A Word from China by F. A. Allum

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 8, 1906

A Word from China

By F. A. Allum

To tell on paper how much China needs the third angel’s message would be an impossible task. To realize fully the conditions which exist in China, one must be here and see things as they really are. To many China is nothing but a name, and yet it contains one eleventh of the habitable globe. If you were to place China on a map of the United States, it would extend into the Gulf of Mexico and three degrees into the Pacific Ocean. The population is immense, 426,000,000 being considered the most accurate figure. Of these, 33,000 souls perish every day. During the brief hour spent at divine worship on Sabbath, 1,300 precious souls pass to their final account. From the time we left Sydney, Australia, en route to this field, until we reached Honan, China, 1,250,000 persons had been placed in Christless graves. Surely such facts as these ought to make us weep.

Our Master teaches us that where but one sheep is lost, we are to leave the ninety and nine and go in search of the wanderer, but it would seem in China that the case is reversed. God’s people are tenderly guarding the one sheep in the home lands, and leaving the ninety and nine in such countries as China to perish. Surely this is true when we think of the hundreds, we might say thousands, of workers in America, and contrast them with the twenty-one workers for the millions of China.

F. A. ALLUM.