In all the wide mission fields we see evidence that God, by his Holy Spirit, is working with mighty power.
The Mission Board may feel that it must hold back a little time in sending missionaries forward; but a divine providence will not allow delay. There is a hand laying hold of this work that is not of men. The means may be lacking; then perhaps the Lord leads conferences to come forward with gifts from their tithe surplus, or some special donations come in, and the forward path is made plain. Hearts are stirred by the victories won, and the line of advance moves on so swiftly that we can scarcely keep watch of it. It is startling. It is the Lord finishing the work. He is cutting it short in righteousness.
No wonder that the world begins to see that this movement is compassing the earth. In the vision of Revelation 14, John saw the judgment-hour message flying swiftly to every nation, tongue, and people. What John saw in vision we see literally fulfilling before our eyes to-day. And others see it. They see its world-wide aim, and recognize its rapid growth. That is why the Methodist Christian Advocate recently wrote of this advent movement:—
“Its aim is avowedly to run the earth; and small though the denomination still is, it has its missionaries scattered through every region of the globe.”
The proclamation of the Lord’s soon coming is truly rising with a loud cry in every continent. We were told in one of the exhortations of the spirit of prophecy at the Washington General Conference, that we were to “belt the world” with this message. Thank God, it is being done. Our outposts now stretch in the New World from Alaska and Iceland to Punta Arenas, the southernmost city on the Straits of Magellan, and in the Old World from Hammerfest, the uttermost city of the polar north, to Cape Town and the Malay Straits. There are wide gaps to be filled in, but our missionary line already belts the world, and we know that the light of the last message is to flood in,—
“Till like a sea of glory
It spreads from pole to pole.”
The progress of the third angel’s message is drawing its own lines upon the map. Look at the map of the world and see how already we have a missionary arctic circle surrounding the north pole, running from Alaska to Iceland, and on to our Scandinavian Northland mission and Siberia. Our own antarctic missionary circle is drawn from Punta Arenas, near Cape Horn, to Cape Town, and on to Australia and New Zealand, the extreme circle of habitable land to the southward. And a tropical belt of missions in Africa, Asia, South America, and the islands of the sea forms our missionary equatorial line. Never did any people have so urgent a call to stretch every nerve and devote every resource of men and means to the work committed to them.
The Spirit Has Prepared the Way
God has prepared the way by his Holy Spirit for a quick work in our day. In 1844 the hour of his judgment came. We are told in “Great Controversy:”—
“If all who had labored unitedly in the work of 1844 had received the third angel’s message, and proclaimed it in the power of the Holy Spirit, the Lord would have wrought mightily with their efforts. A flood of light would have been shed upon the world. Years ago the inhabitants of the earth would have been warned, the closing work completed, and Christ would have come for the redemption of his people.”
The history shows that at that very time in Africa, in India, in China, and, in fact, in all the world there were mighty impulses set working as under one divine control, everywhere preparing the way for a quick work just then—if only all the advent believers had taken up the third angel’s message after the disappointment of 1844. There was a crisis on in the affairs of the nations, as well as in the development of God’s work.
And just as men widely separated in those days took up the advent cry, so also, here and there, students of the Word began to keep the Sabbath. Last summer, at the great German Union camp-meeting at Friedensau, one of the most thankful men was an aged brother from Bavaria. Down in that intensely Catholic land he had heard in his youth the message of 1844. A few years later he began to keep the Sabbath, knowing of no others doing so. Now he has found those of like faith, and this was his first camp-meeting. His face fairly beamed with satisfaction as he sat on the front of the speaker’s platform in order to catch every word from the desk.
As Elder Armstrong opened meetings in Ceylon last year, he heard of a body of Tamil-speaking Christians keeping the Sabbath. He sent word to them that he also kept it. A delegation came into Colombo from the country to question him. They were astonished to hear that he actually kept the Sabbath, and that there was a large body of people in other parts of the world doing so. “But,” they said, “how did you and your people learn about the Sabbath?”
When asked how they themselves had learned of it, they said that in 1844 an old Tamil teacher in their community had been led to study the Bible regarding God’s Sabbath, and had begun to keep it, leading his flock also into obedience.
These and many other incidents more commonly known among us show how truly the Spirit of God in that early advent movement had prepared the way for the Sabbath reform message. But the great body of those who engaged in the 1844 movement turned back from the third angel’s message. And so the final phase of God’s work was built up again from a small beginning.
