Review and Herald Publishing Association · Washington, D.C. · Dec 10, 1903
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The Abiding Spirit
BY MRS. S. M. I. HENRY
An exceedingly helpful work, treating upon the presence, power, and ministry of the Holy Spirit, as manifested in the most common, material things, and as needed for the performance of the most simple duties.
It sets forth the constant presence of the one only Spirit as the condition of existence, and a healthy and successful life as dependent upon the intelligent recognition of this presence, and on the proper adjustment of everything, physical and mental, to this power.
The larger proportion of common religious perplexities are carefully outlined, and the simple way revealed for them, in the place of their darkness.
The purpose of the book is to show the power of the Holy Spirit, and its relation to the human soul. The spirit of the work is excellent, and it should be in every home. It is beautifully bound in cloth; gold stamped, with gilt edges, 75 cents; in plain cloth, 40 cents.
Easy Steps in the Bible Story
This is the only book we have for children that gives the story of the Bible in the order of inspiration. The stories of the Bible from creation to Sinai are given in the same order of the Bible, but told in a simple, interesting way, which impresses the children. As the child grows up and reads the same scriptures in the Bible, the order is not disturbed, and the facts are not confused. The Biblical association of facts and subjects is of more importance than many appreciate. This is one of the features of Bell’s Series of Sabbath-school Lessons that have rendered it so successful for the past twenty years. “Easy Steps in the Bible Story” is a book on the right line, and one that lays a good foundation for a thorough, connected knowledge of the Scriptures. It is the best Bible book for children—a child’s Bible in simple form. The children themselves like it. This is its best recommendation. It ought to be in every home where there are children. Prices, 25 and 50 cents.
The Gospel Reader
A reader prepared especially to follow “The Gospel Primer,” being graded and generally adapted to the natural progress of the children finishing the “Primer.” It is also a good reader to follow the “Bible Reader” in the home and church schools.
The long and successful experience of the author (G. H. Bell) as an educator and Biblical student has enabled him to embody in this reader the primary essentials in progressive reading, and to utilize the more prominent events in Bible history as suitable subject-matter for a reader adapted to children. The cardinal principles of the gospel are taught in a clear, progressive, interesting manner, and the language is so clear, simple, and direct that small children have no difficulty in understanding the teaching of the text.
The thirty-five chapters of the reader are beautifully and impressively illustrated with twenty-two fine half-tone Bible pictures, and it is substantially and attractively bound in cloth, with a portrait of the Saviour in gold on the front cover; also bound in board covers in two colors. It contains 192 pages, printed in large, clear, new type. Price, in cloth, 75 cents; board covers, 50 cents.
What and How to Answer
An Eight-Page Tract, Words of Truth Series, No. 41
BY MRS. S. M. I. HENRY
A tract admirably adapted for answering the questions invariably asked by all children about the origin of life. It gives excellent suggestions to parents relative to what and how to answer these questions, and permits no shadow of deception or evil to rest upon the subject. Written in a forcible, chaste, and gentle manner. Nothing could be more simply wrought out for the perfect initiation and enlightenment of the inquiring child. Every one who has to do with the education of children should have this little tract. “Worth its weight in gold.” Price, 50 cents a hundred.
“At the Door”
The new art booklet on prophecy fulfilled. A brief, artistic, forcible, five-minute outline history of the world, foretold by Christ, illustrated by fifty engravings selected and arranged with historical marginal notes and comments by F. E. Belden, showing the fulfilment of every prophecy in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21, except the final act.
Christ’s own words are in large type above and below the engravings. He foretells; the pictures answer, Fulfilled, from his time to ours; from Vesuvius and Pompeii, A. D. 79, to Mt. Pelee and Saint Pierre of to-day; from the destruction of Jerusalem, A. D. 70, to the latest political, social, and religious disturbances.
The new, “Diagram of the Dark Ages, and the Dark Day” is the best summary of the subject ever presented. The booklet is printed in colors, and sells at sight. The busiest man stops to look. It smiles, leads, teaches, convicts. It “casts up the highway,” and truth rides into the soul. “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” Beauty secures attention; brevity encourages it; arrangement controls it; directness adds power to the truth.
The letter of Oct. 8, 1903, to the author, from the celebrated astronomer, Prof. A. C. Young, of Princeton, N. J., will interest you on the subject of meteoric showers. New truth here.
