p. 769 | Week of Prayer Notes by William Ambrose Spicer

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 26, 1901

Week of Prayer Notes

By William Ambrose Spicer

The World's Cry.

“From India, from Africa, from China, from the islands of the sea, from the down-trodden millions of so-called Christian lands, the cry of human woe is ascending to God. That cry will not long be unanswered.” —“Christ’s Object Lessons,” page 179.

All heaven is in earnest to give the answer soon. To us has been committed the work of going to the world with the message of preparation for Christ’s second coming, which is to be heaven’s final answer to the cry of woe. The Week of Prayer will give every soul a special opportunity to seek God to know what part in this urgent message each is to bear. The cry of woe is not an unreal one. It ascends to God from souls that suffer and long for deliverance. In assuming to be in any way connected with God and His work at this time, we face an obligation to do something very real and definite. It will cost money, and it will cost lives to go to all the world with this message. Are we laying all of life and all of means upon the altar at this time of preparation for the Week of Prayer and the annual offering for missions?

A CALL FROM THE AFRICAN GOLD COAST.

Here is a letter from the African Gold Coast that shows how very definite is the call. It is addressed not to the Mission Board, but “To the Brethren and Sisters of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, United States of America.” First, it may be explained, we began work in the Gold Coast about seven years ago. The region is exceedingly malarious, and after starting a work and seeing some fruits, our missionaries were compelled to retire to recuperate. Other fields called for all the means available, and the work in the Gold Coast has not been taken up again. A few believers still hold on there, and at the recent autumn Council of the Mission Board it was voted to begin work again for the millions in West Africa, as soon as laborers and means will allow.

In the meantime this letter comes, with its apologies for ungrammatical language. We will not attempt to straighten it into proper English, as this native brother’s epistle goes straight to the point as it is. He says:—

“My elders and brethren of the Lord, can you be so negligent to constitute a corps of white laborers for the work to save we sinners? When I consider the mining people who are wasting their lives for the sake of gold, and how thousands of white people are still landing for an attempt to find gold, it makes with shame for the Adventists to delay God’s truth when a few workers suffered with a fever

and none sent out in substitute for their absence. Yet for our sins Christ, the Prince of heaven, came and died that through Him we might be saved. Laborers, captains, soldiers, who are still fighting for the Lord, are you afraid to die for the emancipation of beings, slaves to Satan? Can’t you volunteer yourselves to provide sufficient money to send laborers out here to save we lost sinners? The end is nearing; and if you do not make haste to save us, our responsibilities will be upon you Adventists. I beg to call your attention to this cry to appoint men at once.”

The Gold Coast is the key to a vast region, and native workers must be developed to carry the message right back through the coast provinces into the heart of the Sudan. Working such fields will cost money. After a few seasons workers may have to retire to some other locality, as to Europe or South Africa, to recruit. But by having a few laborers to relieve one another, and so keep a continuous and aggressive policy in operation, the work may be done. Of course every believer will say that where once the standard of the truth has been unfurled and souls call for help, there must never be retreat. Pray God to select the workers for this and a thousand other points, and plan for a gift to missions at the Week of Prayer season which shall partake of the spirit of Heaven’s own response to the cry of the needy.

W. A. SPICER, Cor. Sec. Mission Board.

THE LANDING PLACE—CAPE COAST CASTLE, GOLD COAST.