South America Takes Up the Cry by William A. Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 5, 1906

South America Takes Up the Cry

By William A. Spicer

THERE is more than sentiment in this cry of the finishing of the work. There is a solemn conviction spread of the Spirit in believing hearts through all the world that the time has come for the finishing of God’s work in the earth. Everywhere loyal hearts respond to the Lord’s call to come into line.

This conviction is guiding in the laying of plans for the more rapid and systematic prosecution of the work. Truly, as the spirit of prophecy has said, the plan of organizing our world-wide work on the basis of district union conferences was of God.

Again and again in the reorganization of the work in South America we, as workers, have thanked God for the way in which the union plan of organization fitted the need of this vast and diversified territory. While localizing responsibility, at the same time it binds all parts of the field together in one harmonious whole. The division of the field into smaller and more manageable conferences and missions, with responsible local management in charge, and the general union oversight directing all and keeping all together, has given a new inspiration to believers and laborers.

The circle of this organized work now stretches from Ecuador right round the continent to Brazil. And in Brazil the work is to be pushed from State to State in the north, where as yet little or nothing has been done. Already the State of San Paulo is set apart as a mission field, with a director, Elder Hoelzle, in charge, and it is hoped soon to open Minas Geraes, and so to have work going forward in the two most populous and prosperous States of Brazil. The South American Union means to press into every part of its unworked territory, and to surround its field with its slender band of laborers.

This newest of the union conferences brings the great South American continent into line with the world-wide plan of union organization. These unions now embrace the territories of Europe, North America, Africa, Australasia, and South America. The whole world is being so divided up that the frontiers of our work may be evenly and systematically pressed forward to annex the regions remaining still beyond.

We are no longer waiting to get a foothold in the great over-sea continents. We have an established foothold. The message has created for itself a base of operation in all these fields, and in response to the Lord’s own call the believers east and west, north and south, are coming into line to aim definitely at the full evangelization of the regions allotted to them. And when this gospel of the kingdom has been preached in all the world as a witness to all nations, “then shall the end come.”

We stand just where Israel stood in the days of Joshua. The land had been divided, each tribe had been allotted its inheritance, and it only remained for each to go in and subdue the land and take possession.

Now in our time the land is divided. It is for each division to go in and take possession. The stronger divisions are to help the weaker. And quickly, according to the Lord’s promise of a short work in the closing days, the message will be carried to the ends of the earth, and that means the coming of the Lord and the everlasting inheritance.

In the practical review of our field and work the longed-for consummation does not seem far off any longer. God is giving his people courage for the final conflict. The cry of a finished work meets a response everywhere in willing hearts. So is it in this newest of the unions, the South American. This union has a vast field, and a Catholic field; but the believers are strong-hearted, and confident that they shall be able to go in and possess their inheritance in the name of the Lord.

W. A. S.

Stajahy, Santa Catharina.