A Review of the Field by William Ambrose Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Assn. · Washington, D. C. · Jan 7, 1904

A Review of the Field

By William Ambrose Spicer

W. A. SPICER

It has been a year of great blessing in the regions beyond. The growth in the mission fields, which has been large in comparison with the labor and the means expended, is plainly a signal to us that the way is all prepared for a quick work in the earth. The finger of Providence points toward the unworked fields, such as our own South and the populous continents over the sea. The blessings of this prayer season that must result in more earnest service at our own doors, must also press upon our hearts more heavily the burden of definite prayer and of giving for the regions beyond. A merely blessed time for ourselves alone would turn to a curse. It is a glorious thing to be alive and in this truth to-day; but it is an awful thing as well. There is a world to be warned. There is no use in merely talking. It is for us to rise up in the strength of God and do the work.

Now for a hasty glance over the field—the world that God still loves.

Europe

The work in Europe is forging ahead marvelously. In the first six months of this year they added a thousand souls to their membership. Yet that mighty field is so slenderly manned. We have fallen short by thousands of supplying the means our brethren expected to receive. They called for very little, too, compared with the magnitude and importance of their work. Think of it: they have sixty ordained ministers for five hundred millions within the territory of the European General Conference. It is as though we had only ten ministers in all America, posted from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Yet how the truth has gone! Europe shakes with the tread of armed men. There are thirty nationalities, with thirty languages to be reached. The conditions are often such that we in this land would think ourselves shut up indeed if we had to work under similar restrictions. But the message grandly wins its way. Compared with growth in our home field, the record is wonderful. Europe cut its needs down to the barest, and asked for twenty-seven thousand dollars for the current year.

The Mission Board later had to warn our brethren to count on no more than twenty thousand dollars from the Mission treasury. We are sure to fall several thousands below this mark unless God rolls the burden upon hearts to help in a special way. We owe it to that great field to rally to the help of our brethren with a mighty effort, so that once again and finally the reformation truth may flash over populous Europe. Already fruit appears in Spain, only just entered by us. As soon as we enter, the Lord leads souls to embrace the truth. The message is being preached in Rome also. But think of the situation,—one minister to eight and a quarter millions of people judgment bound,—and carry a burden of prayer for the unwarned millions of Europe.

Africa

A great missionary conference was once gathered in London. There came to it a message flashed thousands of leagues under the sea by a missionary bishop of Africa, bearing the words, “Africa Waiting.” The simple message thrilled to action as no multiplied words could have done. It is the same message that heaven signals to us from Africa; for it is God’s providence alone that has opened up that vast field just at this time, made known to us its needs, and given us a foothold there.

“They are waiting in the wild, Sick and weary and defiled, And the Saviour’s healing word They have never, never heard; Ever hungry and unfed, Left without the living Bread— Waiting! Waiting!”

Native kings have been waiting, inviting us to open up stations in their countries. Workers have been ready to go. But, friends, we have had to wait because there was no money to send the workers. The Mission Board had to cable the message to our brethren in Africa, “Postpone all new missions.” There is a brighter outlook for a strong work in South Africa than ever before. The cause is advancing on a sound basis in the colonies, and in the native missions it has been a year of distinct advance. From the new stations in Gwelo, Rhodesia, and Cholo, Nyassaland, the light is shining out. There is no romance about African missions. One worker has been forced to turn back from the Gold Coast by deadly climate, and the last word from Matabeleland, at this writing, is that friendly natives are warning our workers to get their wives and families into Buluwayo, as there is preparation on foot for a native rising. Yet, from the Cape to Cairo, Africa’s millions are waiting for the advent message. Our ministerial force in Africa numbers one minister to twenty millions of people. It is as though we had four ordained ministers in all the United States. Ought we not to make possible a better showing than that? Now the brethren at the Cape are calling specifically for one experienced preacher, a male teacher, and a lady teacher. We have to write that funds must increase ere it will be possible to send the workers, though support is ready for them in the field.

Africa is waiting, but it will cost sacrifice to respond. Yet think of the bright story of sacrifice in the opening of Africa,—of Livingstone, dying upon his knees at Ilala, praying for the land that he loved; of Hannington, laying down his life at the assassin’s feet, in order that the way into Uganda might be opened; of Wilmott Brooke, dying at the gates of Hausaland, the only missionary among thirty millions, and crying out, “The people are too many for me.”

