What It Means to the Home Land—The Hour Has Struck
By ARTHUR G. DANIELLS
President General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists
THE cause of foreign missions is steadily winning its way to the front. It is gaining the confidence and approval of practical educators, business men, and representative men sent by governments to foreign lands to look after state interests. It is securing a large place in the hearts of Christian men and women in the home churches. It is coming to be regarded as a movement of first importance in the world. In a little volume just off the press, the writer says of this missionary movement:
"There is no question before the world to-day which involves such large forces, such multitudes of people, and with such tremendous issues. There is nothing greater to which a man may relate his life." And he adds that it is "the one purpose around which a man may build all the facts of his life, and to which he may cling and let everything else go when he is hard pressed."
The foreign missions enterprise has now come to be a world movement. In 1910, the Edinburgh Missionary Conference reported that there were 944 missionary organizations carrying on this work. These organizations are supporting 25,000 American and European missionaries in the mission fields of the world. They are also maintaining and directing about 125,000 native workers. This makes an army of 150,000 gospel workers giving their lives to the proclamation of that gospel which Jesus declared would be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations.
務本半夜學校全體師生攝影
And these gospel messengers have truly gone into all the world. In the Western Hemisphere, they are proclaiming the name of Christ and His message of salvation all the way from Greenland, Lapland, and Alaska, in North America, to Cape Horn, the most southern point of South America. There is not a place in these western continents to which these heralds of the cross have not gone. The unfilled gaps between the stations are there because the mission funds provided in the home land are as yet inadequate to support the laborers required to fill them. This condition will not long prevail. The missionary map of Europe, Asia, and Africa shows the
same wide distribution of the missionary forces over these great continents. But few important sections remain unentered, and these are countries whose rulers and people refuse to allow the gospel to be proclaimed within their borders. They are Tibet, Afghanistan, and a few places in the dark Mohammedan sections of northern Africa.
The growth, the power, and the achievements of the cause of foreign missions during the last century are truly marvelous. A century ago, there were only about one hundred missionaries at work in non-Christian lands. These were confined to a very few places. In fact, the most of the heathen world was closed against them. Now all but a very few lands are wide open to Christian missionaries. As one writer has said, "God has been shaping and preparing the nations in the interests of a world-wide gospel."
When Christian missionaries began this work in heathen lands, there were few if any institutions maintained for the betterment and relief of the masses. Education such as there was in a few countries was impractical, and could be obtained by only a few of the most favored. There were no hospitals for the sick, no asylums for the insane, no homes for the blind and the deaf and dumb, and no stations for lepers. During the last century, all these helpful, uplifting institutions have been established in the lands entered by the heralds of the cross. Thousands of educated, skilled, sympathetic men and women are rendering the greatest service, in these institutions, to millions of people in great need. This Christian service is breaking down prejudice, and bringing about marvelous changes in the condition and attitude of the people of these lands.
The results of this century of toil and sacrifice are great beyond estimation. Millions of men and women who had been groping in the darkness and superstition of heathenism have been brought into the light of the gospel. They have accepted Christ as their Saviour. And all those who have accepted Him have been lifted to a higher life. They have had a revelation610of the character and results of sin, and also a revelation of Christ as the Saviour from sin. This revelation has wrought in them a marvelous transformation of life. It has banished superstition, savagery, and cannibalism from different classes of people in various groups of islands, and from large sections of country in all the continents of the world. The most thorough investigation shows that the gospel of Christ lifts all classes of people who receive it, to a new life. It Christianizes them, and that makes them a truly civilized people.
PASTOR AND MRS. J. S. YATES, IN CHARGE OF OUR MISSION AT PADANG
A Mighty Task Given This Generation
It is the conviction of all men who give the conditions now existing in the mission fields of the world careful study, that a mighty providence has been shaping affairs in these lands for a great spiritual reformation. Dr. John R. Mott, who has recently returned from an extended visit to the principal mission fields of the world, says: "God seems to have done a hundred years' work within the last five years. . . . There never has been a time when simultaneously, in so many non-Christian lands, the facts of need and opportunity presented such a remarkable appeal to Christendom as now. . . . From the point of view of the Christian church, the present moment is incomparably the most critical and urgent it has ever known. . . . To delay, by even a half decade, facing the situation and acting upon it comprehensively, would be the most serious mistake which the Christian leaders in this generation could make."
