The Tabernacle Pulpit by A. J. B.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 28, 1902

The Tabernacle Pulpit.

By A. J. B.

ELDER W. H. THURSTON, president of the Canadian Union Conference, spoke in the Tabernacle, Sabbath, January 25, taking for his text: “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward. For ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promise. For yet a little while, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” Heb. 10:35–37. He was assisted by Brethren H. M. Mitchell and E. R. Palmer.

The speaker called the attention of his audience to our sister continent, South America, with its forty million people. The message was first carried to that country eight years ago. Brother Thurston spent seven years in Brazil. There have been eight outbreaks of mobs against our work there. One year ago there were in Brazil sixteen organized churches and ten companies. Our workers there have many difficulties to encounter; the ignorance and superstition of the priest-ridden people, slow means of travel, many rivers to cross, frequent persecutions, etc. Several thrilling experiences were related, all of which God used to advance His cause. Our churches in Brazil are all working churches. Instead of asking for our ministers to stay with them and preach to them, they urge them to go out into new fields, and even send some of their own members to other parts to preach the message.

The only two countries which the truth has not yet entered are Portugal and Spain. Workers are needed for those fields—workers who will go there expecting to stay until the Lord comes. It is no pleasure trip to go to a foreign field. Our pioneers are dying or getting old, and many young men and women are needed for foreign work. The angels are holding the four winds of strife; the nations are ready. Let us do our part to hasten Christ’s appearing. But it should be remembered that those who are not active in home missionary work would not be active nor helpful if sent to a foreign field. The one who finds no missionary work at home, yet thinks he or she would make a good missionary if sent to Africa or some other foreign land, is sadly mistaken. A. J. B.