p. 6 | Interest in Home and Foreign Missions

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Apr 4, 1907

Interest in Home and Foreign Missions

THESE are true words which we give below from the Sunday School Times concerning the support of missions:—

Genuine interest in those near at hand insures an interest in those farther away. This truth is missed by those who try to dodge responsibility for the foreign field by professing an absorbing interest in the home field. “I hope,” said a pastor in announcing an offering for foreign missions, “there is no one here this morning who does not believe in foreign missions. But if there is, I hope he will put a great big round sum into city missions.” He won’t, though. It is only an excuse. If home missions depended for support upon those who give nothing for foreign missions, the home mission boards would have to wind up business. There is no such thing as a limited interest in Christ’s cause or in one’s fellows. Unless our interest takes in all, it takes in none.

There is a testimony from the Saviour himself which bears directly upon this matter. It reads: “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world for a testimony unto all the nations; and then shall the end come.” God is no respecter of persons; and he who looks upon the soul of the foreigner as of less worth than the soul of his nearest neighbor, or his own soul, has not yet imbibed enough of the spirit of the Master to make him an acceptable child of God.