p. 13 | OUR WORK AND WORKERS by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Apr 16, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 16.

OUR WORK AND WORKERS.

By Editor

THE brethren in Bendigo, Victoria, have purchased a lot, and are preparing to build a house of worship.

FROM the recent canvassers' institute held in College View, Neb., twenty-two canvassers go out to different sections of that State.

IN Mount Gambier, South Australia, the laborers report that ten adults have joined our ranks, and a Sabbath-school of fifteen members has been organized.

OUR brethren in Australia are pleased with the new Federal Postal Bill, as it provides a rate on periodicals of 1d. (2 cents) a pound. The most inexpensive missionary work possible is by means of our periodicals.

THE Reporter says that the Nebraska Conference has been called upon to part with two faithful laborers. Brother E. R. Potter goes to Manitoba to act as State canvassing agent, and Brother W. O. James goes to England to enter the canvassing work.

CONVERTS in the "heathen lands" are always noted for their self-denial for the truth's sake. At our Matabele Mission (Rhodesia, South Africa), some of the children who do not have money for missionary donations, go without breakfast Sabbath mornings, and donate the proceeds.

AN orphan's home has been organized at Hildebran, N. C., and property has been secured for the purpose. Brother D. T. Shireman is president, and William Johnston secretary. Sister Mary Ann Johnston, who has been caring for orphans for the past thirty years, will be matron of the home.

THE wife of Dr. J. E. Caldwell, who has been eight years in the South Sea Island mission work, died at Christchurch, N. Z., March 1. She had been in poor health for over a year, and her decease is described as "falling asleep without a struggle or even a sound of mucus in her throat, as peacefully as if she were to wake up the next morning."

THE Fijian journal, Rarama, presents a very creditable appearance; and when we consider the difficulties under which the publisher, Brother J. E. Fulton, is laboring, it is a remarkable paper. Rarama is an eight-page monthly, and is printed on a hand-press that will take only one page at a time. There is a pressing need for a larger press.

A SPECIAL line of instruction will be offered at Emmanuel Missionary College, beginning April 15. This work is for canvassers, Bible-workers, and ministers, and is especially adapted to those who desire brief instruction preparatory to field work during the summer. Tuition free. Six weeks' work in Bible, language, and practical hygiene. Courses arranged for special classes of laborers.

IN the death of Brother O. S. Ferren the mountain region of Wyoming has lost a faithful laborer. He had been called to Albion, Neb., to look after a special interest that had been awakened in that vicinity. We have not learned the cause of his death. He was taken to his home in Big Horn, Wyo., for burial. He leaves a wife and four children. Brother Ferren did much good work in circulating our periodicals in connection with his ministerial labors.

A MEETING of the executive committee of the Southern Union Conference is now in session at Nashville, Tenn., which is to "take time to pray, closely study, carefully consider, then plan judiciously for laying a stable foundation in this great conference of nine sovereign States that will remain firm and unimpaired amid all the storms of the future." Such is the design, as announced by the president, Brother George I. Butler, who further says: "We will stay together till all matters of perplexity and anxiety that it is possible for us to solve are settled on a proper basis."

IN the Union Conference Record (Sydney, N. S. W.), of March 1, Brother E. H. Gates writes of an extended tour to the East Indies. Of a stop on the island of New Guinea he writes:—

December 16 we reached German New Guinea at a point on the northeast coast, and spent four days in visiting different trading stations and missions. At Finschhaven, our first stopping-place, is a German Protestant mission; but as we stayed here only a few hours, and as the mission was far up in the mountain, I did not have time to visit it. The object in locating the mission in the mountain is to escape the fevers. The only white people here are the two mission families and a company of men exploring for gold.

Here in New Guinea I saw paganism in all its glory; but I was compelled to acknowledge to myself that some of the worst heathen I saw were men with fairer skins than those poor, ignorant, naked savages. These latter are comparatively innocent. True, they have black skins, go about naked or nearly so, kill one another in battle, and preserve the skulls of their enemies as trophies in their temples, worship disgusting-looking gods, and to some extent practise cannibalism; but they have never had the opportunity to learn anything better. The uplifting, purifying influence of the Gospel has never reached their hearts.

Really, I saw less to condemn in them than to approve. A man who had lived among them for thirteen years told me that back in the jungle, where the white man is seldom seen, the natives are kind to strangers, hospitable, and temperate; but that soon after coming under the influence of the whites, they become tricky and dishonest. This is not, however, to argue that it was better to leave them in their degradation and idolatry. They are "alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart," and need the same work of grace done for them that is needed by white, civilized heathen in Australia, America, and England, nothing more, nothing less. The Gospel of the Third Angel's Message, carried by unselfish hands, is the only hope for this race. The vitiated gospel that is being dispensed to some of them has lost its power to uplift from the pit of sin.