Under the Yoke of Service
By M. E. K.
"With good will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men." Eph. 6:7.
SOME time ago the General Department sent to all conference secretaries this question, "Is the young people's work in your conference helping to train workers?" The following paragraphs are drawn from the replies received:— The young people's work has been organized in this field comparatively a short time. Still I can see that it has done much good in our conference. It has been a help to me. It was in the young people's meetings and the Sabbath-school that I gained my first experience. If it were not for that experience, I doubt whether I should be in this work to-day. I can see that it is helping other young people, too. Different ones who were backward and timid before taking an active part in the meetings of the society are now taking hold of the work and bearing various responsibilities.—Lydia Stickle. As I have not been connected with a local conference for four years, I can not say much on this point. I may say, however, that the only society with which I have been connected locally during this period has had five of its members sent to foreign fields, and a great many others have entered the organized work in the home field.—Meade MacGuire. Yes, there are now several actively engaged in the work who were once members of the Missionary Volunteer movement in our conference. Not only is this true, but many of the present members have expressed to me their desire to fit themselves for usefulness in the cause of God.—Mrs. Mae Warfle. I have in mind a very timid young man to whom the Missionary Volunteer Society was a great blessing. He is now an efficient Sabbath-school superintendent, after less than two years' training in society work. Personally, the work has been a blessing to me, as all the training I ever received was in connection with the Missionary Volunteer Society and Sabbath-school work. The same society which developed the Sabbath-school superintendent also trained a timid German sister who did not believe in reporting her work. But the encouraging experiences related by others caused her, very timidly and cautiously, to tell some of her good experiences. This continued, and now she is a good worker. She sells the Watchman, and takes a deep interest in every meeting. The society to which I refer reclaimed a young man who had been backslidden for six years. He is now preaching the message every night, and has twelve or fourteen persons ready for baptism.—Mrs. Daisy Terry. Has the young people's work helped to develop workers in our conference?—Yes. Several of our church-school teachers and canvassers, our conference secretary-treasurer, and our conference stenographer were greatly helped in their development as workers in the Missionary Volunteer Societies of which they were members.—Mrs. R. W. McMahan. The Louisiana Conference is one of the small conferences so far as membership is concerned, so of course our young people are few in numbers. You ask, "Has the young people's work helped to develop workers in your conference?" I answer, Yes. I can now count several who are or have been in the work. Two are ministers, one is a Bible worker, one is a teacher in our schools, several are nurses, one gave her life to the West Coast of Africa, and several are now in schools preparing for the Master's service.—Mrs. C. A. Saxby. That the young people's work has helped to develop workers is evident to my mind, since from one society two have been missionaries in the foreign fields, and two are trained nurses, with their hearts in the work. From another society has gone a foreign missionary, from still another a minister's wife, working faithfully by her husband's side. The interest taken for three years in a young woman, resulted in bringing to us our most efficient office stenographer. She gave her heart to God, and is working faithfully to save others. Many who have been converted in our meetings are now in our schools fitting for definite fields of work.—Jennie R. Bates. Yes, the young people's work has done much for the development of workers in our conference. Three ministers, two Bible workers, the canvassing agent, the missionary secretary, and the educational secretary are all young people who, if asked where they received their first impetus and training for this work, would attribute them to the influence of the young people's work.—Esther Francis. It has developed workers in the churches. The work is too young in the conference to see conference workers developed yet. Several young people are in school, training, as a result of church-school and Missionary Volunteer work.—Mrs. Bessie J. Rice. Northern California-Nevada
