Face to Face with Solemn Obligations
By W. A. S.
WE thank God for the foothold that he has given us in the many lands abroad. This truth is sounding out. It stirs our hearts to see the ranks move forward. Most heart-stirring of all, however, we must confess, is the array of unoccupied fields. We face obligations to-day such as never before pressed upon any people. When the cables brought the news of the terrible disaster in Martinique,—a populous city swept to destruction in a moment by a whirlwind of volcanic fire, and a whole countryside devastated by earthquake shock and burning ashes,—all our people must have seen in the calamity another evidence that this earth is tottering toward its end. Creation is groaning for her latter day. But this calamity means something very personal to every believer in this truth. Every school map has shown us the island of Martinique, lying just off our coasts—such a little way from our own doors. For years we have been talking about carrying a warning message from God to every nation, tongue, and people. God has given us the message. He has increased this people. He has made us stewards of means. Our resources have been sufficient, at any time during the last quarter of a century, to have filled the whole world with the sound of this message within a few short years. But in all these years we have never lifted a hand to save a soul in Martinique. We never sent the warning message to the people of St. Pierre to call them to repentance. They dwelt carelessly under the smoking top of Mount Pélée, a gay city, full of men and women and children who had never heard the truths5for which we thank God. They never heard, because we to whom God gave a message to take to them settled down at home, and never carried it. God, in mercy forgive us! The whole world is hastening to its doom. We see the sword of destruction coming upon all lands. We profess to believe that we have a message from God to a perishing world. As we read of the calamities breaking upon the earth, famine, and plague, and flood, and earthquake, it should mean more to us than simply the fulfillment of divine prophecy concerning the latter days. As surely as these things are signs to the world that the end is at hand, they are signs to this people that we must rise as one man and hasten on with our work of warning, or confess ourselves the most negligent and guilty people ever associated with God’s work in the earth. When we at home hear of flood in China, or famine and pestilence in India, it has a far-away sound to our ears. The statistics of ruin wrought make good arguments to convince people that the latter days have come. It is quite another matter to those who face the terrors of these awful visitations. When the plague began its deadly work in Calcutta, a few years ago, and the authorities planned a house-to-house sanitary inspection, panic seized upon the people. In two days, it was estimated, three hundred thousand people fled out of the city. The streets were filled with men, and women, and children, fleeing, they scarcely knew whither. It was but a passing incident in the story of the stricken East. The scene shifts; now it is one land and next another convulsed, one people and then another whose hearts meditate terror, and who see the sword of destruction falling. May Heaven save us from sitting at home, studying statistics of the world’s calamities! Is it not high time that we were out in our hundreds, telling earth’s suffering millions of the bright side of all this dark catalogue of increasing disaster? The Lord is coming. The world is dying before our eyes. We must show the true-hearted in every land the way of salvation from all the evil yet to come upon the earth. The visible breaking up of things has been preparing the minds of men to give attention to the advent warning. Among the millions of the East, where half the world lies in darkness, there is a growing conviction that the end of the age is at hand. A swift crusade through the waiting lands, one grand rally to plant the standard in every unoccupied field, and the work is done. It is a time for action rather than talk. It is a frightful crime to sit at home, and thank God for blessings received, while a world is perishing unwarned. “There is a world to be saved!” The whole missionary who goes down into the depths of humanity’s need must put his life and his all into the hand of God for service. The believer who remains to work and pray and hold the ropes at home must likewise live for but the one purpose of doing the Lord’s business in the earth. Every energy of the soul and every resource on earth must be held absolutely subject to God’s call. Anything less than this is treason to High Heaven at the very crisis in the great controversy. In the way in which we are facing this problem of our world-wide work to-day, in the response we are giving to the calls for help, we are deciding our eternal destiny. W. A. S.