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THE STUDY OF THE FIELD

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 29, 1901

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 78, No. 44.

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THE STUDY OF THE FIELD.

By Estella Houser

ESTELLA HOUSER.
Our study this week on the field covers a wide range of territory and subjects. It will be impossible, however, to derive any benefit from it without having access to the Missionary Magazine, as the entire study is based upon this journal.
To decide whether such a study is profitable, one has only to analyze his own interest in missionary work, when he finds that it centers about those lands with which he is best acquainted. An intelligent interest is always stimulated by an increase of knowledge.
The last message of mercy is to reach earth’s remotest bounds before the appearing of our Saviour. Every report of progress is one step nearer that event. These reports appear month by month in the Missionary Magazine, and the reading circle is arranged as an aid in becoming acquainted with them.
This month the study brings tidings from almost a score of fields, besides others that are mentioned in the Magazine, but not embraced in the study. The situation in Africa alone will inspire every true heart to activity, if God’s Spirit is allowed to do its work, for it outlines the experience of our brethren who are being compelled to do now, in troublous times, the work which the Lord has plainly stated should have been done in times of peace and comparative prosperity. The same conditions prevail in Colombia, and how soon all nations will be involved in war is known only by Him before whom the nations are as nothing. The article has its lesson for each of us. A brief study will reveal it.
From Porto Rico comes a message of courage and good cheer, but our two laborers in that island plead that help may be sent them now while conditions are so favorable. Out of the seventy towns in this island, fifty have not been entered by the gospel worker. The present is our opportunity. Soon others will go in, and then we shall be compelled to follow them, and our labors will be far more difficult. The article will bear studying.
The report from the Orient, another topic for study, is inspiring, since it shows the progress of the truth notwithstanding the most bitter opposition. Brethren in one city in Turkey are imprisoned for possessing a copy of the REVIEW AND HERALD, and at another place in the Sultan’s territory they have been arrested because they assembled together for worship on the Sabbath. In Egypt a minister of the gospel has accepted the message, and is devoting his time to its promulgation. That the Lord is choosing out a people for His name from many nations is illustrated by the discovery of a brother in this land of the Nile who, alone, for a number of years, notwithstanding great persecution, has observed the Sabbath because he saw that its sacredness was taught in God’s word. In Palestine difficulties only serve as stepping-stones for the advancement of God’s word. In Mexico a new feature has been developed in the work — that of selling our Spanish paper. The people are eager for reading-matter, and buy the papers willingly, something which the workers thought could never be accomplished.
The developing of workers through mission schools in Argentine, Brazil, and Rhodesia, and the progress of the message in these lands, as well as in Finland, Puerto Cortez, Raratonga, Iceland, and Jamaica, all make a part of this month’s study. Who can afford to be ignorant of these things? One cannot better look upon the field intelligently than through the reports of those who are on the ground, and these from month to month are found in the Missionary Magazine, and made the basis of the study of the field.
The command, “Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that He would send forth laborers into His harvest,” can best be carried out in an intelligent manner in connection with a study of the field. This is a work that God enjoins upon every one of us. We have no record of any other method by which we may select workers other than “Pray ye . . . the Lord of the harvest, that He will send forth laborers.”
If you do not have the Missionary Magazine, the first step necessary in the study will be to procure one, and then with heart imbued with the Spirit of God, note how rapidly this message is being carried to every nation, and what God would have you do that it may go more quickly. “Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”