Shall We Treat the Cause or the Effect? by M. E. Ellis

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

Shall We Treat the Cause or the Effect?

By M. E. Ellis

M. E. ELLIS

THERE are two ways to circumvent disease, and two methods of treatment. One is to work from the inside out, building up healthy tissue, and putting the body in a normal state throughout. The other course is to work upon the disease after it has broken out, and by local applications seek to check it, overcome its effects, and relieve the patient of pain and discomfort.

Both plans are used constantly, both are needful and efficacious, and both accomplish good results. The former is less spectacular than the latter, and is more often overlooked, though its effects are more lasting and of greater value.

The efforts of the Christian church can be likened to the two ways of treating disease. This world—even the church itself—is terribly diseased and weakened by sin. Its ravages are so rampant that there is abundant field for the application of both kinds of treatment, but owing to the natural impulses of man the first course is more likely to be overlooked, because its immediate results are not so great as those emanating from the second.

The eliminative cure for the lethargy of the church of Christ—its laziness,

its covetousness, its grasping hold on its acquired resources—is the giving of large doses of the missionary idea internally, for the quickening of the spiritual impulses. In the exercise of the missionary spirit is the salvation of the church. Other lines of work are important; special objects should be striven for; but the life of the church, the accomplishment of these special objects with ease, the spiritual vitality of the individuals, and the success of all ministerial effort, depend in a direct ratio on the extent to which the missionary idea—the giving of the third angel’s message to the world—inoculates the Christian church.

The special efforts we are called upon to assist in from week to week are the remedies for local troubles, and must be applied at once to relieve local difficulties; but to think that selling papers, or contributing to some urgent fund, or helping to get our schools out of debt, will release us from further duty in the way of missionary activity is as absurd as to think that a spine-bag can cure dyspepsia. What we need is more and better training in the real meaning of what it is to be a missionary people. Then these special calls will not have to be so extensively advertised to accomplish the desired result.

“There is no form of human need at home which would not be thoroughly supplied, simply as a supplementary ‘twelve baskets full’ to the well-equipped, resolute endeavor first of all to feed the hungering millions of heathen lands.” That is the truth.

The church that needs the efforts of a minister about four times a year for a week or so, to keep it alive and working, is practising Christianity backward and appropriating for itself the spiritual food of others, thereby logically proclaiming the fact that it is not far from heathendom itself.

Let the leaders of the people everywhere resolve to live aggressive Christianity, and make every church territory the recruiting ground for volunteers for the front, and also a base of supplies for those already in the field.

“The church that sends representatives to foreign lands, and forgets that they are there, forgets to feel for them and support them, forgets to bear their names in fervent prayer before the throne of grace, is a church that brings contempt upon itself and upon its cause. . . . Is the church at home all that it should be to the force in the mission field? . . . It has often mistaken worship for war, privilege for service, coddling for conquest.” The sum total of denominational work appears large. The individual average of missionary work is infinitesimal. It will take quite a while for seventy-two thousand persons to give the message to a world containing one billion five hundred million souls, when they average only four cents a week per capita for foreign missions, and eighteen cents a week for tithe.

Is education in this direction needed?—No doubt of it. Practical suggestions, helps for the faint-hearted, plans for the willing, spurs for the lazy, hints for the leaders, are needed. We have found nothing so helpful and inspiring, so full of clear, simple, but direct and far-reaching instruction as “The Missionary Idea” (the publishers, Union College Press, College View, Neb., send sample pages on request); and leaders in the conference, church, church-school, and young people’s work can not afford to be without this hand-book on missionary work.

We heartily agree with the sentiments of Elder W. A. Sweany, in the REVIEW of May 31, 1906: “We wish every family in our ranks would get and read and heed ‘The Missionary Idea.’ We believe the influence and effect of it would be quickly felt throughout our ranks, and especially in the destitute and unworked fields which lie between us and the goodly land.”

We need more of the missionary spirit. The local applications for the lack of it will not fill the need. We must build up missionary muscle, and bone, and sinew, by a more thorough course of treatment, or our spiritual weakness will lose us the battle, and a stronger people than we will finish the work and have the reward.

College View, Neb.