The Message in China by A. C. Selmon

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 20, 1907

The Message in China

By A. C. Selmon

A. C. SELMON

Last Sabbath, January 12, we baptized our first convert, Evangelist Wun. He has been keeping the Sabbath for two years. He has a good knowledge of the Bible, and is an able preacher. For some time he has been ready for baptism, but I felt that nothing would be lost by waiting. It is far better, especially in work for the Orientals, to be slow about baptizing, and wait to see the fruits of the Spirit.

It was a good day for all the brethren here, just at the close of a two-weeks’ course of Bible studies and the week of prayer. In the evening of the same day four men signed the covenant to keep the commandments and to take the Bible as a guide in all things. It is really a beginning, and I am sure that there are not many among these people who will take hold of the truth, yet the Lord is beginning to gather out the few. The Sabbath truth is coming to the attention of many Sunday-keeping native Christians, through the influence of the little literature that we have been able to get out. It produces a stir among them, and in the end brings the faithful ones out.

No work in the Lord’s vineyard appeals to me so much as that of having a part in the training of native laborers, that they may go out and proclaim this message. I have faith to believe that the Lord will raise up a host of them, and that it will be almost entirely through this means that China’s millions will be warned of the soon coming of our Saviour. No foreigner can hope ever to get the language so that he can speak it anything like as freely as a native of this country. And then there is needed a knowledge of the people that comes only by long years of contact with them.

It has been remarkable to me how they respond to training: For example, this man, Evangelist Wun, was only a farmer boy when we first met him, and had only a meager education. We have taught him diligently for over a year now, and he is as different from the boy that came here as if he were another man. By having a sound Christian experience, his whole life has been changed; and when you know how superstitious and covetous, as well as insincere, the ordinary Chinaman is, you can see that to get rid of these traits makes a decided change. It seems evident that we can not expect enough foreign workers to come to China to spread the message, but there should be many fold more than there are here now, just to train native workers. The Lord has shown us that our literature will bring forth much fruit, and now we are seeking him to open up the way, that we may have facilities to push this work.

Siang-cheng Hsien, Honan.