The opinions of General Nelson A. Miles, Bishop Newman, Dr. Lyman Abbott, the New York Christian Advocate, Archdeacon Farrar, Dr. Eyton, Cardinal Gibbons, etc., may surprise you.
The great Bible expositor, Uriah Smith, and other good judges, have declared this to be the briefest, most artistic, and forcible treatise ever published on this subject. It introduces the great themes of truth for to-day.
Price, 15 cents; 25 cents in heavy covers, enameled paper, silk cord. In lots of ten, 40 per cent discount, or 9 and 15 cents, respectively. A valuable present. Better still, sell it. Poor plan to give away. Attractive truth sells. Try it quick. Order of the State Tract Societies.
Patriarchs and Prophets
An excellent and authentic commentary on Biblical subjects from Adam to the close of the reign of David. Especially helpful in the study of the present International Sunday-school Lessons, and also an unerring counselor in the study of the Old Testament Scriptures.
Thousands of these books have been sold to Sunday-school superintendents and teachers during the past two years, since the International Lessons have been upon the Old Testament history, and the following unsolicited testimonial from a Sunday-school teacher is a fair sample of the many which are coming to the publishers of this appreciated book:—
“I have a copy of ‘Patriarchs and Prophets,’ and it has been a source of wonderful information to me during the past year. It has proved to be a key that has unlocked many, many Scriptures, and unfolded them, and made them plain and comprehensive. I found it of great assistance in preparing the Sunday-school lessons all last year, when they were in the Old Testament. I am very thankful for its great help.
“L. D. SMITH, Biggs, Mo.”
Copies of this book can be furnished in the following bindings: cloth, gilt edges, $2.75; library, $3; full morocco, $4.50.
The Bible Text-Book
BY ELDER O. A. JOHNSON
A compendium of Bible subjects bound in a neat and attractive form, and easy to carry in the vest or coat pocket.
The book contains forty-nine tersely written Bible readings on as many different subjects.
Our Paradise Home
The fourth edition of 10,000 each is now ordered. The third edition is nearly all gone.
This little messenger is now five months old, and there have been 30,000 copies sold. It is a little book which is full of the message, and its general topics cover many of the cardinal principles of the message for this time. These are made so plain and impressive that readers can easily understand them, and they lead to a desire for a fuller study of the prophecies which teach the coming of the Lord.
Unsolicited testimonials for this book have become too numerous for us to attempt to publish them.
This book is of a nature that any individual can sell it. A person does not have to be an experienced canvasser in order to place this book in the homes of the people.
It contains 128 pages, is nicely illustrated with new pictures made especially for the book; cloth-bound, 50 cents; board, 25 cents.
Order of State Tract Societies; Review and Herald, Battle Creek, Mich.; Review and Herald, Washington, D. C.; Pacific Press, Oakland, Cal.; Kansas City, Mo.; Southern Publishing Assn., Nashville, Tenn.
No Retreat
By Editor
Editorial
No Retreat
IN the campaign under the leadership of Prince Emmanuel there should be no plans for a retreat. Any vantage ground which is gained should be held. Every stronghold captured should be occupied, and turned to good service against the enemy. “Our General, who never makes a mistake, says to us, ‘Advance. Enter new territory. Lift up the standard in every land.’ . . . Our watchword is to be, Onward, ever onward. The angels of God will go before us to prepare the way. Our burden for the ‘regions beyond’ can never be laid down until the whole earth shall be lightened with the glory of the Lord.”
“From vict’ry unto vict’ry,
His army shall be lead,
Till every foe is vanquished,
And Christ is Lord indeed.”
The Missionary Thermometer
THE annual offering at the time of the week of prayer naturally comes to be regarded as in a certain sense the missionary thermometer of the denomination. It serves to indicate with more or less certainty the warmth of the zeal of the church as a whole for the spread of this message into new territory, and the earnestness of the desire of the church as a whole for the coming of the Lord. Our present situation and the needs of the work have been fully placed before this people, and an urgent plea has been made for a liberal offering, with which the present missionary operations may be sustained and provision made for entering new fields. We can only pray that the Spirit of the Lord may use these facts, and so move upon the hearts of all to deal liberally with his cause. Will you do your part to make the annual offering $50,000?