From one society of our conference we see three of the faithful members now successful church-school teachers, and one a self-supporting missionary in the Southern field.—Lida Ackley. Our Missionary Volunteer work is at its beginning, so I can not say much about development of workers as yet; but it has helped wonderfully to make the aim of our young people higher, and has created a desire for education and missionary work.—J. J. Reiswig. As I review the work of the conference I have just left to come to Northern Illinois, I feel certain that the Missionary Volunteer work helped to inspire some young people to become canvassers, and still others to go to school and thus be fitted for a place in the cause. I know the work has held many of our boys and girls in the truth; and when the holding power continues, they soon have a desire to become active workers.—Edith Shepard. The most successful, and, indeed, all the younger workers in our conference are those who have taken an active interest in the young people's work. Our best church-school teachers, at least two of our Bible workers, twelve successful canvassers, five magazine agents, four young ministers and their wives, nine persons who are now in foreign fields, and five who will soon go, are among those who have developed in the societies of this conference since I can remember. Truly the young people's work has helped to develop workers.—Annie Laurie McCutchen. In a church of fifteen members raised up by the writer five years ago, a young people's society was organized, and an effort made to give every one something to do. It was a small society, but one member has already developed into a State canvassing agent; four of the young people were in Mount Vernon College last year, three of these having made expenses through the sale of our books. As the older brothers and sisters go into the whitened harvest-fields, the younger children step into their places in the church. This is a fair sample of what the young people's work is doing for us.—W. C. Moffett. One young man, who is now a minister, told from the pulpit that had it not been for his experience in speaking in young people's meetings, he would not have been able to give the message to strangers. His work in young people's meetings was the thing that encouraged him to enter the ministry, and he is proving himself very efficient in bringing people into the truth.—Margaret Shanks. As a result of the young people's work in Southern California, quite a large number of workers have been developed, and are now actively engaged in missionary work. I will copy a portion of a letter from one of our secretaries. She says: "Brother and Sister Hill, who have gone to China, were members of the Carr Street society [Los Angeles]. Through the direct influence of the young people's society while members, they felt a burden to give their lives to18the work of the Lord. Floyd Ashbaugh, who has recently gone to the Philippines, made his start in this society. He attended the Fernando Academy, and is now in the front. Other members of our society have gone to Africa, South America, British Columbia, Mexico, and the West Indies. I wish more had gone."—Mrs. F. W. Paap. While I can not say that the workers in this field are laboring as a direct result of the young people's work, yet I know that many members who are holding responsible positions in the local churches began their work by taking some small part in the young people's meeting.—Edith McClellan. The young people's work in this State began with the organization of several little Sunshine Bands. I know of several now directly connected with the work, who made their first attempts at speaking in public, and gave their first donations to missions in connection with the programs carried out by these bands. I remember in one society, of which I was a member, three young men who took a special interest in pushing periodical work; that is, in sending papers and accompanying them by personal letters. Two of these young men are now missionaries in other lands, and the other is preaching the gospel in his own State.—Mae LaFave. I know of several young people who gained their first experiences in public work in the meetings of a society having no more than twenty members, young and old together. Three are to-day canvassing, one is teaching school, one is a stenographer in one of our offices, one was induced to go to college to make preparation for other work in the cause, and one is planning to go to a foreign field in the near future. I have watched the society for nearly four years, and only one young person has gone to the enemy. This convinces me that it is a grand place for our young people to develop.—Mrs. Emma Wilkinson. Certainly the Missionary Volunteer work develops workers. It is one of the Lord's special means of developing workers. It is hard to divide the influence of the Sabbath-school, the school work, and the young people's society. But I have in mind at present a young man who was leader of one of our large societies for six months. He has never attended one of our schools, yet he is developing into a most excellent worker, and is getting his training through the Missionary Volunteer Society. He now has plans to enter the work.—Mrs. Flora H. Williams. It is something of a surprise, even to those most closely connected with our Young People's Missionary Volunteer Department, that such results should be recorded thus early in the history of our organization. There have been, of course, various influences at work to produce these good results, but it is apparent that our Missionary Volunteer organization has laid hold on our boys and girls in a new way, inspired them to more careful study of the Bible and to the reading of good books, given them an outlet for their youthful energies in right channels in a critical time in their lives, and provided definite training in Christian work. The Missionary Volunteer Society is a training-school for young Christians, in which they develop under the responsibilities placed upon them. "With such an army of workers as our youth, rightly trained, might furnish, how soon the message of a crucified, risen, and soon-coming Saviour might be carried to the whole world!"—"Education," page 271. May God hasten the day when this shall have been accomplished. M. E. K.