Signs of the Times, Vol. 42, Nos. 39, 40, Harvest Ingathering Number
Worldwide Adventist Work in Numbers
Page 2
Signs of the Times
Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California
Worldwide Adventist Work in Numbers
PUBLISHING HOUSES—The publishing houses owned and operated by Seventh-day Adventists number thirty-seven, in which there is an investment of $1,488,388.46. We employ 734 workmen, 2,500 colporteurs, and issue publications in 87 languages. The amount of gospel literature distributed by us last year amounted to $2,100,000.00.
SANITARIUMS—The sanitariums number 104, in which 35,000 guests annually spend an average of five weeks each. These institutions have a recorded investment of $4,254,500.33. They employ 129 physicians and 2,230 nurses and other helpers. Many of these helpers are fitting themselves for medical missionaries in foreign lands.
PRIMARY AND ADVANCED SCHOOLS—We conduct 786 primary and advanced schools, including 206 mission schools, with an enrollment of 27,579. The teaching staff numbers 1,511. The investment is $2,338,328.14.
MISSIONS—This denomination is conducting mission work in 67 non-Christian and non-Protestant countries. There are 494 main stations and substations, 18 hospitals, and 14 mission printing plants, 1,606 laborers, with an annual expenditure of $911,768.85. Communicants now number 20,355, of whom 3,289 were baptized last year.
The Day of Opportunity
By Arthur G. Daniels
The Oriental Mind Stirred and Receptive—Will We Seize the Opportune Moment?
By ARTHUR G. DANIELS
President of the General Conference
THIS is the day of opportunity for the Christian church in its foreign missionary effort. The doors in nearly all non-Christian lands are wide open for the church to enter and do a mighty work.
This statement, which we have heard so many times, means far more than an open way into the lands. It means favorable conditions for the evangelization of the people. More important than all else, it means an open mind and a receptive attitude on the part of the Oriental masses.
This is especially true of the nations of eastern Asia—India, Burma, Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, and China. Marvelous changes and developments have recently taken place among these people. They have experienced a great awakening in every phase of life. The contact with Western ideas has given them a new vision of life. The impact of this new civilization has thrown them out of their beaten tracks of thirty centuries or more, and now they are endeavoring to build on a new foundation. The present, therefore, is a period of reconstruction. These people are changing their forms of government, their systems of education, their economic and industrial policies, their social relations, and their religion. In rebuilding, they are rejecting much of the old for the new.
Awakening and New Vision
An Hour of Opportunity
It is this that makes the present the hour of opportunity for the Christian church. The most important part of this reconstruction work is the religious—the turning away from idolatry, with its debasing superstition, to the elevating, uplifting worship of the living God and the Saviour of men. It is the knowledge and worship of the true God that gave to Western civilization its excellence. These non-Christian people understand this to a greater or less degree; and in adopting Western ideals and standards for a new national life, they understand, in some measure at least, that it means the rejection of their old religions for the new. Ample proof of this claim is found in the changes they have already made and are still making in this respect. They have shown as great readiness to destroy their idols and abandon their temples for the Christian religion, as they have to reject absolutism in government for a democracy, and in turning away from their old, obsolete, lifeless systems of education for the new, practical, up-to-date system of the West.
CLASS IN GIRLS’ SCHOOL,
CANTON, CHINA
This group of bright young faces from our girls’ school in Canton shows the intelligent training the Christian educa-
tion has put upon the countenances of those who so re-
cently were bowing before idols. It is an inspiration to work where such results are possible.
“India’s Desire”
A talented Christian Indian has written a book on “India’s Desire,” in which he says that “India offers to-day great opportunities of gathering into the church thousands who are desirous of entering it. It cannot be too often reiterated that there are literally thousands among the depressed classes who are claiming from the Christian church the opportunity of developing body, mind, and spirit. Apart from Christianity there is no hope for them.” He adds: “It is only at the peril of irretrievable damage to the cause of Christ that the church can refrain from undertaking the teaching of these multitudes. . . . The redemption of India, the satisfaction of her desires, and the enlistment of her spiritual capacities on behalf of the kingdom of God, are the duty and privilege of the church of Christ.”
Every word of this statement may truly be said, and is said, of all these other non-Christian peoples. The vision of the prophet Isaiah is being fulfilled: “The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell2in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.”
Truly this is the hour of opportunity for the Christian church to do great things for Christ and for the millions of lost souls for whom He died. Will the church embrace the opportunity with all the devotion, earnestness, and resources within her reach? Will you, dear reader, do this? O, what tremendous issues hang upon the course that will now be taken! May the divine Spirit give clear vision of duty, and lead to the consecration of all the resources at the command of the church.
