Asiatic Colonies and Protectorates and Other Regions Beyond
By W. A. S.
Review of Our Unentered Countries—No. 3
Asiatic Colonies and Protectorates and Other Regions Beyond
WHILE half the world lives in Asia, and it was the last continent entered by our work, it does not supply so large and populous a list of unentered fields as Africa. This is because China and India are classified as entered. So they are, indeed, and we thank God for the foothold gained; but in our review of entered and unentered fields we must not forget that we are but fairly getting into these two vast empires,—over half the provinces beyond us in China, and many languages as yet unreached in India. Of European protectorates and colonies in Asia, we still have to put down the following as lands where not a Seventh-day Adventist missionary is found:— Baluchistan ............................ 834,000
Sikhim (Himalayas) .................... 87,000
Bhutan (Himalayas) .................... 250,000
Ceylon ................................ 3,592,000
Federated Malay States .............. 1,036,000
Other Malay states .................... 720,000
French Indo-China ..................... 16,300,000
German New Guinea ..................... 531,000
Dutch New Guinea ...................... 200,000
Celebes, Moluccas, and Timor Archipelago (Dutch East Indies) ........................ 2,080,000
Total population ...................... 25,630,000 While Ceylon is here listed as unentered, some work was done in that populous island years ago, and we doubtless have some believers there; and the same can be said of the Federated Malay States; but we know of no permanent work going forward in these fields. Aside from Ceylon, which is an old mission field, there has been little missionary effort by any of the societies among the peoples in this list. In the island world of the South Seas, the following principal groups are, we think, untouched:— Bismarck (German) ..................... 188,000
Solomon (British) ..................... 150,000
Caroline, Ladrone, and Marshall (German) .............................. 70,000
Ellice (British) ...................... 3,000
Gilbert (British) ..................... 26,000 Besides these are numerous other scattered collections of islets in Polynesia and Melanesia, which we must leave unnamed. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands (26,000), in the Indian Ocean; the Bahrein Islands (90,000), in the Persian Gulf; and Cyprus (274,000), in the Mediterranean, all under British administration, should not be omitted, as they scarcely belong geographically with any of our entered territories. The French island of Reunion (in the Indian Ocean) has 173,000 souls. Martinique (182,000), in the West Indies, has never been visited by our workers, as far as we know. That is the island where thirty thousand people lost their lives within the space of a few moments by the eruption of Mt. Pelee. Still it lies beyond our effort, though the West Indian Union is working among these French islands of the Eastern Caribbean. French Guiana (27,000), and Dutch Guiana, or Surinam (86,000), have no workers, as also the Dutch island of Curacao, off the Venezuela coast (54,000). A million and a half souls are numbered among these miscellaneous fields and islands that still are waiting. Last of all, we put down Greenland (13,000) in our list of unentered territory; for with the commission to go into all the world with the definite advent message of Revelation 14, we must recognize the call of every land, "from Greenland's icy mountains" to every shore of the southernmost seas. Altogether, in the countries named in these three articles as regions beyond our farthest bounds, we have a population of 146,666,000 souls. Putting these countries and islands with the untouched provinces in lands where a beginning has been made, the unentered field stretching before us seems indeed vast and the harvest great. Looking only at our own resources and the shortness of time, we might say, How is the task to be quickly accomplished? But looking at God's resources and his almighty power, pledged to work with the human agencies, every heart must be filled with courage. He is able. He will lead the way. His command to enlarge our borders and to redouble our efforts has with it assurance that the task set us is not too great:— 9> "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame." Isa. 54: 2-4. It is God's work, and his eyes are upon all the desolate places of the earth. Every unentered land is a challenge to prayer, and a call to press the missionary cause forward in the name of the Lord.
W. A. S.