Think of the martyr native lads of Uganda, only a few years ago burned at the stake for the word of God, singing amid smoke and flame as long as tongue could frame the words:— “Daily, daily, sing for Jesus, Sing, my soul, his praises due.”

There is no time to catalogue the precious gifts poured out to prepare the way for this final message in the great Dark Continent. It has cost something to purchase our opportunities for doing a quick work. Yes, and think of our own dear comrades who have laid down their lives in our short campaign for Africa. Can we expect the “Well done” at last unless now we are ready to do valiantly, to make sacrifices to help in pressing the battle of the Lord in Africa?

Asia

And here is Asia. Encouraging reports have come from India and Burma the past year. Early in the year several workers were added to the little force surrounded by three hundred millions. In China the Lord has wrought for us in a special manner. A native church is being built up in the interior, and converts are preaching the coming of the Lord in the regions round about. How can we forget that woman who put a sign over her door, “May the great truth come to this door”? And God brought our missionary to that door with the great truth—to that very door, among all the many, many millions of China. And we can understand this woman’s feelings when she lovingly stroked the New Testament presented to her to be her very own. Let this one case stand for multitudes waiting for us among the millions of Asia, where half the world lies in darkness. Japan has a little sanitarium started, and native workers are being trained for service. Counting the two medical workers just entering China as ordained ministers, we have in Asia one minister to each one hundred millions of people. It is as though there were one minister alone in all North America. Think of it, and pray for perishing Asia.

South America

South America has been organizing this year, as well as doing aggressive work. Local resources are being developed, and more is being done with the help sent from America. Some remarkable experiences have come to the field, a foretaste of the quick work under the latter rain. Yet we are saying “No” to all calls now from South America, the same as to all the wide world that calls for help. We are saying that new work can not be undertaken until the flow of means increases yet more. We are calling on our workers in the needy fields abroad to join in praying God to send forth the laborers and to supply the means. The Southern field has made steady progress, adding souls to the church, yet working with but a part of the appropriation expected from the Mission treasury. They have needed all that was hoped to grant them. They have a splendid field almost untouched, with thriving cities and communities, and the great colored population, whose speedy evangelization is a special legacy left to all our churches and conferences.

Do we speak too much of financial needs? It is impossible to do so. There is a world to be warned, and God has ordained that consecrated means shall be a weapon in the holy warfare. It is the ammunition, the powder and shot, for the battle. No people complain that their soldiers at the front keep calling for ammunition. Forge and factory and arsenal run day and night, if need be, to keep the ranks supplied. Brethren and sisters, our comrades at the front are out of ammunition. We must send more regular supplies, and keep a steady march of reinforcements moving to the fields. Success calls for advance. There must be a determined and steady pushing forward of our campaign. It is not too much, surely, for us to say that while we pray, we will hold subject to God’s call to-day every resource that we command. Is it too much to give dollars to this work? Ask some worker in the heat of the tropics who sees wife and children growing thin and pale, if he thinks it a great sacrifice to give merely dollars to this work.

Speak to that sister just returned for a short rest from one of the fields, leaving a husband in an island grave, and ask her if it is a hard thing to think of giving merely dollars for the love of Jesus and the carrying of this message to the world. Go to that aged mother in Israel to whom we sent word of the death of her only son in a far-away land, and ask her bowed heart if giving money for missions seems a hard thing to do. Why, we must give our lives and our all to this work.

It can be done so quickly just as soon as all the ranks rise up in the power of God and say, By his grace it shall be done. Just as soon as unbelief was shaken from Gideon’s army, and a band of men surrounded the field of battle whose hearts were ready to venture all, God gave the victory. They had but to show the light and give the shout of triumph. Now we must press out the line of advance until it surrounds the world, and witnesses are ready to show the light in every land. Then how quickly all can be finished, as the Spirit of God allows the crisis to come. What can we do but throw ourselves into this work with no reserve? The time has come for the witness to be borne. There is a solemn tone in the words of the Testimonies that have come of late. It is a tone that the ear of faith must hear ringing out the knell of the world’s end, and the call to the final work of witnessing. “Day by day,” says a recent Testimony, “I am impressed by the Holy Spirit that the very last messages of warning are now to be given to our people.” The day is at hand. The ranks must be aroused. We must speed through every land with the warning cry, and when this gospel of the kingdom has been preached as a witness unto all nations, then shall the end come.