Editorial by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · May 7, 1914

Editorial

By Editor

One of the Hard Times in Missionary Pioneering

THIS is a word concerning one side of the pioneering on the missionary frontiers which our missionaries do not emphasize in their reports. The missionaries love to tell of the victories gained and of the progress of the work, of the breaking down of barriers and of the winning of souls. Now and then, however, at the far frontiers, where facilities and comforts are few, the workers have to fight a very personal battle. We catch just a glimpse of this in the letters from the fields to the Mission Board office. We venture to take a few statements from a recent letter from Elder W. B. White, president of the South African Union Conference, who has charge of the work of the mission stations in the South African interior. These stations are fortunate in having in the South African colonies a home base to which workers requiring special attention healthwise can resort for recuperation and medical care. Writing in a personal letter of the rather trying times some of the mission station workers have been having, Elder White says:—

I am glad to say that Brother R. P. Robinson is making a fine recovery from his operation for appendicitis. I visited him Sabbath at the sanitarium. In two weeks we shall pass him on to the Spion Kop Mission, where he will spend some time with Brother F. B. Armitage while convalescing, Sister Robinson in the meantime helping Sister Armitage in the mission work. Later it is planned to send them on to the Solusi Mission [our first Matabele station] for a time, and then on to join Brother W. H. Anderson in the work in Barotseland.

I think I wrote you that Sister Anderson has had a very serious time with the fever. I have received a letter from Brother Walston, of Solusi, who has been up to Brother Anderson's mission, stating that Sister Anderson was past the crisis, and it was hoped would soon be very much better. For this we all rejoice.

Brother F. B. Jewell (who was disabled soon after having reached Tsungwesi, by an accident that induced sciatic rheumatism) was brought down to our sanitarium after having failed to recover by measures possible in the mission field. He is now able to walk quite naturally, and in two months we believe he can return to Tsungwesi. We had to rush Brother Hubert Sparrow and Brother J. R. Campbell to the assistance of Brother Sturdevant, who was left alone at Tsungwesi. He has had to work very hard, and was himself about disabled. But we have sent two good men to help.

Elder Anderson has had to work very hard in Barotseland. We ought to send him help also, and must as soon as the rainy season is over. The great drought now seems to be quite broken, and rain has fallen in different parts of the country, but too late in many cases to save the crop. However, it may provide grass for the cattle. One of our Dutch brethren wrote me that unless rain came within the next month, he would be ruined, for his cattle would all die.

This is more of personal news than we usually put out through the papers, but this glimpse of the battle that is going on in the South African fields will, we know, appeal to the hearts of our brethren and sisters in the churches in a very personal way. We must never forget that along with the gifts for missions, for which the fields thank the brethren in the churches, there is constant call for prayer in behalf of the workers. The work is pushing on into regions that are not healthful, and yet there the people are, millions of them, waiting unwarned, with no knowledge of the Saviour, and our brethren and sisters are pushing the mission stations on and ever on into regions beyond, in order to save the lost and the perishing. It is a real battle, and the farther we push on with it, the greater need of earnest haste in the doing of the work.

W. A. S.