The On-Moving Forces Can Not Be Stopped — Prophecies of Men and Movements That Fulfil God's Plans — Strong Prediction of a Great World-Wide Warning Message
By ROSS C. PORTER
Superintendent of the Asiatic Division of Our Mission Work
MISSION life is not a romance, but there are numerous experiences in frontier mission fields that are more interesting than are fables. Real life in missions is so varied as to require the most resourceful plans to meet conditions.
TO BE CARRIED BY PERSONAL TOUCH
Infinite wisdom ordained the plan of carrying the gospel to a lost world through the personal touch of man with his fallen brother. In frontier fields where cannibals await their prey, or in interior places where fear of invasion, or desire for piracy or plunder, has made the way exceedingly dangerous, the missionary, inspired by the spirit of his great commission, has gone, expecting to succeed or die in the service of his Master.
Mission work has developed the greatest heroes of history. It led apostles to face prisons, beatings, scourgings, and perils of every kind, in their endeavor to carry the gospel message to a world in darkness. It led Luther to face the fury of Rome at Spires and Worms, and his associate reformers and their followers to face the fagots, the stake, and the Inquisition.
REMAINS OF INQUISITION VICTIMS
When, in 1868, roads were laid out through the elevated piece of ground north of Madrid, "known as the Quemadero, or burning place, of the Inquisition, exposing to view the long buried remains of its victims, the sight of bones, singed hair, charred wood, and rusty chains" reminded the world of the heroic labors of missionaries who could not be swerved from their mission by bribes, nor driven from it by fear of torture or death. Such are the noblest examples of heroism the history of the world has ever recorded.
The early African missionaries were really the pioneer explorers and settlers of the country. Hostile natives and wild animals combined to check their advance, but they pressed boldly forward. Famine, pestilence, fever, and plague were met and passed, on their triumphant march through the interior. Their march was inspired by prayer rather than by martial music. Lions were overpowered and slain by men more used to the pen than to the sword; and when David Livingstone, the great leader of mission advance, finally succumbed to the dread African fever, he was found cold and stiff in the embrace of death, in the attitude of prayer.
Why did God suffer this godly man to fall at his post on this pioneer journey? It was not because He was not able to rebuke the fever. He who sees the end from the beginning had a wise design in permitting this check in mission advance for a time. The news of the death of Livingstone, and his attempted rescue by Stanley, turned the eyes of Christendom toward the condition and the needs of dark Africa. It was the occasion of such a mission awakening as has seldom been witnessed since apostolic days.
ONLY A SEEMING DEFEAT
This seeming defeat was, under divine Providence, made a marvelous mission awakening. It was God's call to a slumbering church to arise and make a fearless advance into the wilds of Africa. The call was timely. The response was remarkable. Soon the trail of Livingstone was ablaze with gospel light. Other portions were explored and entered, until from every part of that dark continent, where men were found in the superstition accompanying heathenism, the voice of prayer and praise now ascends to the throne of God.
Chinese believers in the great message of the soon coming of Christ, assembled in our new chapel at Chang-Sha, China. These are representatives of the fruits of the labors of our faithful missionaries in that field during very recent years. Elder R. C. Porter, who writes the article on this page, is now in charge of that portion of the Asiatic Division which includes China.
When in 1894 we began our mission operations near Bulawayo, 1,500 miles interior from Cape Town, it was necessary to travel 700 miles by ox-teams from Vyburg, which was then the terminus of the railway. The government was then under British supervision.
THE CRUELTY OF NATIVE KINGS
For thirty years prior to this date Moselikatze, king of the Matabele, and Lobengula, his successor, had forbidden their people to attend mission schools or church services. When a girl or a boy was reported to be interested in mission teaching, the king called the offender to his place, and he disappeared, and nothing more was ever heard of him. In 1893 the war between the Matabele and Great Britain opened the country for mission operations, under British rule.
REMARKABLE PROPHECY OF CYRUS
Such extraordinary transformations as were accomplished in this instance remind one of God's remarkable providences in the case of Cyrus, king of the Medes and Persians. God planned his mission nearly two centuries before his birth. Isa. 44:24-28; 45:1-13. He was to overthrow the city and kingdom of Babylon, in order to liberate the people of Israel from oppression, restore their city, their temple, its services, and their dominion.
His grandfather endeavored to kill Cyrus when he was but a child. He supposed that he had accomplished this through a command given his most trusted servant. Years passed before he learned that by a special providence, the child of an old mountain shepherd had died the very day the trusted servant had passed the child over to him in his mountain retreat, to be slain by his hand. The mother exchanged the clothing of the two children, and passed her dead child on for burial in the clothing of the infant Cyrus. Thus the child Cyrus was preserved by as remarkable a providence, when it had been decreed by the king Astyages that he should be slain, as was the child Jesus when Herod had decreed His death.