Organized and Growing in Asia
By Ross C. Porter
Circulation of Literature—Comfortable Homes Provided the Workers—Great Openings and Urgent Calls
By ROSS C. PORTER
President Asiatic Division Conference
The reports from all parts of the Asiatic Division are very encouraging. Six new provinces have been entered during the past year, and the increase in membership is excellent.
Our literature sales in all divisions have been unusually good. The average circulation of the Chinese paper has been between 56,000 and 70,000. The publication sales, although in their infancy, have been steadily increasing. Three supervising colporteurs, contributed by Australia, have taken up the study of the languages in the fields where they are located.
Comfortable Homes
Delegates Attending Our Calcutta, India, Conference, December, 1914
The native work has become better organized, and schools for the training of evangelists are developing a good class of workers for the field. When we think of two families going to Manchuria to open work with eleven millions of people, and two families just entering Szechuan province to open work in the great West China field, with eighty-eight millions, we realize the need of more trained workers to meet the calls from these great sections.
The Mission Board has allowed our entire budget for 1915, except a small amount for buildings. We consider their appropriation very liberal during these times of financial stress; and all our workers will plan to use the means placed in their hands as a sacred trust, which is to be invested in the best possible way to bring a harvest of souls in return.
The liberal manner in which our people have contributed to the support of the work during the crisis caused by the European war, is very encouraging to the missionaries depending on them for support, and many times have we felt to thank God for such loyal friends and brethren and sisters in the home land.
We are thankful for the good number of young people who have been sent out to us as missionaries, who have entered our division as workers recently. With the exception of three couples arriving near the close of the year, all have acquired the language sufficiently to take responsibilities in field work. But the need is still great. In view of the signs that indicate the approaching end, hundreds are calling for light.
All things declare that the coming of Christ is at hand. Time is short, and the outlook for the speedy finishing of the gospel grows more and more promising.
Appreciation from the Treasury
By W. T. Knox
IN presenting to the friends of foreign missions another special number of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, devoted to our world-wide work, the Foreign Mission Board desire to express their gratitude for, and great appreciation of, what was done by our friends in our last Harvest Ingathering campaign. In that effort, we printed and circulated 670,000 copies of our denominational paper. The friends of missions receiving our campaign papers, contributed to our treasury $57,598.73. This is the largest amount ever received by the Mission Board from this source, and was a great help to us in meeting the extra demands arising from the European war. It affords us great satisfaction to be able to report that, although some foreign mission societies have been obliged to curtail their work greatly on account of the European war, thus far we have not been obliged to make any retrenchments, and some expansion of the work has been undertaken.
The appropriations of the General Conference for the field for 1915 amounted to over $500,000. The correspondence received from the far East gives every evidence that great expansion of our work must be planned for 1916. The Foreign Mission Board, therefore, is exceedingly anxious to see most liberal financial returns as the result of the circulation of this special missionary number of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. Anticipating the continued interest and co-operation of the many friends of foreign missions, we take this occasion to express our appreciation for their cooperation in this campaign.
W. T. Knox, Treasurer.
In Europe While at War
By L. R. Conradi
Advancement in Spite of Fighting
By L. R. CONRADI
President European Division Conference
WHEN the war broke out, I was attending a general meeting in London. At once I left for Hamburg, which required some two days and more to reach. This sudden outbreak of hostilities caused us no little anxiety; for our European Division Conference takes in all the countries on the continent that are involved in the conflict, stretching from England to eastern Siberia on the north, and from France to Turkey in Asia on the south, while in Egypt, Algeria, German and British East Africa, and West Africa, our missions are located.611
As soon as possible, our secretary was sent to The Hague, Holland, that he might get into correspondence with our African missions, and little by little pick up the broken threads. He has been partially successful, in that he has heard from some of the missionaries.
While in Basel, Switzerland, recently, I called upon one of the directors of the Basel Mission Society, one of the oldest and largest on the continent. He gave me a sad picture of how their missionaries have suffered through this war. He said that of the four hundred missionaries, more than half are interned in camps, having been removed from their mission stations. In many instances, this left these stations without shepherds in the way of white teachers to oversee the work. No doubt the same experience has come to many of our missionaries. We have learned that one of our faithful missionaries in East Africa was shot November last.
In spite of the troubled condition in our field, advancement has been made, and substantial gains in membership reported. We are of good courage in God.
Uplifting Forces Among the Heathen
By Irwin H. Evans
A Hundred Years of Miraculous Development—Barbaric Cruelties and Superstitions Yield to the Light
By IRWIN H. EVANS
President North American Division Conference
THE past century has been one of great activity in commerce, in the wide diffusion of knowledge, in inventions, and in the heaping together of great riches. However, there has been a line of activity which has far outstripped any of these in importance, and that is the world-wide missionary movement carried on by the churches of Europe and America.
