p. 204 | What Shall Be Done?

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 12, 1871

What Shall Be Done?

LABORERS WANTED.

From all parts of the country the Macedonian call is heard, “Come over and help us.” From Maine to the Pacific coast the want of laborers is felt. And it is a fact that we have but very few real laborers, and these are fast wearing out. It is true that we have quite a respectable number of accredited ministers; but when you count up the real laborers, they are hardly a score. In full view of this fact, we look out upon the vast fields all ripe for the harvest and hear the calls from all quarters, “Come over and help us,” with feelings unutterable.

Laborers are wanted in all parts of the field. Elder Ingraham should have one of our ablest and best ministers with him in Minnesota. One is wanted in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania and Maine, while the New England and Michigan Conferences should have two each of our ablest men. These are needed in an extreme sense, in order to continue tent operations in summer, and to secure any considerable amount of additions to our numbers at other seasons of the year. And yet there is not a man that can be spared from any point in the wide field now occupied. And besides these, ten real laborers are wanted in each of the Eastern, Middle and Western States at this very moment. And then, there are openings in Kentucky, Virginia, and others of the Southern States.

We have worthy brethren scattered all through the Western States and Territories, who are calling for help. And it is not an uncommon thing for men in western localities, who learn of us by our publications, or otherwise, to get up petitions for a minister to be sent to them to teach our views, and in the long list of petitioners there may not be the name of a single Sabbath-keeper. Will not our active young men be stirred by such facts as these? As we view these things in the light of the real facts in the case we are led a hundred times to inquire with feelings of deepest solicitude, What can be done? God has committed to our people a sacred trust in his truth. He has blest our publishing interests wonderfully. And we not only have books, and means with which to publish; but God has helped men to bring out his truth in our works with clearness and force. He is also opening the way for us, and preparing the public mind in a thousand places that we cannot at present occupy. There is a fault on our part, as a people, or we should have laborers to enter fields providentially opened. What shall be done?

The New England Conference has surplus funds, and two large preaching tents for summer use. They ask for two of our ablest men. They will support them well, and will cheerfully co-operate with them. Bro. and sister Canright would be more than welcomed to this Conference. If Bro. Haskell leaves to labor in other States in establishing tract societies, and to bring about united action in sustaining the cause in its various departments, others must come to the New England Conference.

And the Maine Conference must have help. But little has been done in Maine besides what has resulted from the labors of those men who have been sent to the State by the General Conference. We are, however, very glad to learn that Eld. J. B. Goodrich is nobly battling in Aroostook County with considerable success. But what has very much discouraged our faithful brethren in Maine, who have ever stood ready with their means to help the cause, has been the course taken by some of their preachers. They seemed content to visit round and round with the little churches raised up almost entirely by others. They have manifested but little interest to break new ground, and raise up new churches, and, at the same time, they have, by their jealousy, fault-finding, and failure to co-operate, stood directly in the way of those ministers who were sent to that State by General Conference. This has caused disunion, and has embarrassed ministers from other States, so that they have not been able to accomplish half so much as they would have done had these men never taken their stand with us. And our most valuable men, Elders Cornell, Andrews, and Canright, who have done nearly all that has been accomplished in Maine, have left the State in discouragement.

Our people in Maine have finally taken their stand not to spend their S. B. funds in the support of any man who cannot go out into new fields in that State, as did Cornell, Andrews, and Canright, and bring men and women to the knowledge of the truth. When men can do this, and lead those who are the fruits of their labors up to a state of intelligent, harmonious action with the body, then they have proved themselves competent to labor with our churches, or anywhere else. The cause needs men who can either labor in new fields with success, or who can wisely and well bring our churches up to harmonious action and spiritual strength. The cause has no use for men who can do neither.

Somebody has worked, and God has worked with them, the past twenty years, in bringing out fifteen thousand Sabbath-keepers, and fighting the battles for Organization, Systematic Benevolence, etc., etc. And we would say to untried, and unsuccessful ministers, that not a tithe of the territory in the United States alone has been canvassed. There is as good ground to work on that has never been broken as anywhere our churches have been raised up. And now that the present truth is brought out and made clear, in our publications, and things are made ready to their hands, is it too much for our Conferences to ask of these ministers to go out into new fields, as the pioneers of the cause did when the fields were all new? Then we had no publications, and opposition was stronger than now. All we can ask of these ministers is to do as others have done before them. And we are very glad that circumstances are more favorable for them.

About ten years ago, D. M. Canright came nearly forty miles to converse with us on the subject of preaching. After talking with him an hour, relative to his convictions of duty, of the responsibilities of the ministry, and advising him to make up his mind to be, by the grace of God, a first-class preacher, we gave him a Bible and a set of charts, and told him to go right out into some place where our views had never been preached, and when he became satisfied that preaching was not his calling, to bring the Bible and the charts back. In a few weeks, we heard from the young stripling down in Indiana, bringing men and women to acknowledge and obey the Lord’s Sabbath. In about six months we met him at General Conference, and inquired of him, Where is the Bible? and where are those charts? Have you brought them back? “No, sir,” was the reply, “you have lost them.” We would like to lose more in just this way. This young man went right out into new fields, and stayed out, and read, and studied, and preached, and wrote, and read, and preached, and studied, and he could not help growing up a strong man in God and in his word.

