Seeking to Save by E. A. Sutherland

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · May 19, 1914

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 19.

Seeking to Save

By E. A. Sutherland

An interesting little mission center may be found away out in the hill country of Tennessee. Away from the regular lines of travel, and away from what we are in the habit of calling centers of civilization, there is a group of families whose one object seems to be to manifest the Christ life before others. In a clearing in the woods there stands a little schoolhouse into which are gathered, day after day, the children of the community. They come from miles around. Some walk; others ride horseback, two, three, and even four children on one animal.

The teacher in that school is a woman who has held positions in several well-known educational institutions. One might think that that isolated life in the woods would be considered a burden. But the following words from her pen show the contentment and even joy that come to one who feels that God's call is answered in this manner of life. She says:

"My heart is very full of joy and thankfulness. I do not know where we would have been had we had our own choosing, but we are still here in the place of my heart's choice. Our little school is surely a very precious thing to me. There is something sacred about it. Is it not a vine of His own planting? Does He not watch over it day and night?"

Such work results in heart development. In this little mission center there are combined the school, the home, and the farm. There is the father, a minister of the gospel, who is meeting his family's daily needs from that mountain farm, and at the same time preaching heart-searching sermons to his mountain neighbors. There is the mother of the family looking after the home interests, and at the same time mothering those children that come from the community. There are sons and daughters being brought up under that influence where the spirit of self-denial prevails, where the growing girls are the ones who are called upon in case of sickness. They sit by the bedside, they minister to the suffering, and they are the ones who comfort the sorrowing in case of death.

This same little school is a training station for other young people who are there preparing themselves to start centers of their own. Such soul yearning for others one seldom finds. Such heart searching

for soul purity is rare in this world of ours. "If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; and whosoever will lose his life for My sake shall find it." Matt. 16: 24, 25.

E. A. SUTHERLAND.