUNIYA, STANDING IN CENTER OF BACK ROW
Elder J. W. Westphal sends this message from South America:—
“With the opening doors in this land, as the power of the Papacy has been broken, there are also open hearts. Souls are hungering and thirsting for the truth. Blind eyes are opened; deaf ears unstopped; hard hearts made tender. This shows that the opening of the doors of South America is of God, and that they are opened that we may do quickly our appointed work. The Lord has wonderfully blessed the efforts, and a host has been raised up who are uniting with us. The General Conference is sending men to enlarge the ranks. Others stand ready, but must wait for lack of funds. Should not one or two men go up the Amazon River, one of the great highways to the heart of the continent? No Adventist voice has ever been heard in that vast territory. There are great states in Brazil with millions of inhabitants where nothing has been done. Argentina has whole provinces with not a witness. Entire republics are only touched. The work must be greatly strengthened before it can swell to a ‘loud cry.’ What about the Indians of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador? God is opening the way. Shall we step in? Or shall God’s providence call in vain? Pray ye the Lord of the harvest.”
From away in the East Indies, Elder S. W. Carr reports the first-fruits in New Guinea—one believer, a European planter, at Dedele. And here he found opportunity to preach the message to those who had never heard of Christ. Brother Carr says:—
“Finding one lad who knew the Motuan, I used him as my interpreter to tell them the ‘old, old story of Jesus and his love,’ and of the reason of our coming to New Guinea—to proclaim his soon return. I never had a more attentive audience, and with rapt attention they listened to the story of his life, death, and resurrection, the announcement of the latter causing exclamations of surprise from all. Complete silence prevailed while we all knelt together to ask the Lord to bless the words spoken in weakness and under such circumstances. None had been told the story before, and none had ever knelt or heard prayer before. An intense longing came over me to remain among them and work. This is about the center of seventy miles of unoccupied territory, and20is the inlet to all the tribes up in the ranges. These tribes are still cannibal.”
From China, north and south and central, we hear of extension and revivals. This truth is the truth that true hearts are searching for. Away in Hakklo-land, South China, and alone, Brother J. P. Anderson writes:—
“It is a big proposition—giving this message to China’s millions. Yet I am persuaded that when we get native workers trained, we can spread over this land in a surprisingly short time.”
There is courage in a great task which only God’s direct power can accomplish. Elder E. H. Wilbur, of Canton, writes:—
“Our hearts have been filled with joy and courage as we have read the reports of the General Conference. Truly the time has come for the ‘loud cry.’ The truth has never advanced so rapidly in China as it has this year. Praise the Lord! With several of our best laborers away in America, and others sick, it seemed as if the work would have to halt; but on the contrary, it has moved forward beyond all expectations.”
It is God’s work, and nothing can stop it. Through tumult and massacre, in which some of our own brethren were slain, the open door in Turkey has been preserved, and the Levant must hear the message. Elder R. S. Greaves, of Smyrna, following up Prof. W. E. Howell’s visit to Albania, reports the baptism of the first converts there, and so another province of Turkey in Europe is on our list.
Workers from Barcelona have gone to the Balearic Islands, off the Spanish coast, and sold thousands of papers. One islander besought Brother Bond to teach him “how to pray to the living God,” and asked, “Can you not send some one to teach us more fully the way of truth?” Is it not too bad that still Spain is left with but two foreign families, and Portugal with but one? While Barcelona was a battle-ground, in the recent revolutionary outbreak, and blood was flowing in the streets and hundreds being slain, our brethren there were holding a canvassers’ institute, from which six workers went into the field.
These are strenuous days. What is done must be done quickly. Says the Testimony:—
“Soon grievous troubles will arise among the nations—trouble that will not cease until Jesus comes. As never before we need to press together. . . . We have no time to lose. The world is stirred with the spirit of war. The prophecies of the eleventh of Daniel have almost reached their final fulfilment. From all the countries of the world the Macedonian cry is sounding, ‘Come over and help us.’ God has opened fields before us. . . . Work, O work, keeping eternity in view!”
