CALIFORNIA AS A MISSIONARY FIELD.
By B. C. Stickney
PROBABLY there is no place on the globe that presents a better field for missionary labor than California. Its cosmopolitan population has been called here from all parts of the world, by the mines and other rapidly developing interests; while its imports and the enormous quantity of grain and other products exported to foreign countries, together with the fact that it lies in the direct route of travel between the East and nearly all the countries of Asia, Australia, and the islands of the Pacific, secure for us a direct means of communication with nearly the whole civilized world. We are not like the faithful missionary who visits foreign countries, under the necessity of consuming perhaps years in acquiring a knowledge of the language and habits of the people with whom we labor, but they are here among us, speaking our own language and having, to a great extent, adopted our manners and customs. We already have in our churches in this State representatives from ten or twelve different nations, and of course the knowledge they receive here is communicated to those whom they have left behind in their former homes; and in some instances their interest has been such that they have visited their native land that they might more readily impart the truths which they have received to their friends. Many steamers and ships have been visited here by the missionaries engaged in this work, and with but a single exception, and that was a French man-of-war, they have never failed to accept any reading matter that might be tendered them, and some of them are even willing to take our publications free of charge to any of the foreign ports which they enter. Nearly every week there are opportunities for preaching on board of vessels lying at our wharves, but on account of the scarcity of ministers it has been impossible to attend to many of these calls, although services have been held on three or four occasions, the audience at one time numbering over forty. Sometimes considerable interest is shown by the officers and crew on receiving the Signs etc.; and on several occasions they have spoken of having seen the same paper in England. One captain donated five dollars to be used in this work, the only donation received for this mission since our camp-meeting. We are cheered by the encouraging reports from those engaged in visiting and laboring among our churches. When we get word from any locality that nearly all have adopted the plan of giving one-third for missionary purposes we know that there is an interest there, and an earnest endeavor to have the work go forward. We long to see the time when our publishing house here will have all that it can do to supply the demand for our denominational works, to the exclusion of everything else. Our ministers alone cannot accomplish this, neither can the officers of the tract society; but it will require a united effort on the part of all. The magnitude of the work calls for earnest, sacrificing labor, and let us engage heartily in it, using every talent committed to our trust.