A CALL by E. A. Sutherland

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 12, 1900

A CALL.

By E. A. Sutherland

There is this difference between the work of God and that of the civil power: when the state makes a call for men, and there are not a sufficient number of volunteers, the ranks are filled with drafted soldiers; God, however, accepts only volunteers. He is calling now, and has been calling long. He has said, “In all our churches, and wherever there is a company of believers, church schools should be established, and in these schools there should be teachers who have the true missionary spirit.”

The call is, then, for teachers who have the true missionary spirit. Where are these teachers?—At present many are to be found in the public schools. They are Christians, and long to be missionary teachers, but have not yet heeded the call to forsake all and follow him.

If those children who are left in the midst of worldly associations will be destroyed when the angel of death sweeps over our land, what may those teachers expect who are yet in the Egyptian schools?

God now stands at the door and knocks. “Today if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”

Hundreds of children are pleading by their very helplessness and danger, for Christian teachers. Their hands are reaching toward you, and God speaks to you through them. If you heed not their voices, the very stones will cry out; for the time is short, and a great work must be done.

There are those who, by reason of their previous education, may be fitted by a short training, to teach a church school. Such should avail themselves of the instruction offered in the summer school. There are married men and women who, with a brief training, might become teachers. God will make use of such also.

The young and inexperienced need a longer course, for only well-developed and properly educated persons should be intrusted with the shaping of a human mind. Those needing preparatory work need not make application to enter the summer school at Battle Creek; but there are hundreds to whom this call must apply. “Special talent should be given to the education of the youth.”

E. A. SUTHERLAND.