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Need of Laborers

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 28, 1874

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 43, No. 20.

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Need of Laborers.

By D. Downer

WE are crippled for want of laborers. I have received in the last month seventeen calls for labor, one of them from Virginia, offering to pay all expenses if I would come and labor a little while in that State. There is talent in our ranks lying idle, persons who I believe could work more effectually than some that are now successfully preaching this message. I read with tears Bro. Decker’s letters and others who have lately taken the field to labor for God. Some are delaying—intending to go out by-and-by to labor. Let me ask, Will it not be too late then? Every one having a knowledge of the truth can do something in warning. We can say that Christ is coming. We can say in tears, Come to him, and live.
May God bless our school, and may we soon be able to send out strong, humble young men by scores to light up this dark world with truth. I am stirred to the very soul while writing. These lines often have been hid by my tears. Will you heed? Will you come up to the high calling? I am glad that our State of Wisconsin is doing more, much more, this year than ever before in this work. Some have grown gray in bringing up this work to its present standing. For those who are weary, there is resting by-and-by. Their toil has brought to us books and tracts by thousands. Shall we distribute them with our means? If we do not, we can no longer claim our place in the ranks. No man can be a true believer of our faith and not be a worker. New fields are opening faster than we can supply them. There are whole States where our faith has never been preached. There is talent to labor, and means to support the work in new fields. Who will go forth weeping and come bearing precious sheaves to God? The colored people are becoming educated with a rapidity that is beyond all our former hopes. Is it not the work of God, preparing their minds for this last message? Should they be lost? Are they not to be noticed in this great work? The price of their liberty has been paid with blood; shall not the blood of Christ liberate them from sin? Who will do it? I believe God will soon add another burden to us in pointing us to southern fields.
Who comprehends the mighty work before us? Not those who murmur. Not those who give sparingly to the cause. God must have a people to stand in the last day. The loud cry must soon be given. Are we ready for these mighty events so soon to break upon us? We often talk of them. We are able to meet the arguments of those who oppose the truth. But this is not enough. Are we sanctified through the truth? Or are we calmly viewing the soon-coming end without an effort to prepare for the terrible storm? D. DOWNER.