God's Advance Guard by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 30, 1907

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 44.

God's Advance Guard.

By Editor

ON pages 14 and 15 will be found the portraits and short biographical notes of thirty-two pioneer and noted missionary workers in various fields. Never before was such an array presented in one publication.

Our thanks are especially due to the Revell Company and to Funk and Wagnalls Company for the courtesy granted us in the reproduction of some of these portraits from their publications; from the former's those of Thomas J. Comber, David Livingstone, Pandita Ramabai, Egerton R. Young, Griffith John, Bartholomew Ziegenbalg, Christian F. Schwartz, John Scudder, William Carey, and Mary Reed. Several were taken from that excellent set of books "Miracles of Missions," published by Funk and Wagnalls. Others came from England and elsewhere.

We regret that space was so limited as to prevent more extended biographical notes. We have cut out from our original notations till the heart was sick. We hoped to obtain more definite data for some of these than we have given, but all the libraries and authorities to which we have access have been too meager. Some of these names are little known, like those of Ziegenbalg, Schwartz, and Wilson, but we hope these notes will lead to fuller study of these devoted laborers.

Certain impressions have come to us as we have reviewed the labors of these devoted men and women:

1. Nearly all gave themselves to God in the very freshness of youthful vigor. How God accepted the consecration and blessed His youthful soldiers!

2. Most of them had devoted religious parents, who early instilled into their children the love of the Bible and a belief in its truth. The one land where this is preeminently done is Scotland, with its tremendous rigidity of discipline. But of the thirty-two whose portraits are given, twelve are of Scotch parentage, and eleven were born in Scotland. Tho Scotch blood runs in our own veins, we do not believe that the Scotch are naturally more disposed to be missionaries for Christ than are those of any other nation. The reason lies in the love and reverence for the "Buik of God," the Bible.

We regret greatly that we could not place among our portraits those of Samuel J. Mills, the leading spirit of the "Haystack" prayer-meeting, and Bishop William Taylor, a pioneer in self-supporting missionary work in Africa. Mr. Mills left no portrait or likeness of himself save in character, and we have found none of Bishop Taylor.