p. 9 | WEST INDIA FIELD by C. A. Hall

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Feb 1, 1899

WEST INDIA FIELD.

By C. A. Hall

[From our missionary in the West Indies.]

THE hundreds of islands lying off our southern coast have been brought into prominence by the events of the past few months, and the attention of statesmen, capitalists, and missionaries is now especially called in that direction.

The history of these islands is a peculiar one, embracing as it does discovery, wars, conquest, and oppression in varied forms.

At the present time their territory is divided among the five powers of Great Britain, France, Denmark, Holland, and the United States, with the island of Haiti as an independent republic. Their area is about 95,000 square miles, or nearly that of Michigan and Ohio combined, with a population of over 5,000,000, or nearly equal to that of the State of New York. Of this number two-thirds are black and the remaining one-third consists of whites, Chinese, Coolies, and the colored or mixed people.

Cuba, with its 1,500,000, has 1,250,000 of blacks and colored, the others being of Spanish descent. Haiti is credited with but a few whites, while Porto Rico is about equally divided between the two races. In Barbadoes the whites average one in eighty-five, while Jamaica is credited with three per cent. of whites in her population of 700,000.

The blacks in the British island were liberated in 1838, and at that time the London Missionary Society, sending its missionaries among them, reaped a bountiful harvest.

A significant item of that work is that a single ship brought a load of 59 tons of Bibles to the West Indies at that time. The after results have been large congregations, with immense churches, but left without pastoral attention, so that the moral condition of the masses is but little improved from their aboriginal state.

One evidence of that fact is that the official

record of births in the island of Jamaica shows that over 60 per cent. are illegitimate.

The great need of a message that will change men's hearts and lives, and of pastoral work that will bring preacher and people into closer relationship, is everywhere apparent.

The message of a soon-coming Saviour, and the call to obey all God's commandments, altho much opposed by the clergy, are well received by the people; and, tho it is but a few years since they have been proclaimed here, yet many are rejoicing in a new-found hope and a changed life.

And now, with wide-open doors, all these islands demand at our hands the saving message that God has intrusted to us.

Brethren and sisters, "come over and help us." Never mind your pleasant homes and agreeable surroundings while here there are thousands going to perdition for want of the message that has warmed your hearts. God's promises to the workers are worth more than houses or friends, and never was there greater need of consecrated labor than now, and never was there a people more needy or more eager for the message of the Lord's soon coming than these. Churches must be built. Schools must be established, and God-fearing men and women are needed who know no discouragement and will shirk no labor that has for its object the salvation of this downtrodden race.

C. A. HALL.