O How Little!

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 3, 1898

It is said that the missionary societies of the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Continental Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, number 249, with 4,694 stations, and 15,200 out-stations. The missionaries number 11,659, the native laborers 64,290, and the communicants 1,121,699. There are 913,478 persons receiving instruction. The income in all these countries is $12,988,687. For all this we are glad, but, O, how little it is compared with the demand for missionary labor! There are not a few professed Christians who could, with blessing to themselves, duplicate this sum of money severally. The members of the professed church of Christ spend twelve millions many times told for the filthy and ruinous indulgence of tobacco. How little we believe the Gospel! How little we realize that we are debtors to the souls for whom Christ died! Brother, what shall our accounting be in that last great day?