One of the Outposts by W. A. S.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Mar 29, 1906

One of the Outposts

By W. A. S.

It is a privilege indeed to look in at the outposts on the line of our missionary advance. The jets of light are being kindled here, there, and all about amid the darkness that covers the earth. One may find but a slender band in these outstations, or it may be but a solitary pioneer, but, depend upon it, there is always courage there, and confidence, and the face is resolutely toward the regions still beyond. In this spirit the missionaries are carrying the banner of truth forward, and in the same spirit the churches must stand by the continual missionary advance.

It was literally but a few minutes that I spent in the Portuguese outpost, as our ship touched at Lisbon. A run of twelve miles by train along the Tagus and we came to Carcavellos, a little village on the seacoast. Here is our headquarters for Portugal, in a small four-room cottage, where Brother and Sister Rentfro, with baby Carlos, are laying the foundations for the coming greater work in this kingdom. These simple quarters make no display, but the workers love the people among whom they have lived for eighteen months, and they love this third angel's message, and that is the combination that makes for progress in this work the world over.

Thank God for a beginning in priest-ridden Portugal. For many years our laborers going by Europe toward southern or eastern seas have passed Portugal as one of the great unentered Catholic fields. Now this missionary outpost places Portugal on our "entered" list. Doubtless ere this is read, Elder E. Schwantes, from Brazil, will have joined the workers. They have a difficult field. Pray that God may lead the feet of the laborers to homes where honest hearts are waiting.

Along the Lisbon water front one may see where once the waters swept over the lower city in the great Lisbon earthquake. The modern city of nearly half a million now covers the hills along the Tagus River. And we know that as surely as old Lisbon was wrecked by the great earthquake, as the sixth seal was opened, just so surely the new Lisbon, and not only this city, but all the cities of the nations, will fall in a little from now. We can never believe these things and make no effort to warn the world. To believe this message means to give our all of strength and resources in sending it forward. Up and down the earth it must go. And we must go with it, as God may lead, or help to send it, as he may enable.

The statue of Vasco da Gama, looking seaward from one of the Lisbon promenades, reminds us that Portugal was one of the agents of Providence in the discovery and exploration of the world just as the light of the Reformation was breaking over Europe. Now the truth of the last reform message is discovering the way into hearts and homes in old Portugal. W. A. S.

St. Vincent, Cape Verde Islands.