AN ADMIRABLE MISSIONARY EFFORT.
By David Paulson
The ideal missionary effort that has been begun at Berrien Springs, Mich., by our educational brethren, for the citizens of that village, deserves more than a passing notice. When the teachers arrived there last summer, they found that old prejudices were lurking in the minds of some of the citizens, which led them to secure a large number of tracts, written by some of our enemies. These tracts were distributed with the evident idea of crippling the influence of our brethren who are disseminating the truth. These teachers exercised sufficient tact to avoid any spirit of controversy, and began to devise plans whereby they could come close to the people and help them in every way possible. They sought to make friends, and yet not compromise principle in the least. Mrs. Sutherland, Miss DeGraw, and others attended the meetings of the local W. C. T. U., and soon several of their meetings were held in Professor Sutherland’s home. Sunday evening lectures were begun on various practical subjects. These were followed with Bible studies in private homes. The consistent attitude that our brethren have maintained has almost completely disarmed prejudice, and they are now having a wonderful opportunity to reach the people in a manner that cannot fail to produce fruit for the kingdom of God. The W. C. T. U. recently invited me to give them a lecture on “How to Preserve the Rising Generation from the Curse of the Liquor Traffic.” The college chapel was crowded to the very doors with as intelligent and appreciative an audience as it has ever been my privilege to address. God has made this people the custodians of important truths, and there are those in other churches, and some in no church at all, to whom these truths will seem just as precious as they do to us. Some of these will perhaps make far greater use of these truths than we have; but we must endeavor to reach such people as their friends, rather than as instructors. People do not like to be made to feel at every turn that we “have the truth,” when, perhaps, they have walked more faithfully in the light they have than we in that which God has committed to us. Therefore in His sight, perhaps they really have a better standing than we. Our churches in general do not have the talent in their midst that is represented in the Berrien Springs company; but every body of believers can certainly determine properly to represent the fragrance of this truth by being the most neighborly and helpful people in the community; and when God sees that we are fully resolved to arise and shine, then He will roll away the reproach, and give us such opportunities to reach humanity as we hardly dare expect. A good beginning has been made in the school work at Berrien Springs. This is a quiet, wholesome place, with abundant opportunities for combining industrial work with the regular school study. The students who are there now are having excellent opportunities to share some of the difficulties that are necessarily incident to pioneer work, but those will only help to make them all the more valiant workers when they must meet a larger amount of similar difficulties in opening up work in new places, particularly in our large cities. The world sadly needs the blessed ministry that strong young men and women can perform, and we trust that Emmanuel College may not only continue to be a light for that entire community, but may be a place where hundreds of our young men and women may receive the anointing from on high that shall fit them to become “fishers of men.”