Your ShelfYour Projects

THE SOUTH

8%

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 5, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 45.

Read the full edition

THE SOUTH.

By J. O. Johnston

“A Thousandth Part.”

“SCARCELY a thousandth part of the work is being done that ought to be done in missionary fields.” My brethren in the Lord, what does this mean? Does it mean what it says? Are you among the “one” working for the cause of Christ, with heart, and soul, and life? or are you among the nine hundred and ninety-nine, content to stay at home while a few others, perhaps not so well supplied with talents as you may be, are out in the needy fields sowing the gospel seed? Remember that the sower went forth to sow.
How many young men and women in our Northern Conferences are unemployed, while right at our very door lies the most needy mission field on earth? “As it has been presented before me, the Southern field has been so long neglected that the cries of distress have gone up to heaven, and there can never be a clearance of our people until that field shall have fourfold more than any other field should have. They must have it because they have nothing with which to carry forward their work. From the light that God has given me, our people will never stand as they should stand before Him, until they redeem the past.” Fourfold more for this field than any other, and not a thousandth part being done that ought to be done for other fields—mission fields in general! We have been assured that “there is to be a great work done in the South.” For several years we have been waiting and watching for this work. It has been delayed, but now it has been started, and evidently started right. “God can work for men to-day as He worked for Daniel. He gave Daniel and his companions wisdom and understanding, and He will give wisdom and understanding to the workers who, with clean hands and willing minds, with self-denial and self-sacrifice, go into the Southern field to clear the King’s highway, to take up the stumbling-blocks, and prepare the way for the Lord’s work to be done.”
Young men and women, God calls for you. Are you willing to risk something on the promises of God? Will you not heed the calls that are coming, and put on the whole armor that you may be prepared for the battle?
The Carolina Conference could find work for fifty ministers, one hundred nurses, two hundred Christian farmers, and five hundred canvassers. This is no exaggeration. This number of workers could be placed in new fields where souls sit in darkness, and have never heard the glorious message of the soon-coming King. There are over three millions in this one Conference who have not yet heard the warning of the Third Angel’s Message, while other portions of the South are just as destitute and needy as this.
How will you be supported if you enter the Lord’s work in the South? I do not know how the Lord will provide for you, but I do know that there is nothing too hard for God, and He has said, “Go forward.” One young man and his wife from a Northern Conference wrote: “We have a burden to go to the Southern field. We wish to work under the direction of the Conference, but we will support ourselves. We ask for a hard place where nothing has yet been done.” These people started, by the advice of this Conference, to a certain city in South Carolina. They did not have means enough to reach their destination, and had planned to finish their journey on their bicycles, but before they had fairly entered the State, they found so much to do for God that they stopped, and began to labor for souls. I asked the young man if he was not discouraged by the hardships which he saw must be endured in this field; and he replied: “Brother Johnston, I would not go back to my pleasant home and leave this needy field for half the earth.”
Now where are others who are willing to do as this brother and sister have done? I shall be glad to correspond with young men and women who feel that the Lord is calling them to the South. Only those who are willing to endure hardships as good soldiers of Jesus Christ will make a success of the work.
“Our General, who never makes a mistake, says to us, ‘Advance. Enter new territory. Lift up the standard in every land. Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.’”
“Our watchword is to be, Onward, ever onward. The angels of God will go before us to prepare the way. Our burden for the ‘regions beyond’ can never be laid down till the whole earth shall be lightened with the glory of the Lord.” “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless [without doubt] come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.”
J. O. JOHNSTON,
Pres. Carolina Conference.
301 Elizabeth Ave., Charlotte, N. C.