The Need of the Hour by W. H. Granger

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 6, 1906

The Need of the Hour

By W. H. Granger

Methods for Working Our Large Cities—No. 1

The Need of the Hour

W. H. GRANGER

DURING the past few months I have received numerous letters from different parts of the United States, asking for an explanation of the method of work which is now in operation in this city under the Berean Bible Institute. To answer all these inquiries as they should be, consumes much time; and as I believe the question of effectively and quickly warning our large cities has become one of vital interest to our people in general, I shall take the liberty to set forth, in a short series of articles, what my experience leads me to believe to be the most practical method for accomplishing this gigantic undertaking.

I will first call the reader's attention to the task before us, and show the absolute necessity for a radical change in our methods of work. There are, in the United States alone, more than three hundred cities with a population of over twenty-five thousand each; fifty of this number have a population ranging from one hundred thousand to nearly four million each.

To help the reader to better understand the urgent need of a change in our past methods of warning these cities, I will briefly set forth, as nearly as my observation permits me to know, the approximate extent to which the work has been and is now being carried on in most of these populous centers. Say, for instance, here is a city of over one hundred thousand inhabitants. It has a church of one hundred members. They are taking a small club of the Signs or Watchman, and occasionally purchase a small assortment of tracts, which are given away promiscuously, without any system of follow-up work. In such churches there are usually one or two members who hold readings with a few persons. But putting it all together, most churches are doing less than what one good live member should be doing. In addition to this, there is usually located in such cities a minister and one or more Bible workers. The minister's efforts to warn the city, outside of what he does in the church, are usually confined to a few widely separated families with whom he holds weekly Bible readings. The Bible workers' seldom give more than ten readings a week, with an average attendance of about four regular readers at each study. This would give

her a class of forty regular readers.

It takes six months to complete a course of readings. So by giving two courses each year, it would make the total number of persons instructed during the year about eighty for each Bible worker. Say there are two workers: their combined efforts at the above rate, which I know in many cases to be too high, would result in teaching the truth in a comprehensive form to one hundred and sixty persons. Add to this number those who have been instructed through the efforts of the minister and the church, and you would have not far from two hundred souls warned during the year by the combined efforts of a church of one hundred or more members, a minister, and two Bible workers. Think of it!

During this same period of time a city of the above dimensions will have increased in population, by births and influx from other sources, from five to twenty thousand; in other words, the cities in our land are increasing in population from twenty-five to one hundred times faster than they are being warned by our present methods of work. Does this look like giving the message to the world in this generation? Rather, does it not demand (a) a change in our methods of work, and (b) an arousing on the part of our churches to do their duty? But what to do, and how to go about it, is the question. This I will try to set forth in future articles.

Columbus, Ohio.

(To be continued)