p. 19 | A Call for Workers by A. G. Daniells

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 9, 1902

A Call for Workers

By A. G. Daniells

OUR brethren who are aware of the effort made last spring to place a company of our American canvassers in Great Britain will be glad to know that this effort has been blessed of God. Our brethren in Great Britain have been pleased and encouraged, the canvassers have been personally blessed and prospered, and many people in England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales have been cheered by their visits, and enlightened by the message thus brought to them.

Just before leaving England, I had the privilege of meeting most of these canvassers at the Leeds camp meeting. They were all looking well and happy, and reported good success in their work. Our British brethren were so pleased with the cheerful yet dignified bearing and spiritual enthusiasm of these canvassers that they passed a resolution in the conference thanking our American conferences for their kindness in sending these workers to them, and requesting that they send ten more canvassers like them. I sincerely hope that this request for more workers will be granted with as little delay as possible.

I feel sure that great possibilities are involved in this plan, and that if it is carried out as it should be, we shall, in time, see results beyond all present conception. It is the way to supply our distant, needy fields with the right sort of laborers. As a rule those who go as canvassers will be young and vigorous. They will be able readily to adjust themselves to the ways of the people. Instead of going as preachers to call the people from their homes to public meetings, they will go to the people in their homes. In this way they will come into close, sympathetic touch with the masses. They will see the people as they are, and will feel the weight of the burdens they are carrying. They will become one with the people, and feel at home among them.

This, I believe, is the best way to raise up ministers and Bible workers in what we call foreign lands. It is the way to develop workers who will possess the “staying” quality. The best missionaries of the nineteenth century were those who went to their fields in their youth, lived with the people, and shaped their methods of labor while associating with those to whom they were to give their lives.

There are good reasons for believing that many who go to foreign fields as canvassers will become Bible workers and ministers in those fields. This would be an excellent way for many of our young people to finish their education. A good Bible school is being established in England. I would like to see our canvassers who go to that country take a term or two in that school, and move on into the ministry as soon as possible. Then let their places as canvassers be filled by other workers from America. And all this applies to some degree to other fields—such as France and Italy.

Thus the providence of God has prepared the way for supplying remote, destitute fields with consecrated and efficient workers. Here is an opportunity for sturdy young men and women. I appeal to such to dedicate their lives to God for the service and salvation of the millions in the regions beyond. I appeal to parents to dedicate their sons and daughters to this grand work. And I appeal to friends who wish to see the advent message given to the world in this generation to assist this great and worthy enterprise. A. G. DANIELLS.