“Come Into Line”
OUR Leader now calls upon every one of his followers to take his place as a true soldier of the cross. Here is the instruction, as given in that most stirring article by Sister White in the REVIEW of November 26: “An angel flying in the midst of heaven put the standards of Emmanuel into many hands, while a mighty general cried with a loud voice, ‘Come into line. Let those who are loyal to the commandments of God and the testimony of Christ, now take their position, . . . Let all who will, come up to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.’” The reason for this emphatic call to action is plainly given in another communication which has recently been received. In it is found the following paragraph: “The enemy of souls has sought to bring in the supposition that a great reformation was to take place among Seventh-day Adventists, and that this reformation would consist in giving up the doctrines which stand as the pillars of our faith, and engaging in a process of reorganization. Were this reformation to take place, what would result?—The principles of truth that God in his wisdom has given to the remnant church would be discarded. Our religion would be changed. The fundamental principles that have sustained the work for the last fifty years would be accounted as error. A new organization would be established. Books of a new order would be written. A system of intellectual philosophy would be introduced. The founders of this system would go into the cities, and do a wonderful work. The Sabbath, of course, would be lightly regarded, as also the God who created it. Nothing would be allowed to stand in the way of the new movement. The leaders would teach that virtue is better than vice, but God being removed, they would place their dependence on human power, which, without God, is worthless. Their foundation would be built on the sand, and storm and tempest would sweep away the structure.” Does any one question the fact that we have been brought face to face with a crisis in this movement? While some have been indifferent, and others have been deceived by his specious sophistries, the enemy has been seeking to undermine the very foundations of this third angel’s message, plotting its utter overthrow. It is now time for those who have the true light to rise up in the name of the Lord, and, putting on the whole armor, to fight the battles of the Lord with holy boldness. “Come into line,” says the Leader. Who will hear and obey?
The Coming of the Seed
The Original Promise
ALL the truth and all the experiences of the gospel of salvation from sin find their center in God’s gift of his Son for and to the human family. He “spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all.” “Him who knew no sin he made to be sin on our behalf.” “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” “Herein was the love of God manifested in our case, that God hath sent his only begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
The promises of God concerning this gift of his love, the failure of the people to believe and act upon these promises, the renewal of these promises from time to time in various forms and under varied circumstances, the fulfilment of the promises, and the instruction to believers concerning their personal relation to these promises, constitute the warp and the woof of the Scriptures. Here will be found the main current of the river of the water of life, although the river has many branches. In the object lesson of the sacrificial offerings, in the utterances of the patriarchs, in the declarations of the prophets, and in the songs of the psalmists the gift of the eternal Son was the great central theme. During all the centuries since sin entered into the world, the voice of patriarchs, prophets, priests, and psalmists has been proclaiming that “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life.”4Faith in the provision thus made for deliverance from sin and its consequences has brought hope to the hopeless, and joy to the joyless. For the complete realization of all the blessed results of this unspeakable gift the faithful in every age have looked forward to the time when “the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels.”
This gospel of the gift of the Son of God to the human family as their sacrifice, substitute, and surety was first preached in the garden of Eden. Addressing the serpent in the presence of those whom he had led into sin, the Lord himself made the first announcement of that plan for the redemption of the transgressors of his commandment, setting forth his provision for the carrying out of “the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.” “I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed: he shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” In these brief statements the whole gospel is bound up. All that has been developed to our minds of the fulness of the gospel in the centuries intervening between that time and the present was present in the mind of God and included in the original promise. Through disobedience man had cut himself off from God, rejecting the mind of God, and accepting the mind of Satan; but the Creator, against whom he had sinned, did not leave him under the absolute sway of the deceiver who had taken him in the snare. He implanted in the darkened mind of humanity a dissatisfaction with sin, a longing for restoration to holiness, a desire which could be satisfied only by receiving the gift which divine love provided. It would be possible for man to smother and to deaden this desire, but he could never satisfy it in any other way than by accepting him who is the Desire of all nations. The enmity between the serpent and the woman, thus implanted, saved the family from the abyss of total depravity into which it had fallen.
It was further declared in this first statement of the gospel of salvation and hope, that the deliverance would come through one who would himself be a member of the human family. The Deliverer would be the seed of the woman. Looking back to the fulfilment of this promise, the apostle Paul wrote, “But when the fulness of the time came, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, that he might redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.” It was of this same promised Seed that the Lord spoke through Moses, saying, “I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.” That union of divinity with humanity which is the vital experience of the gospel was thus set forth in the original promise. And the hope of humanity depended upon the coming of the Seed.