Then he asks this significant question: "Why is it that at the very time the Christian forces have more to do than ever at the home base, they are also confronted with an immeasurably greater opportunity abroad than that which has faced any preceding generation?"
Appointed for Triumph
The answer is plain. This is the generation appointed by the Lord for the triumphs of the gospel throughout the world. This is the generation of which the Saviour spoke when He said, "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Matt. 24:14. This is God's appointed time for the finishing of His work in the earth. And the present world-wide proclamation of the gospel is a sign of the end, a token that the glorious reign of our Lord and Master is soon to be ushered in. But the results of this great evangelizing movement represent only one side of the undertaking. On the other side are the missionaries, and the means required to support the work. The toil and the sacrifice, the separations and the sorrows, involved in this movement for a single year even, are too far-reaching and great either to trace or to express. Every year, death reaps its cruel harvest. Filling the gaps (Continued on page 32)611## World-Wide Movement
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breaks hundreds of family circles, and causes the repetition of hard labor to master the languages and make the necessary adjustments all around. To hold the ground already occupied, and to enter the doors everywhere thrown open to the missionary forces, requires constant and earnest efforts on the part of all believers in foreign missions.
MARATHI BELIEVERS BAPTIZED INTO THE NEW LIFE
On in Full Force
And the work of raising funds can never cease. The years pass quickly, and consume the annual appropriations. There can be no let-up in giving. The movement is on in full force. The missionaries, with their wives and children, are at the front. The schools, the printing houses, and the dispensaries are all operating. This great work cannot stop. To maintain the work now in hand will require the full expenditure of present appropriations. The new demands can only be met by increasing the gifts. That calls for continued giving, and on a larger scale than the church has ever contributed to the cause of foreign missions.
A Summons—A Trumpet Call
But what has been accomplished is a summons, a trumpet call, to the whole Christian church, to make a supreme effort in behalf of all the non-Christian peoples of the world.
"The evangelization of the world in this generation" is now the appropriate and universal watchword of missionary leaders. The time has come for this work to be done; and the providences of God have so shaped the affairs of the world, and so provided the resources of men and of means in the church, as to make this great achievement altogether possible, and it will be performed.
The Hour Has Come
To accomplish this, more workers, larger contributions, and a larger measure of the Holy Spirit's power for efficient service are needed. The church has the money to give, and the workers to send. The Holy Spirit has already been given to the church, and awaits demand and reception.
The remarkable condition we are now facing is the fulfillment of both prophecy and promise made by our Lord to His church. The hour has come when all the world must hear the gospel of a crucified and risen Christ.
To participate in such a work is the greatest privilege that comes to any one on earth. All who are faithful in doing their part will share in the glorious triumph that will follow. The reward is eternal, and is of such incalculable value that no one can afford to come short of it.
OUR society issues 134 periodicals from thirty-eight publishing houses and branches scattered throughout the world. During the year 1914, $2,109,834.60 worth of publications were sold by our earnest colporteurs.
THE matter for this excellent double number of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES is furnished by the secretaries of our Mission Board, and it affords a splendid glimpse of the activities of our world-wide work.
As the result of the efforts in behalf of missions last year with the Harvest Ingathering SIGNS, friends assisted to the amount of $78,333.25. Because of these gifts, many missionaries are to-day at work in destitute heathen lands who otherwise must have remained at home. These gifts are greatly appreciated.
AN African boy illustrates the vanity of riches as follows: "How many saw the fog in the garden yesterday morning? How many saw it after the sun was up a little? Where will our riches be when Jesus comes? — They will all vanish like the fog before the sun."
WHILE soliciting funds among friends for mission advance into all the world, Seventh-day Adventists are endeavoring to do their part in bearing the burden of giving the gospel in all the world. Counting only the members in North America, on an average each member gave last year $10.20 for missions; this in addition to their tithe paid for work in the home field.
SINCE 1912, the Sabbath schools of the society represented by this paper have set apart the thirteenth or last Sabbath in each quarter to offer gifts to some specific object in foreign lands. As a result of these sixteen one-day mission efforts, a total of $261,887.82 has been realized for missions. The largest amount given by the schools in any one year was given last year, $88,380.34. The largest gift on any thirteenth Sabbath was donated for Manchuria and East and West China at Christmas time last year, $24,523.69.
