Why Did You Not Come Sooner?
At a meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the bishop of Selkirk, whose diocese is in Alaska and the Far Northwest, spoke as follows: "I shall never forget an old Eskimo coming to me the very first time I visited Kittygagzyooit on the Arctic Coast. He asked me why it was that I had not come sooner, as I had been living in the same country. He said, 'Did you know this good news then?' I said, 'Yes, I have known it from boyhood.' 'And your fathers before you?' 'Yes, they knew it.' 'Then why was it that you did not come sooner? I thought that it was, perhaps, only a few winters since you knew; and you knew all this time! Why was this good news not brought to us sooner?' What could I do but bow my head in shame, and pray that God might use us, as a Christian people, more and more to extend the work of the Bible Society!" Dr. Josiah Strong asks: "What are the churches for but to make missionaries? What is education for but to train them? What is commerce for but to carry them? What is money for but to send them? What is life itself for but to fulfil the purpose of foreign missions, enthroning Jesus Christ in the hearts of men?"