So vivid was this promise to our first parents, that they looked for the Deliverer in their day; and when the first son was born, the hope was cherished that he was the promised Seed. One translation of the last clause of Gen. 4:1 expresses this idea clearly: “I have gotten the man Jehovah.” How bitter must have been the disappointment, and how terrible must have been the sting of sin, when the first son became a murderer rather than the Deliverer, a taker of life rather than a giver of life. But there was to be no failure in God’s word, and so “to Adam was given another son, to be the inheritor of the divine promise, the heir of the spiritual birthright.”
That which is included in this original promise is thus stated by the apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesians: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ: even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blemish before him in love: having foreordained us unto adoption as sons through Jesus Christ unto himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace, which he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved: in whom we have our redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, making known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he purposed in him unto a dispensation of the fulness of the times, to sum up all things in Christ, the things in the heavens, and the things upon the earth.”
The hope of salvation for the world is in Christ, the eternal Son, the Seed of the woman. The coming of the Seed is the great fact of the gospel. This theme we will study in later articles.
“He Shall Come to His End”
By W. A. S.
Two paragraphs from articles on the Eastern question in the November reviews are worth reprinting. They show that men of affairs are fully anticipating exactly what we know by the prophecy to be the final stages in the solution of the problem.
The North American Review prints a paper by an Indian Moslem, Mohammad Barakatullah, whose sympathies are, of course, bound up with the growth of Mohammedan influence. His dream had been of a policy to rally the Balkan States round the throne of the sultan, as a barrier against the north, and to unite the Moslem peoples under the same standard. But he recognizes that destiny has directed otherwise, and that it is too late to stay the process of disruption. He says:—
No man ever had such golden opportunities of attaching the three hundred millions of Moslems to his throne. . . . It seems ordained, however, that Abdul Hamid II is to see the end of the Ottoman empire as it was when he received it—to see it destroyed by his own hand.
Karl Blind, a European writer of prominence, discussing the question in the Nineteenth Century Review, speaks of interviews he has had on the matter with the masters of statescraft during the generation passing. Alluding to the cry so often raised by the radical pulpits in favor of ending the rule of Turkey in Europe, he thus suggests the time of trouble that is in store for the nations when the king of the north comes to his end:—
Yet the selfsame men, in their haste, would fain light up—at least by proxy, that is, by urging on other powers—a conflagration that might desolate the European Continent; and this, by speaking “in the name of Jesus Christ.” Little do they reflect, or care, how such violent proceedings might come home upon the greatest Mohammedan power; that is, England herself.
Thus, month by month, current literature bears witness to fulfilling prophecy.
W. A. S.
The Higher Critics and the Moslems
THERE is no middle ground between Christianity and heathenism. When a man departs from the true Christian platform, he must of necessity take his place upon the platform of heathenism, even though he does not make an open profession of heathenism. And the heathen themselves have insight enough to recognize this fact. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Mohammedans of the East begin to welcome the Higher Critics as fellow workers in their opposition to the progress of Christianity. The following extract from an editorial in the Missionary Review of the World for November deals with an instance of this kind, and makes some suggestive comments upon the real nature of the Higher Criticism:—
A correspondent in D’Arjeeling, India, sends a marked copy of The Review of Religions—June issue—as edited by a blaspheming Moslem in the Punjaub, in which he claims the Higher Critics as allies; and this fact raises with our respected correspondent, who is himself a medical missionary, some grave questionings as to the tendency of the extreme critical attitude of some Biblical teachers to hinder, if not to destroy, the work of missions. There is an irreverent tampering with the inspiration and authority of the written Word which leads inevitably to the rejection of the true Deity of the living Word. . . .5
But what disturbs us even more is the tendency of extreme critical views to rob the missionary of his message to Moslems and Hindus. A mutilated Bible and a fallible Christ leave little authority in the missionary’s message, and little enthusiasm in his proclamation of the gospel. The Bible sinks to the level of the Vedas and the Koran, and the Lord Jesus Christ is scarcely more than another Zoroaster, Confucius, or Buddha. . . . We fear that much fallacy and some sophistry hide behind the veil of so-called scholarly criticism. This torrent, whose current is so rapid and reckless in sweeping away the old landmarks, is, we fear, not a river of God, and floats much that is plausible but really delusive and deceptive. Assumption often takes the place of argument, and emphasis does duty for originality and accuracy. Fancies are made to rank with facts, and there is sometimes a perverse determination to eliminate the supernatural from the Word of God.
