MISSION FIELDS ABOUT THE MEDITERRANEAN.
By H. P. H.
AS GENERALLY understood, our Sabbath-school donations during the last six months of 1897 are destined for these fields. While our schools have for years been donating to other fields, it is an interesting fact that this great field has been left to be one of the last. Altho not designed on our part, it is not unfitting that it should be so. In this field the Gospel was first planted, and from it spread to all the world; and now, having completed the circuit of the earth, returns in the closing work to the starting-point. From the standpoint of history and prophecy, no field is of so great interest as this one; and its future is not likely to be less interesting than the past. From prophecy, we know that it will be the theater on which will be enacted the marvelous scenes which close earth's history. The enemy, realizing that he has but a short time, has sent his agents to all the world to prepare them for the great day, and will finally gather all his minions for a last mighty struggle on the plains of Armageddon; and when the Lord again places his feet upon this earth, it will be upon Mt. Olivet, from which he ascended. It was here that the lost possession was purchased with his life; and it is here that the final restoration begins, and that the saints are introduced into their everlasting inheritance. Is it possible that these scenes, so awful to the sinner and so glorious to the saint, and now so near at hand, will not be proclaimed to the millions in these fields where they are to be enacted? Certainly not, for the closing message is to go to every nation and tongue and kindred. Rev. 14:6, 7. In a general way, missionary work has been carried on in the Orient for about seventy years; but the Gospel of the kingdom has just begun to be proclaimed. So-called Christianity has from the first century been represented in the countries about the Mediterranean; but the Gospel in its simplicity and power has had very few representatives since the days of the apostles and early Christians. In the beginning, its power was most manifest. With the exception of a few Jews, most of the people then saved were pagans, some of them among the vilest. Rome then ruled the world, and enforced strict laws forbidding the preaching of a new deity which the State had not acknowledged. At no time has Satan more completely had his own way,—nearly all the world pagan, united in the strongest empire that ever existed. The whole world was organized to resist the power of the Gospel; but it failed; the strong combination was utterly broken. Once more the whole world will be organized against the Gospel, not as pagans, but as professedly Christian; and, as never before, the world is armed with deadly weapons and filled with men trained for combat; all are falling into line to make a united effort to crush out the work of the Gospel. While this is being done, the Gospel is to be preached in all the world for a witness to all (Matt. 24:14); and as at the first, it will triumph over the united forces of evil in all the world. The efforts of the world will be such as to eclipse anything it has ever done before; but the triumph of the Gospel will be only the greater; it will be more sudden than anything experienced in the past, and so glorious and decided that all the world will realize that its power is infinitely beyond that of the forces of evil. The field about the Mediterranean is regarded by some a hard field; it was a hard field in the days of the apostles; and the fact that the Gospel so gloriously triumphed then ought to encourage us for the present. Who will say that the field is now harder than it was in Paul's day? And who will set up the claim that the results will be less, if the Gospel is preached in the same power? The Lord has given us all a means of practically testing our faith in the Gospel and its efficiency in this field. The amount of means we supply to send laborers to this field will show how much we desire to have the message preached here. Time is short; the affairs of this world are being wound up; soon the last opportunity will be past; let us improve well the time that remains, making the most of this privilege of having a part in opening the work about the Mediterranean. H. P. H.