Maine must have help. The brethren in Maine will be glad of the labors of any of our living, active preachers; but they would be exceedingly glad of the labors of Bro. and sister Canright.

We are glad to see some coming up to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty. But there are more than one hundred men among us who should give themselves more or less to the work. There is a class of men among us who have reached the years of experience and ripe judgment, who should consecrate themselves to the work as helpers. These can visit our churches, set things in order, and do the same work Bro. Haskell has been doing in the New England Conference, better than our ministers can, with the exception of a very few of them. We have men enough to do this work without taking evangelists from their specific calling.

And, then, there are scores of young men who could become able ministers of the word, if they would give up the world, and give themselves to study, and to God fully. God’s Spirit is moving on the minds of some; but they hesitate, and hold back.

Are they waiting for some miraculous evidence? We suggest that they will never have any. Generally, Satan gives these to the men he deceives. The voice of the Lord speaks to men, everywhere, who have the capacity, and aptitude to teach, and who love God, his holy law, and who love salvation through Jesus Christ, and who love poor sinners. “Why stand ye here all the day idle?” “Go ye, also, into the vineyard.”

“But,” says some cautious friend, “Would you not have men wait until they feel the ‘woe is me if I preach not the gospel,’ upon them?” Certainly, certainly. But will some one tell us what this “woe” is? What does it say to a man? How does it feel? What is to be learned by it? Those who are waiting to feel it, should have it described to them.

We once heard a very sensible minister say, that Satan called more men to the ministry than the Lord did. We believe it. These unfortunate men who labor under the mistaken idea that they are called to the ministry, have an indefinite and inexplicable something which they call a “woe-is-me.” They cannot define it. It tells them nothing in particular. They feel that they must preach. That is all. Now, we simply set this indefinite something down as an imposition of Satan.

And we confess that we do not see how any young man—if he has the ability to make life a success, and is apt to teach, who comes near enough to God to feel his holiness, the holiness of his law, and the value of the great salvation provided by Jesus Christ, and who loves poor sinners, and realizes that we are in the time of the last message, upon which the destiny of the world hangs—can help feeling the “woe” upon him.

It is true that Paul had a special calling. His was an especial work, under peculiar circumstances. Others may have had especial evidences; but they are exceptions, and not the rule. As a rule, that which has moved men to enter the Lord’s vineyard, has been a high and holy sense that they were bought with the precious blood of Christ, and should be wholly his, and that their time and strength should be devoted to the work of saving sinners, one of whom, when saved, would be of greater value than all the treasures of this poor little world. Men who come near enough to God to see, and feel, and know, these great facts, have intelligent convictions of duty. With them the “woe is me if I preach not the gospel,” is something that exists, and virtually speaks to them, and moves them out in an intelligent manner to consecrate themselves to God, and prepare themselves for the great work.

Those who have found pardon of their sins, and are the adopted sons and daughters of the Almighty, who are bought, and brought nigh by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, and who rejoice in hope of the glories to be revealed at the second advent, and hope on the immortal shores, are debtors. And in no way can they approximate toward paying the debt, only by a life devoted to the work of bringing others to Christ. The grace of God had brought Paul greatly in debt to the world. “I am debtor,” he says, “both to the Greeks, and to the barbarians, both to the wise, and to the unwise. So as much as in me lies, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.” Rom. 1:14, 15. The apostle would exert the powers of his entire being in paying the debt he owed to the world in consequence of the grace of God that had come to him. This constituted, in a great measure, at least, the “woe is me” that rested upon Paul.

In the gift of the Son of God for sinners, in his pardoning love which the repenting sinner is permitted to feel, and in the promised future glory and reward of the faithful saved, are reasons almost infinite why men and women should feel that they are in debt to sinners, and why they should devote their powers to the work of their salvation. Those who do not realize their indebtedness are utterly disqualified to work for God. Those who do, at such a time as the present, have all the woe upon them that they need, and should tarry no longer.

“Go labor in my vineyard, There’s resting by-and-by.”

Laborers are wanted. And again we call the attention of our people to the subject of brief courses of instruction in the present truth, and the best methods of teaching it, for the benefit of those young men and young women who feel that the grace of God has made them debtors to sinners, and that they must devote themselves to the last message of mercy to the world. These courses of instruction should be held in several States during winter and spring. We suggest that the expenses of the teachers be met by General Conference, and that those churches who may invite the course to their place, board free all those who are worthy, and whose limited circumstances make it a duty to board them free. May God give our General Conference wisdom to treat properly this great and important question of want of laborers.