It is plain from the Scripture that in the closing years of the great controversy between Christ and Satan a supreme effort will be made to deceive if possible the very elect. The agents through whom this work of deception will be carried forward will not be the declared enemies of the truth, as they could not easily deceive the professed followers of Christ. Professed friends are the most successful deceivers. They are the wolves in sheep’s clothing, and they exhibit their true nature when they feel assured that they have the flock within their power.
All this shows us the danger of receiving any teaching merely upon the personal authority of the teacher. There is one rule which must be impartially and fearlessly applied, and most rigidly to that which vaunts itself as new light: “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.” And the ability to apply the rule and to arrive at safe conclusions depends much more upon the fellowship of the Holy Spirit than upon the acuteness of the intellect. The human intellect, however well trained, is no match for the devious devisings of Satan, that prince of sophists, but the promise is that ‘when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth.’
There is light for us in these last days, but the true light will not bring to us a new God or a new Bible. There is light for us, but it will separate us from the heathen rather than identify us with them. There is light for us, but it will not set aside the old landmarks of the truth which called out this people. Let us advance, but let us advance into a deeper knowledge of the old truths of the gospel, rather than into the fields of speculation and a merely human philosophy. No true soldier of the cross will be mistaken for an ally of heathenism. The principles of Christianity and the principles of heathenism have nothing in common with each other.
“A State Greater Than the Union”
Do the people of this country realize that a new government, neither republican nor free, nor created with any regard whatever to the popular rights and liberties, has risen up in this land, and stands ready to supersede in practise, if not in form, the republic founded by Washington and the statesmen of his time? Such is the meaning of the attitude taken by the great army of federated labor toward the non-union shop and workman. The right to work, the right to transact business, is fundamental, and essential to the enjoyment of all other rights or privileges secured by the government; and any power which can take away or prevent the exercise of this right, and does so, nullifies all the essential provisions of republican government, and becomes a government itself. This has been previously pointed out in the Review, and those who may have thought the statements made were too strong, are invited to consider some statements made by a leading American newspaper, the New York Tribune. In the editorial columns of The Tribune of November 21 we note the following:—
The American Federation of Labor has decided to supersede the United States government, but it is extremely courteous and conciliatory about it. It does not wish to hurt the feelings of anybody who loves the old order. It will let the Constitution remain as a superfluous relic of a bygone age. Like the Roman emperors in assuming supreme power, it is willing to leave in operation the empty forms of our institutions. It carefully avoids anything like insult to the president. Nevertheless it impressively asserts its paramount authority; and with the calm unobtrusiveness which marks mastery announces that this is to be a government of the labor unions, by the labor unions, for the labor unions. Other people are of no consequence. The Constitution and the laws which give other men the same rights in their relations with public authority as labor unionists are of no consequence. The American Federation of Labor is the sovereign, and obedience to its regulations a more binding obligation than regard for the laws of the United States.
No other interpretation can be put upon the condemnation of the “open shop” in government work. This condemnation was passed after long discussion, full explanation by conservative members of the federation of the essential difference between government and private employment, and with a clear understanding that the demand was in direct antagonism of the fundamental American principle of equality before the law. It can mean nothing, then, but that the American Federation of Labor refuses to give its allegiance to the United States; that it is an independent sovereign, privileged to make its own supreme laws for the conduct of its members. That is an attitude which has before now been observed in groups of labor unionists. They show it when they make war upon the national guard or apologize for strike riots. They show it in the tendency to treat a class, or rather that part of a class organized in their membership, as the whole people. Cultivating class feelings, and attempting arbitrarily to impose their will upon others having only the remotest relation to them by boycotts and sympathetic strikes, they try to erect what is not a mere empire within the empire, but an empire above the empire. Yet we have not before seen a great labor organization like the assembled American Federation of Labor deliberately putting itself on record for the subversion of the fundamental principle of the American nation.