But now it has spread out into all the world, and a crisis has come again. Everything points to the approaching climax of the world’s history, and we see the message hastening on as never before. Again the divine Spirit has ushered in a new time. All societies feel it. Secretary Patton, of the Congregational Board, says:—
“Within five years the missionary situation of the world has been so transformed as to be hardly recognizable by those who studied the problem in the previous period. There has been nothing like this in history since the preparation of the Roman empire for the advent of Christ. We are in a new fulness of time.”
Surely the Lord has 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.
A Work of Power in Europe
Things seemed to go hard and slow in the early seed-sowing time in Europe. But what a splendid fruitage is now springing up. If fifteen or twenty years ago any one had said that the time would come when hundreds of Catholics would accept this truth in a year, we would have said, “That will be in the time of the latter rain and the loud cry of the message.” Last year, in Europe alone, the brethren estimate that about four hundred Catholics embraced this truth. Verily this means nothing less than the loud cry, the refreshing from the presence of the Lord. The Comforter has come.
No laws can hold the message back. It creeps in where public preaching services are forbidden. Baptisms are held secretly, where open baptism would bring all to prison. We hear of a police squad brought out in Russia to arrest a baptismal party, only to remain as spectators, and actually as a guard to shield our minister from men who had sworn to kill him if he performed the service. We hear from Rumania of a policeman, sent to our meetings to catch the missionary in his words, but who is now himself a baptized member of our church, converted by the words he heard.
We hear that the message has reached the ears of kings during the last year, and is a topic of conversation in imperial courts. We hear of simple souls who have come, as in Catholic Spain, saying, “Do you preach Jesus in this18house?” Another daughter of Spain, now a believer, said when the truth first came to her: “This is what my father waited for. He told me that some day a message would come, having real help and saving power. He longed for it, but died without it, saying it would surely come sometime. I know that this is it.”
Brethren and sisters, have we not been told through the spirit of prophecy of the praying ones, all through the dark lands, to whom God is sending rays of light from heaven to encourage them to hold on until we can reach them? Surely he would have us make haste. There is a little baptized company now in Lisbon, as the first-fruits in Portugal, and two of the new brethren are going out as colporteurs. At the rate of over two thousand a year the believers are coming into our ranks in Europe. Great Britain has added as many in the last four years as in all the twenty-three years preceding. The Scandinavian Union calls now for no more appropriations for its field work. It has organized a new Northland mission for the Laplanders and others, and is raising a fund for a mission to Abyssinia, the ancient Ethiopia. Their missionaries are preparing to enter that land of ancient Sabbath-keeping, and where still the people say that the Sabbath is the holy day. We hear that our Icelandic paper has a circulation of nearly four thousand, the largest of any paper, religious or political, in that island. Truly we see in all these things the marvelous working of the Holy Spirit in the European field.
Progress in Africa
In Africa our colonial brethren have recently opened a mission for the Kaffirs in the eastern province of Cape Colony. The Kaffirs have long been calling us to come among them. The German brethren have just planted a new station, their third, in German East Africa. Brother Enns, who is in charge, writes:—
“The work here is threatening to overflow. I now have about one hundred pupils in the school and fifteen in the boarding-school. Thirty have applied, but for lack of room they must wait. We must enlarge soon. They are pressing and begging, asking if they may not stay. To-day one kept on until I could not refuse him. The boys are quite bright, and are doing very well in their studies. Most of them are the sons of chiefs, who will succeed their fathers.”
The British brethren have landed two workers to establish our first mission in Uganda. The young Africans in our mission training-schools are praying the Lord to help them “to learn quick.” The way in which the Lord is answering that prayer stirs our hearts with new hope for the Dark Continent. One lad in the Solusi school wrote to Elder Hyatt:—
“My people is in darkness there in Zululand. I can not have rest day and night. I long to take truth to my people. I tell you time is very short. I ask you send help down to my people. I want to go down there. I want to give my life to my people.”
At last we have a foothold established, a mission house of our own, in Sierra Leone, on that African West Coast, from which our workers have been turned back more than once. Last year the new Algeria Mission, in the extreme north of Africa, reported its first-fruits, four or five new Sabbath-keepers. The little lights representing our missions glow brighter and brighter in darkest Africa, and we know that angels rejoice to see these jets kindled in the darkness. We must pray God to help us to do more and to do it quickly.
The Power that Can Move Asia
Asia, with half the world’s population, witnesses to the working of the Holy Spirit with a new power in this message.
TONGA AND HIS DAUGHTER
Dr. George writes from Turkey, of new baptisms, and adds:—
“The spirit of revival has been growing. The Spirit of the Lord is working here in Turkey. May nothing hinder this work.”
From Syria comes the word that the truth has reached the Euphrates Valley, and a new people, called Assyrians, remnants of that ancient nation, are now represented in this truth by seven or eight new Sabbath-keepers.
