Just now we are thinking and talking about giving for missions. Money gifts are not the largest offerings. Lives are to be laid upon the altar. When the late Brother F. L. Mead's aged mother gave up her only son for Africa, she made a precious offering to the missionary cause. I am sure she will permit me to make an extract from her letter, written in reply to one conveying to her the news of her son's death at the front. She wrote:—
MEMBERS OF KING KHAMA’S BODYGUARD.
“My heart aches for the dear ones left there, and for the work he loved so much. But ‘God is my refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble,’ and He cheers and comforts me with the precious promises of His word. I felt it when they went away; but they felt it duty to go, and I would not hold them back. I laid my sacrifice upon the altar of Africa then, and I have never taken it back, and I hope I never shall. ‘The Lord liveth; and blessed be my Rock.’ I know He can give beauty for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning, for He has done it for me, and He can do it again in His own time and way.”
This precious cause, which centers in the gift to us of God's only begotten Son, calls for the consecration of the best that we have—of all. While now some are giving life itself, and gifts as precious as the very life, shall any feel that duty is done by an ordinary contribution for missions in this extraordinary time? Let us throw into this cause every interest of our lives, and finish the work. There is a real battle going on at the front, and our comrades look to this land for volunteers to supply the places of the fallen, and for the consecrated means necessary to press the battle to the gate.
Brother Anderson's letter, in this issue, states the immediate needs. The Mission Board will be glad to hear from tried workers who feel that they ought to respond to the call for laborers.