The sending out of one hundred forty workers in 1908, nearly double that of any former year, swept the mission treasury clean of its income. Then came the General Conference, a heavy expense to mission fields, and it seemed as if this year there must be a halt. But the Conference declared for an advance. And this year already over one hundred workers have gone out. It is purely a matter of faith and trust. The support of practically the whole hundred is yet to come. The means to keep the line moving must well up from deeper springs of liberality that God only can touch. Let us pray him to send the means. Let us study to know how to develop missionary funds. What a grand thing to be ready to go to the fields and give all in service! What an equally grand thing to be able in business to succeed for God and to give all the proceeds beyond the necessaries of life to the saving of the lost! And what a grand thing for all to gather by economy and self-denial the gifts that will help to make this week-of-prayer offering the largest in our history!
First giving our own hearts for cleansing from sin and the infilling of the Holy Spirit for service, here we lay our all upon the altar, to live and work only for the hastening of this message to all the world within the next few years.
A Postscript
After this reading was prepared, there came an appeal to our brethren in Europe, from Elder L. R. Conradi, who is now in Africa, we suppose, on the Abyssinian border. We place it here to be read in Great Britain and Ireland, and, in the translations, in the various countries of Continental Europe. But it will interest all our people in America to hear how earnestly the brethren in Europe are planning to carry the message to a third of the world. We are all in it—one united people, having the same “blessed hope,” and ready to give and go and toil to see its speedy triumph. So, wherever there is time for it in the service, sing a verse of “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” and listen to this word especially spoken to our fellow believers in Europe:—
Our Special Privilege
L. R. CONRADI
The greatest privilege we as children of the Most High enjoy is to be “laborers together with God.” 1 Cor. 3:9. The field which the Lord in his mercy assigns to us is plainly specified: “The field is the world.” Matt. 13:38. As God has entrusted to this people a special message of wonderful light, he has stated with it where we are to carry it. The everlasting gospel is to be preached “unto them that dwell on the earth,” and “to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” Rev. 14:6.
While this privilege of carrying the everlasting gospel to all the world is to be shared by all our people wherever found, we have as a special division of the General Conference a specified part of the grand work. Upon our denomination as a whole falls the duty of placing this truth before the sixteen hundred million people inhabiting the earth at the present time—a tremendous task for a hundred thousand people, but yet a wonderful privilege, if we consider the promise of God that out of weakness we shall be strong. Our Mission Board in the United States has given special attention to looking after more than nine hundred millions in China, India, Japan, Korea, South America, South and West Africa, Central America, Mexico, the West Indies, and Canada. The Australasian Union Conference has nobly stepped to the assistance of the General Conference, by supplying most of the means for nearly another hundred millions—those dwelling in the islands of the seas and the East Indies.
The European division esteems it a privilege to look after the remaining five hundred forty million people,—four hundred thirty millions in Europe, fifty-seven millions in Asia, embracing the Russian and Turkish possessions and Persia and Arabia, and fifty-three millions in North and East Africa.
In view of the remarkable openings in India, China, Korea, and Japan at the present time, we in Europe have felt it our duty to receive as little aid from the Mission Board as possible, and to do our utmost in developing means on this side for the spread of the truth among the many millions in the European division outside of our organized conferences. Through the liberality of our people in Europe, we have been enabled to cut down our appropriation from the Mission Board to ten thousand dollars a year; and as the Mission Board is now so closely pressed on account of the many calls coming to it, we do feel that we ought not to increase our demands upon it. Aside from this ten thousand dollars, we ought to consider it our highest privilege to look after the five hundred forty million people entrusted to our care.
