The Work Ahead | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 21, 1884

The Work Ahead.

WE boast of our missionary spirit; but how few Christians have any real conception of the meaning of the words they so glibly roll from their tongues! It is a solemn fact that uncounted millions have never heard the only name under heaven by which we can be saved. It is a startling fact that of every three persons on the surface of the globe, two have never seen a Bible. The missionary fire burned in the heart of John Williams, when he said: "I cannot stay in a single island; human souls are perishing all around. It grieves me to the very heart. I must have a ship to send a messenger to other islands to guide the heathen to Heaven." Liegenbalk could say of himself and of his fellow missionaries, "If the Lord grant us but the conversion of a single soul, our journey shall be abundantly rewarded." Carey made his rude map of the world, and as he pointed his customers to one land after another and said, "That is pagan," and "That is pagan," the tears would steal down his cheeks. And can he have felt the love of Jesus in the depths of his own heart, or can he know anything of the value of souls, who hears of Christless millions, and whose life at least says: "What care I? What is all that to me?" Can it be necessary to urge upon the Christian to rescue the perishing? Can we look with complacency on the uncounted millions of the heathen? Is ten cents or ten dollars or ten times ten dollars a year all we owe to Christ, and more than a billion souls Christless and hopeless?—Sel.