Untitled article by William A. Spicer

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 22, 1914

Review of Our Unentered Countries—No. 1

By William A. Spicer

Independent and Semi-independent Nations

How many countries now remain in which we have no representatives of the definite message of Revelation 14? This is a question often asked by those whose hopes are bound up in the sounding of the last message as a witness to every nation.

It is not easy to answer in a precise way just how many fields are as yet untouched by our work; so much depends upon how the matter is understood. We are in China, for instance; that is one of the entered fields. But of the eighteen provinces, we are in less than half. And while India is fairly listed as "entered," there are great provinces and native states and many tongues still lying in the regions beyond our working boundaries.

One significant change has come about, however, with the continual progress of the advent movement: whereas formerly the shorter task was to list the fields entered, now it is easier to name the unentered lands.

Of distinct and independent countries as yet unentered by our work, there are now really very few. We would list them as follows, with their populations:—

Afghanistan (Asia) ........ 5,900,000 Abyssinia (Africa)......... 8,000,000 Siam (Asia) ........ 8,117,000 Colombia (South America).. 5,475,000 Salvador (Central America).. 1,006,848 Montenegro (Balkan State).. 500,000 _____________________________________ Total population ..........28,998,848

It is not a long list, nor a heavy population; and the lines of our work are being pushed very close to some of these countries.

With a work already started amid great difficulties in Servia, but nevertheless winning a foothold, we shall hear one of these days that our European brethren have crossed into Montenegro. The language is generally the same; the religion that of the Greek Catholic faith, the same as throughout the Balkans.

Elder A. J. Haysmer, of the West Indian Union, has recently reported a plan for the opening of work in Colombia in the near future. Elder B. E. Connerly, of Panama City, volunteers to make the pioneer effort with our Spanish books and papers; and Colombia may be taken off the unentered list by the time this is read. The state religion is Roman Catholic, but by the constitution other forms are permitted so far as considered to be "not contrary to Christian morals nor to the law."

Our Abyssinian mission is at Asmara, capital of the Italian Red Sea colony of Eritrea. Close to the Abyssinian border and working among the Abyssinians, this mission must some day find a way into that long-closed land of Ethiopia.

The Asiatic Division has its eyes upon Siam, the little kingdom south of China, and but for the urgent need of strengthening the forces in China and other parts to care for interests already raised up, workers would have been appointed to Siam this year. Transient colporteur effort has placed some of our books in Bangkok. The people are Buddhists.

The one country in this list of independent nations that seems very far beyond us is Afghanistan, northwest of India. It is the buffer state between Russia, Turkestan, and India, and is peopled by fanatically Mohammedan tribesmen. It supplies a part of the great problem of the evangelization of the Moslem peoples.

Semi-independent countries, still unentered by us, may be listed as follows:—

Tibet (Central Asia) ........ 5,000,000 Nepal (north of India) ...... 5,000,000 Arabia and Yemen ........ 1,150,000 Mongolia (Central Asia) .... 4,000,000 Morocco (North Africa) .... 5,000,000 Liberia ................... 1,500,000 _____________________________________ Total population ........21,650,000

Tibet and Mongolia are part of our Asiatic Division territory, nominally a part of the Chinese field, though recently Mongolia has declared its independence, under supposed Russian protection. Tibet is still "the great closed land" to missionary enterprise. Aside from work by Bible society colporteurs, very little has been done by missions in Mongolia, only one or two stations being reported.

Nepal, a kingdom in the Himalayas, is within the boundaries of the India Mission territory. Its people, Gurkhas, are closely related to the Tibetans, and like that people, they have shut out missions. The seed sowing by Bible translation is going on, however, and there are signs of a breaking down of barriers.

Arabia is solidly Mohammedan, and our nearest approach to it is in Syria and Mesopotamia. The British colony of Aden, on its southwestern coast, under the government of Bombay, India, may yet be an open door. Morocco, in north Africa, likewise a Mohammedan state, came under the French protectorate by the treaty of 1912. Our nearest approach to it is the work at Oran, Algeria, not far from the Morocco border. Far round the African coast, to the southward, is the republic of Liberia, which is not developing, apparently, as vigorously as the colonies under the European powers.

The largest number of well-defined regions on our unentered list is found in the colonial possessions or protectorates of the European powers. The outline of these must be deferred to another article.

One thing is apparent in this list of independent and semi-independent countries, with their fifty millions of people, untouched by our work: they are nearly all lands in which little or nothing has been done by any missionary societies. The Bible societies, the vanguard of the missionary advance, are sowing the seed of the Word more or less through these regions; and while we are getting a foothold in more accessible regions, the providence of God, we may be sure, is preparing the way for the sound of the gospel message to pass through these lands swiftly in the times before us.

W. A. S.