A CENTURY OF MISSIONS by Estella Houser

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

A CENTURY OF MISSIONS

By Estella Houser

ESTELLA HOUSER

The progress of the gospel during the nineteenth century was marvelous. Even Christians who had no thought of the near coming of the Saviour have called it “the missionary age of the world's history.” Since it began, the gospel has gone farther and farther from the centers of Christendom, until the globe is girded with a network of Christian missions, and, with but few exceptions, every nation of the world is open to the heralds of the cross. The few countries unentered are the subjects of the prayers of many of God's people, and devoted missionaries are studying the languages, waiting on the borders, ready to enter at the slightest suggestion of permission. At the Ecumenical Conference held in New York City in April, 1900, there were present a few aged missionaries who were intimately acquainted with the marvelous changes that have

been effected during the last half-century, and they portrayed such pictures that we were led to exclaim, “What hath God wrought!”

Seventy-five years ago the islands of the Pacific were the abode of pagans, whose “vices were eating their very vitals;” and, as if this process were too slow, they were literally eating one another. To-day there is scarcely an island in the Pacific Ocean that has not been influenced by the gospel message, and in a large majority native churches have been organized, and native workers sent to labor in other fields. In the Indian Archipelago the people are gradually but surely being transformed by the influence of the truths of God's word.

Japan, the island empire, sealed her ports for three hundred years, even to ships of trade. “Our own Commodore Perry sailed into the Bay of Yeddo, more than forty years ago, and with the open Bible, sang, with his crew, the one hundredth Psalm, and without firing a gun or shedding a drop of blood, opened the ports of Japan to the commerce of the world and the gospel of Christ.” Not until 1865 was there any outward indication that the gospel would work its way into the hearts of the Japanese. This year witnessed one conversion; and after seven long years of pioneer labor, the first Japanese church, of eleven members, was organized in Yokohama. Less than thirty years have passed, and to-day we find Christian churches dotting this empire from end to end. Eighty-one per cent of the boys and thirty-three per cent of the girls are in the common schools. Thus the younger generation is growing up with an intelligence that is fitting them to comprehend the blessings of a Christian life; while the older people are becoming irreligious, or, at least, are losing confidence in their old religion. This surely means, if the opportunity is grasped, a preparation for something better.

When China was approached in the early part of the century, in more than one sense it was found to be completely surrounded with an apparently impenetrable wall. The people were inaccessible; and their very language “defied the printing press itself to reduce its complicated characters to simplicity and order.” As late as 1843 there were but six converts. But the wondrous changes wrought by the gospel in the last fifty years have been repeatedly illustrated during the recent troubles in China, when native Christians died the most cruel deaths rather than give up their faith in Christ.

Burma, Siam, and British India have been studded with mission stations. Burma, twenty years ago, stood third in the list of missionary donors to the Baptist Missionary Society. On these shores thousands of missionaries lie buried, but the influence of their work pervades the whole atmosphere of these countries. Even in their death they have done more to quicken a new, inspired life among these peoples than ages of heathenism in the past.

Syria, the cradle of apostolic missions, Turkey, Spain, France, and even Italy, the stronghold of the papacy, are accessible to the ambassadors of Christ and to the open Bible. The prophecy that “Ethiopia shall soon stretch forth her hands unto God,” too, has been wonderfully verified during the last century, and Christian missions in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Gaboon on the west, in Cape Colony on the south, in Madagascar, Santa Barbara, and the Zulu missions on the east, and in Egypt on the north, are gradually encircling and penetrating the dark continent. Even Mexico and South America, so long under papal rule, are giving away to the message of hope, and here and there on the neglected continent mission stations are becoming centers of light and influence amid the moral darkness.

Another striking factor in the history of missions during the latter part of the last century has been the remarkable development of the missionary spirit among young people, especially in the higher schools of learning. Already over two thousand of the young people of the Student Volunteer Movement alone have gone to the front, and thousands more are in preparation.

Do all these things mean naught to the student of prophecy? Can we not see that the hand of God is guiding this work, and is gathering out a people for His name “from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south,”—a people really fitted to understand His closing message? Our hearts should rejoice that He who has called us to bear a part in this last work has gone before us in such a marvelous manner. In no field, however difficult, must our laborers endure the privations and hardships of the pioneer who entered virgin soil, and, in many cases, found an unwritten language, which must be mastered before he could speak to the people, as well as reduced to writing before literature could be prepared, and even then the people must be taught to read it. Surely all these things have been in the providence of God.

Foreign missions have received a new impetus in even the last decade, and other denominations appreciate that the possibility of evangelizing the world is within the reach of the present generation. Do we not see more? Yea, we know that before this generation shall pass away, a world will be warned, and God's work in the earth closed.

Twenty-six years ago we sent our first laborer abroad, although prior to that date a small company of believers in present truth had developed in Central Europe, and another in South Africa. In 1884 the reports showed about six hundred Sabbath-keepers, scattered throughout England, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Italy, and Rumania, and in Egypt and South Africa. The same year laborers were sent to the Hawaiian Islands, and others were appointed to begin work in Australia. These sailed the following year. In 1886 Brother J. I. Tay visited several of the Pacific Islands, among them Pitcairn, and early in 1887 our first workers took passage for South Africa. They were preceded a few months by laborers to British Guiana. At the close of the year 1891, besides the countries already mentioned, missionaries had gone into Algeria, Holland, Austria, Ireland, the West Indies, Argentine Republic, and the Bay Islands, and the forces in many of the other fields had been strengthened. The “Pitcairn” also had visited a number of the Pacific Islands, and companies of believers were reported in several of the West Indies, on the Gold Coast of West Africa, and in the Bay Islands.

Thus our work in foreign fields was fairly launched. During the ten years that have just closed, a larger number of laborers have been sent out, indeed more than in all our previous history. To-day our missionary map of the world shows workers or believers in Mexico, Central America, the majority of the countries of South America, except those on the northwest coast; in southeastern Africa, Matabeleland, and the West Coast; in Egypt, Palestine, India, Sumatra, Japan; and in five groups of the South Pacific Islands; with one laborer in China, and a few isolated Sabbath-keepers there and in a few other islands of the Pacific, besides organized Conferences in Europe, South Africa, and Australia. The study of the field from month to month convinces us that the Lord has attended this work with His blessing. The efforts that have been put forth in these places have been marked by His presence, even when circumstances seemed the most discouraging. We can not, however, look upon a single field where sufficient help has been provided. Our work seems only in its infancy in almost every country, while some are yet unentered. But with grateful hearts, we look upon the progress God has permitted us to make in the closing years of this missionary century.

Wherever we turn our eyes, we see the signs of the times portrayed in the openings before us. The proportions God's work will assume in the few remaining years depend to some extent upon the position you and I take. God's work will triumph. The open doors and the fields so lightly touched should arouse us to increased activity. If God is not urging us to-day to a new and complete self-surrender to Him and His work, we do not rightly read the signs. Shall we not arouse to a consecration that will speed this message which has been so gloriously begun in this century of missions? We may answer this question by our efforts to become acquainted with the field, by our prayers in its behalf, and by our endeavors to enlarge its support.