Open Doors in the Dark Lands
Only a century ago, nearly all heathen lands were closed to the preaching of the gospel. To-day every important nation can have the word of God in its own vernacular, and not a few in heathen lands are receiving instruction from Christian teachers. Almost every door in Asia and Africa has been thrown back to the missionary; and the Macedonian cry, “Come over and help us,” is heard on every hand.
The influence of Christianity has wrought mightily in behalf of many. It has transformed the characters of those who have embraced it, and for multitudes it has greatly ameliorated the galling conditions which previously existed. Among the believers, the family life is changed. Woman is restored to the place given her by God, schools are established, hospitals are erected and manned with Christian doctors and nurses, and the value of life is more fully appreciated. In fact, without seeing, one cannot realize what a mighty transformation is wrought in the lives of many by the word of God and the Holy Spirit.
Translations for Our Island Papers in the Maori, Fijian, Samoan, Rarotongan, Tahitian, and Tongan Languages
Reformation Permanent
These redeemed heathen seldom return to their previous condition, although they may lose their Christian experience. Having once tasted of the waters of salvation, and broken with their gods, comparatively few relapse into heathen idolatry.
Concerning the work of the missionary in these heathen lands, James B. Angell, president of the university of Michigan, and formerly United States minister to China and Turkey, says: “I want to say, once for all, that after perhaps somewhat exceptional opportunities for observing the mission, . . . I come fully prepared to say, as my own conviction, that the work of foreign missions is now planted upon so solid a foundation, and gives so much promise in that hardest of all fields that we till, China, that there is nothing left for us but to push on to the glorious end which every believer in this word of God must feel assured awaits us at the last.”
Sir W. Muir says: “Thousands have been brought over, and in an ever increasing ratio converts are being brought over, to Christianity. And they are not shams, not paper converts, as some would have us believe, but good and honest Christians, and many of them of a high standard.”
Rear Admiral George E. Belknap, United States navy, in speaking of the influence of Christianity, says: “I assert it to be a fact beyond contradiction that there is not a ruler, official, merchant, or any other person, from emperors, viceroys, judges, governors, counselors, generals, ministers, admirals, merchants, and others down to the lowest coolies in China and Japan, Siam and Korea, who, in their associations or dealings with their fellow men in that quarter of the globe, are not indebted every day of their lives to the work and achievements of the American missions.”
Ministers at Calcutta S. D. A. Conference, December, 1914
Mr. Charles Darwin, the naturalist, said: “The lesson of the missionary is the enchanter’s wand. The house has been built, the windows framed, the fields plowed, and even the trees grafted, by the New Zealander. When I looked at the whole scene, I thought it admirable. . . . I took leave of the missionaries with feelings of high respect for their useful, upright characters. I think it would be difficult to find a body of men better adapted for the high office which they fill. . . . The march of improvement consequent on the introduction of Christianity throughout the South Sea, probably stands by itself in the records of history. It appears to me that the morality and religion of the inhabitants are highly creditable.”
Speaking of the advancement of civilization in foreign lands, Alexander McArthur, M.P., says: “I believe the advancement of civilization, the extension of commerce, the increase of knowledge in art, science, and literature, the promotion of civil and religious liberty, the development of countries rich in undiscovered mineral and vegetable wealth, are all intimately identified with, and to a much larger extent than most people are aware of, dependent upon, the work of the missionary.”
Many Other Workers Needed
It is impossible for us to comprehend what God has wrought in behalf of poor downtrodden heathen through the ministry of His word and the missionaries who have gone to work for their Master in these needy lands, during the last century.
Yet the work is not finished. There must be many teachers sent to supplement the work already opened, and new fields must be entered. God’s people must enlarge the work they have commenced. The harvest is white for the reapers.
Every advancement calls for more funds with which to do the work. The heathen nations are waiting for the gospel. God has brought the church of to-day face to face with the duty of giving His word and the message of love to the unreached millions of heathenism.
IN CHINA'S REPUBLIC
By F. E. Stafford
Tracts for Admission Tickets
BY F. E. STAFFORD
FOR gospel meetings here in the Orient, we find that a native bamboo and mat building is more serviceable and easier to operate than a tent. A framework of bamboo poles, tied together with bamboo strings, is first put up. The roof and the sides are made of reed mats. On the roof the mats are doubled, with oilpaper between, and lapped like shingles, making the building waterproof. Large windows on three sides insure good ventilation. Not a nail is used in its construction. We have used two such mat tents forty feet square, and they afford ample accommodations for five hundred persons.
