p. 7 | Africa Is Calling by R. C. Porter

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 31, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, Nos. 43, 44.

Africa Is Calling

By R. C. Porter

ONE hundred sixty-eight millions of souls in Africa sit in heathen darkness.

Their great need should be a mighty appeal to every devoted child of God to aid in sending to them the message of salvation.

It is marvelous, the way in which the providence of God is opening ways by which the Gospel may find access to heathen hearts.

A missionary in Kaffirland found that after all his sacrifice of home associations, native land, and the association of white people to bring a knowledge of salvation to those in the darkness of heathenism, they did not appreciate his coming. They would neither hear his message, nor permit their children to attend his mission school. He was greatly disappointed, but not discouraged. He remembered that when the Master came even to His own, His own received Him not. He prayed, visited, and labored from hut to hut for months with little results. At last a drought came. Their cattle began to suffer for want of food, and the natives themselves were facing starvation. One day two tribes, led by their chiefs, came to ask the white missionary to pray for rain. He recognized God's hand in this overruling providence. He sought wisdom of God to know how to use it to the best account to find entrance to the hearts of these heathen tribes with the Gospel. He first read the Bible to them, dwelling especially upon the mission of Christ and the importance of faith in Him on their part if his prayer should be answered. He read to them the story of Elijah's prayer and the cloud as large as a man's hand which brought an abundance of rain.

While he was pleading with them to believe in God when he prayed, they could see a cloud arising from behind where he was standing. The missionary did not see it, but he prayed in faith, and before his prayer was finished God sent an abundant shower to refresh that parched land. From that time those tribes regularly gathered from week to week to hear the Word of God. Their children were sent to the mission school, and the work prospered.

R. C. PORTER.