In India and Burma new fields have been entered, and new peoples are hearing the message. It is a significant word that Brother Hansen sends from Burma. Some Baptist missionaries, working in far upper Burma, on the borders of China and Siam, found tribes all ready to be taught. The people said:—
“Is not this the fulfilment of our traditions and hopes? Our traditions say that God dwelt among men, that he ascended to heaven, and that he would come again. Furthermore, the foreigner was to bring us a knowledge of the true God, and now the foreigner has come with the message of salvation.”
In less than a year over a thousand were baptized. Note how these tribes were seeking for the knowledge of the Saviour who is coming again. The complete message of Christ’s soon coming is the message they were looking for. It is the message for the world. We should be giving it everywhere. The Spirit is going before us into the darkest corners of the earth.
In China a new dialect is now praising God for this message. Five young men of the Hakka people, of South China, have been baptized in Canton. In the Amoy region the truth is spreading in a marvelous way. Who does not sympathize with that aged Chinese Christian who, as he went to hear our Brother Keh speak, prayed the Lord to confuse his mind so that he could not understand if error was being taught, and to give him a clear understanding of what was said if the Sabbath was right? Brother Keh preached a plain sermon
on the Sabbath question; the old man understood every point clearly, and now he is rejoicing with many others in the truth.
When we heard of the work of one young Chinese preacher, Brother Tan Hu, we rejoiced. Then he was called home to help his people in a time of pestilence. He took the disease and died. O, we said, how will the Lord cause this to work to his
glory, when witnesses are needed so much in China? But Brother Tan Hu died exhorting his father and family to obey the truth. Then the next word came from Brother Hankins:—
“Tan Hu’s father has begun to keep the Sabbath. The Sabbath after Tan Hu died, his father went over to the village where his son had succeeded in bringing together about twenty people, who met each Sabbath to worship God, and there, of his own accord, took up the work his son laid down.”
A new mission has been opened in Honan, on the railway, and the printing-office removed to it. More than once the lives of our missionaries have been threatened during the last year, but God has protected them.
From Japan, Korea, Singapore, the Pacific Islands, and Australasia come only encouraging words. There is no retreat in this work. The Australasian Union is moving upon the populous East Indies. Java has now a representative of the truth.
In the West Indies and Central America, where three thousand Sabbath-keepers are with us for the finishing of the19work, a union conference was organized last summer. Mexico, which for years was a hard and unresponsive field, reports a new spirit of inquiry. The Lord is visiting these Catholic fields. Brother Tanner writes from the island of Hayti of baptism after baptism, and says: “This progress among Catholics has been an astonishment to the Protestants here, who have never made very much progress among Catholics.” Some have called on him to explain it. The only explanation is that this third angel’s message is the special truth of God for these last days.
Our South American brethren also thank God that his Spirit is working with new power in dark Catholic fields. When news of the San Francisco disaster reached South America, people stood aghast. Now they have had a similar visitation in Valparaiso. The message of the approaching end is being punctuated with earthquake and tempest. The Lord is warning the world. The message of hope and salvation from the things coming upon the earth must go swiftly. And we are to carry it. “It will mean all we have and are on the altar to go to the finish with this message.”
The Macedonian cry comes from over every sea. Let us answer it in our prayers and gifts, first giving our own selves. This week-of-prayer offering to missions ought to be the largest ever given, as our surrender and consecration ought to be the most determined and complete. Some parents must give children to go to the fields. Conferences and institutions must give workers who can not be spared without sacrifice. God is calling. Not a soul can view the wondrous working of the Lord throughout the world-wide field to-day without repenting before God with awe-struck heart; for to watch the movements in the fields is to see God actually cutting short the work of human salvation and bringing eternity near.
But it is a glad truth to the advent believers in all lands. All round this world are earnest hearts rejoicing in the “blessed hope.” They are praying for it. One Sabbath day, after weary weeks at sea, I landed in Buenos Ayres, South America, and went directly to a Sabbath-school in our mission rooms in the heart of that great city. Their language was strange to my ears, but I understood their spirit with my heart. It was the spirit of the one old-fashioned third angel’s message. Then we studied the map of our mission fields, and through the interpreter they were helped to see how swiftly the work is going. As we told them that the advent people were almost home at last, it touched my heart to see that little company all weeping tears of joy. Brethren and sisters, this hope is the dearest hope on earth to the pilgrims homeward bound. And the Lord Jesus will never disappoint his children, who to-day are praying in many tongues that last prayer of the Scriptures, “Even so, come [quickly], Lord Jesus.”
Two Santal teachers, on either side, and a Hindi man recently baptized.