Mission Workers in China Visiting Outstations by House Boat
Since the beginning of the European war, we have presented the fulfillment of the prophetic signs showing that the Saviour's coming is near, and great interest is manifested. In Shanghai, prophetic Bible subjects were presented with the aid of the stereopticon; and a new tract, “The European Crisis,” was sold as a ticket of admission to the lectures. When the Saviour comes, we trust many sheaves may be ready for the garner from Kiangsu province, China.
Deserting Their Heathen Temples
By O. J. Grundset
BY O. J. GRUNDSET
IT is astounding to see how the Chinese are deserting their heathen temples and abandoning their old practices of idol worship. We were very much surprised, when we came to Mukden, Manchuria, to find the American consul living in a Chinese temple, as well as the German consul. In talking with the secretary of the American consul with reference to securing a dwelling, we became still more astonished to hear him mention that there was still another temple obtainable, that could probably be remodeled for us if we so desired; but the expense at that time seemed too great, so we did not consider it.
Foreign and Native Workers in the Canton Division of South China
From this it is very apparent that the time surely has come when the everlasting gospel is to be preached to this people.
Many of them are forsaking their idol worship, and seem to be seeking after the living God. May the Lord help us to find the honest hearts.
Heart-Touching Request
By R. F. Cottrell
BY R. F. COTTRELL
Of the many openings for the preaching of the gospel which have come to us during recent months, one of special interest is from a town in the Lei Yang district, of southern Hunan, where a colporteur sold some tracts and papers. The gospel story deeply interested a purchaser, who in turn began telling the wonderful message to his friends and acquaintances.
When informed that a six weeks’ Bible institute was to be conducted in Hankau, five of their number arranged to attend, providing their own transportation and board. When we consider that the distance from their home to Hankau is about 2,000 li (700 miles), and the time required to make the trip each way is approximately two weeks, we appreciate that this is no small undertaking.
This new company request that we send them an evangelist, promising to provide $1,000 for the purchase of land and the erection of a house of worship. May our heavenly Father richly bless these people in their efforts to find the light of life; and may the church respond faithfully to the many similar Macedonian calls now sounding.
Hankau.
Stealing Her Idols
By J. P. Anderson
BY J. P. ANDERSON
Not long ago, a woman who has been attending services here in Swatow asked us to go to her home and “steal” her idols, as she did not dare to dispose of them herself.
Accompanied by several brethren, we went. After offering prayer for her and the other members of her family, we began to remove the idols, some of which had been worshiped for several generations. Some occupied prominent places in her living room, others “lived” in small niches in the kitchen wall, while others upstairs were only sheets of paper with characters or pictures on them. The paper idols were pasted on the walls. The incense urns were suspended from the ceiling in front of the idols.
The removal also included what is very dear to the heathen—the ancestral tablets. These are small slabs of wood, each with the name of a deceased ancestor written upon it. At certain times of the year these are worshiped. This woman showed us about the house where all the gods were kept. In all we gathered up about two bushel baskets full. This woman attends all the services, and gives every promise of becoming an earnest follower of the true God.
Swatow.
Converted Chinese Pray for Rain
By Myrtie B. Cottrell
BY MYRTIE B. COTTRELL
DURING the early summer months, there had been no rain in central Hupe. Ten thousand rice fields were growing yellow and sickly for lack of the necessary water, while famine, with all its untold miseries, seemed as a specter to loom up before the eyes of the villagers. Most naturally the minds of the people turned for relief to the heathen customs of their ancestors. A favorite proceeding in time of drought is the marching of a dog through the streets in front of the village idol, the idea being in accordance with a Chinese proverb which says, “A laughing dog brings response from heaven.” This method, and many others, they employed for weeks; but still the sky remained cloudless, and no rain came.
Selling Tracts as Admission Tickets to Gospel Meeting
Then one day our evangelist, an elderly man of deep piety and faith, decided that God could be glorified before the heathen. He therefore called a meeting at our chapel, to which he invited all the townspeople who wished to come and join the Christians in praying to the God who lives. The evangelist read Elijah’s experience in praying for rain, after which the believers joined in earnest petitions that God would hear and answer if it were to the glory of His name.
The meeting closed, and the people returned to their homes, watching the sky closely for any signs of rain. Towards night, a small cloud was seen arising, which so strengthened their faith that some closed their windows and doors before613retiring to rest. Nor were they disappointed, for during the night the much needed rain came in torrents, and the life-sustaining rice crop was saved. Many idolaters were convinced of the power of our God, and several straightway decided to cast in their lot with the church. Thus again we are reminded that the God who lived in Elijah’s time is the same to-day, and the faith of those who have forsaken their idols moves His almighty hand.
