Calls for Help by J. H. W.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 30, 1872

Calls for Help.

By J. H. W.

NEVER in our experience have the calls for ministerial labor been so many and so urgent as at the present time. We do not speak of the appeals from our various Conferences; of the requests of our churches for labor in their midst, but of the calls from new fields and from entire strangers. A number of letters have been sent from the Shenandoah valley in Virginia. Petitions have come in, enough to move the sympathy of the indifferent, could they read them, for help in Tennessee. Bro. D. T. Bourdeau, who recently went to Kentucky, is already calling for a tent. With our present supply of ministers, it does not seem necessary to call for means to buy tents just at present. If, when the tent season arrives, circumstances seem to require a tent in Kentucky, and Bro. Bourdeau will take the responsibility of running it, a tent can doubtless be furnished to him. If he cannot do this, he should not raise an expectation in that direction, as a disappointment might have a depressing influence on the newly-found friends there; and at present he should not expect to call efficient tent labor to his help from other fields. It probably cannot be had.

A lonely sister in Iowa sends ten dollars, with a request that some preacher will come and preach the truth to her neighbors. This manifests a real interest. May God hear her prayers.

From a new State farther west comes a petition signed by seventeen persons, saying, “There are about fifteen hundred inhabitants in this town, and the country about here is well settled, and there is not a church in the town nor in the county; there is not a minister of any note.” With this is an urgent request for one of our ministers to preach our faith to them. Any of our efficient preachers would rejoice to occupy that field if they could be spared from other engagements.

And so the calls come in. We do not give the localities, as we do not wish to have such interest abused by some self-sent pretenders going to spread confusion. Any persons recommended by the Conference Committees of the States in which they live, will be informed on application; provided they have experience and perseverance to do the Lord’s work.

Our especial object in noticing these calls is to impress upon the minds of all our brethren and sisters the necessity of praying the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers. The call for a season of fasting and prayer for this object seems timely; and we exhort all to prepare their hearts to spend February 10 and 11, as days of earnest prayer and humiliation before God. Let us afflict our souls together, and we shall be made to rejoice in his salvation. We must have help from God. J. H. W.