HIS MISSIONARY BRANCH

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Jan 17, 1900

HIS MISSIONARY BRANCH.

I HAD occasion to call upon a young business man in his office, not long since, and found him, as usual, "up to his ears" in work.

"Sit down a moment," he said, "and I will be at liberty."

"You are always working," I said. "How many hours do you put in each day?"

"Twenty-four," he replied, with a smile.

I presume my face expressed my astonishment. "Yes," he said, "I work ten or twelve hours here; the rest of the time I am working in the antipodes—by proxy, of course."

"I don't understand," I said.

"Let me explain," he returned more seriously. "When I was at school I became deeply interested in the mission cause. I determined to go out to China and work in the field. But my father died before my plans were fully matured. His business here was in such a state that no outsider—no man without a personal interest—could successfully carry it on. There were a mother, sisters, and younger brothers dependent upon the profits of the house. I was obliged to remain here.

"But I determined, nevertheless, to have a representative in the field, and I took up the support of a native preacher in China." Here my friend took down a much-thumbed map of Southern China and pointed out a certain town. "That is where my man is at work," he said. "He has formed a church and gathered a school. We have representatives of our business in several of the principal cities of the world. I call this our missionary branch.

"My man there is working while I sleep.

He is my substitute. In that way I work twenty-four hours a day—for the Master. I work here for the money to keep my representative working over there."

Now was not that a grand way for that young man to be a missionary? How many of you are beginning to do double duty in this way? If you give to help on a school, to support a scholarship, or to pay a teacher's salary, you too are doing missionary work somewhere else.—Mission Dayspring.