We felt grateful to God when, two years ago, the German Union Conference saw its way clear to look after its one hundred forty million people, and yet pay its tithe and its offerings to the subtreasury. The same course will be pursued now that it has been divided. This year Scandinavia follows its noble example, and looks after another thirteen million. The British Union Conference, with forty-five million people, is trying hard to follow the example of the other three union conferences, and has cut down its call for 1910 to $2,000. This spirit of sacrifice on the part of the four union conferences enables us to give our attention to the weaker fields. The Latin Union Conference, numbering about one hundred ten millions, must have the $11,500 appropriation called for. The Russian Union Conference, with about one hundred fifty-one millions and the work opening up in Siberia and Central Asia, ought by all means to have $5,700. This, with the $2,000 for Great Britain, makes $19,200 needed for the three union conferences.
Then the Levant Union mission field appeals to us. Turkey is opening up as never before. Calls come direct from Macedonia and Albania. The truth has reached Mesopotamia. The forces in Egypt need to be strengthened. Persia21must be entered. In order to supply these wants, we have increased our laborers, and still more must be provided. These lands of the Bible, with their fifty-one millions, ought to have at least $9,000 the coming year.
Next, Ethiopia stretches out her hands. To relieve the different union conferences, all the missions in East Africa were taken over by the European division of the General Conference, and must now be provided for by it. Here is wonderful Abyssinia; it, with the Italian, British, and French possessions that have been sliced off from it, contains nearly ten millions. Our brethren in Scandinavia and Finland and in America have this year furnished us efficient help to begin active mission operations there in real earnest. A director for the field has been supplied, and also a physician. We shall have, with the wives of the missionaries, nine workers there. Homes must be provided for them. They must have places where they can school the natives. The writer himself expects to be there during November and December, to assist the brethren on the ground in planning for their work. We thought that we should need $4,200 for that field—a low estimate.
Then there is British East Africa. The Lord in his mercy has given us a free territory on the east side of Victoria Nyanza, where we find three hundred thousand souls, with no missionary save our own brethren. Our territory is within twenty miles of the terminus of the Uganda Railway. Steamers ply on the lake. When we consider what has been done in Uganda within a hundred miles of this territory, with a people not more promising than our natives, wonderful indeed are the opportunities God has given us in this field. We now have eight workers, and their forces should be strengthened, and we are calling for $4,700 for that field.
Adjoining this territory, we have opened up work on the German side of the lake. Four missionaries are there at present, and, as all buildings must be erected, we call for $3,400 for that work.
At the German South Pare Mission, we have eight workers. God has wonderfully blessed them. There are twenty-three converts, and as many more have offered themselves for baptism, and one thousand young people are in their schools. They are beginning to pay some of their expenses, through raising cotton. They ought to have about $5,500 for 1910. This means $17,800 for the East African missions.
In our estimates for 1909, we had made provision for $31,500 from the European field, and $10,000 from the Mission Board; but when we came to make the final settlement for 1908, we found our expenses had really been $44,600. This year we are sending out about twenty-three new missionaries, but some have returned on account of illness. There will be no question but that we shall need at least $5,000 more than we estimated, and the only way to make this up is through our annual offerings.
God has wonderfully blessed his work in the European division. We shall reach nearly 20,000 members by the end of this year, if all goes well. Ought we not to count this year on $15,000 annual offerings in Europe, or $5,000 more than last year? Ought we not to make a special offering, in view of the great demands of the cause? God places this grand privilege before us. He has prospered us in a remarkable manner in the field, in basket, and in store. His Holy Spirit has been given to us, and he is ready to give it in its fulness, so that we may have the divine grace of the Macedonian churches: “How that in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality. For to their power, I bear record, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves.” If we shall give ourselves, as they did, first to God, and then lay ourselves upon the altar for his work, remembering the grace of our Lord, who became poor that we might through his poverty become rich, then there will be no question but that this sum will be more than reached. Let those who have means make special offerings. But let each one cheerfully give what he can, with thanksgiving. Let us consider it a special privilege of our people in Europe at this time to contribute liberally for the work in the regions beyond.