The “open shop” is fundamental. The private employer can say that no man may work for him who does not belong to a labor union. He could also say that he would employ only Methodists or Swedes or red-haired people. That is his affair. The government of the United States is bound to recognize the equal rights of Methodists and Roman Catholics, Swedes and Irishmen, blondes and brunettes, American Federation of Labor men and “scabs.” The “scab” may be a mean sort of person, unwilling to sacrifice himself for his class, but unless the class is really the State, and has, like the State, the right to demand that its members sacrifice life for it and to punish traitors with death, then the “scab” has a right to live and work. The private employer can hire whom he chooses, and if he wants to exclude the “scab,” he has the privilege; but the State in which the “scab” is a citizen has not, and even if it had, it could not afford to act upon it at the demand of a private organization. That would be making itself the puppet of the private organization, abdicating its functions, and handing over to the labor union the government of the country. President Roosevelt naturally will not do that. He has shown great, and indeed in some quarters greatly criticised, friendship for the labor unionists, but because he will not let them usurp the functions of government and exclude their private enemies from the rights of citizenship, labor union meetings are filled with denunciations of him, and the Federation of Labor declares that no laborers without its label may work for the United States! Surely a State greater than the Union has come upon the scene!
In connection with this testimony from The Tribune, it will be fitting to quote by way of illustration some statements from an article in the December number of The Century magazine, entitled “The Daily Walk of the Walking Delegate.” The author gives instances showing how the arbitrary power of the “walking delegate” of the union is often exercised merely to satisfy a personal grudge, or from some other equally base and petty motive, and then quotes this remark addressed to him by a union leader, which is interesting, considered in connection with the persistent demand for the expulsion of Foreman Miller from the government printing office, made by the union on the ground, ostensibly, that Miller is a person of unfit character:—
“Nothing in our constitution or by-laws,” said a responsible labor leader to me, “prohibits a pickpocket from being a walking delegate, or a walking delegate from being a pickpocket. If he is caught picking pockets, it is the business of constables and courts to deal with and punish him—not ours. All we ask is that he shall get us more pay for less work.”6
Labor unions have already begun to usurp the functions of the courts. As showing this the following instance is given:—
A “walking delegate” who was an anarchist and known as such, one day entered the office of T— Brothers, a Chicago firm. He was thrown out of the office. Thereupon the union to which he belonged “set itself up as a court, imposed a ‘fine’ of one hundred and fifty dollars on the firm, and adjudged that they must give bond in another one hundred and fifty dollars to be deposited with the union, that they would keep the peace!”
Another illustrative incident is thus related: Donald Call, “walking delegate,” was asked on the witness stand in court what right he had to demand ten thousand dollars from Colonel Baird and certain Brooklyn (N. Y.) employees.
“It was to pay the expenses of the strike in 1894,” he replied.
“For a strike eight years back?”
“Yes.”
“You testified that you first demanded fifty thousand dollars.”
“O, that was only a bluff.”
“Has your union been in the habit of making these collections?”
“Yes, it is done by all unions.” (Italics ours.)
Surely from all this no candid person can fail to see that it is not a theory but a condition that confronts us, and one that calls for very sober, serious thought.It is a condition from which the only escape is by the way of God’s special message for this time. L. A. S.
The Command and the Call to Enlarge Our Missionary Enterprises
By Arthur G. Daniells
THE command to Seventh-day Adventists in behalf of missions comes from Christ, the great Head of the church. His command is, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” Mark 16:15. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations.” Matt. 24:14. “And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.” Rev. 14:6.
From these statements it is plain that Christ aims at the conquest of the world. Nothing short of the proclamation of his message to every tribe on earth will fulfil his command to Seventh-day Adventists. This command involves a decision. Is obedience to this command a fundamental part of our program as a denomination? Is it a settled fact, well understood by all, that we as a people are to enlarge our missionary enterprises until every tribe on the earth is reached, and the whole world is lightened with the light of this message?
We have made a beginning in almost every land. But in many places we have made only a beginning. In Spain, we have only two workers; in Italy, only three; in Turkey, only two; and in other countries with teeming millions, we have only a little band in each. Yet in all these lands our missions are making progress. Wherever our missionaries have gone, they have found people ready to receive their message. And every advance step taken in the fields entered, opens the way for other steps to be taken. Thus fresh, urgent calls come to Seventh-day Adventists for more laborers and more money. And this makes our problem regarding missions a growing, widening, enlarging problem. During 1902 we increased our expenditure for missions nearly one third over any previous year. But instead of this expenditure easing the pressure, it increased it. The openings are more numerous and the calls more pressing.
This is a feature of our mission problem that should be fully and distinctly understood. We are in the war. The aim of our Leader is nothing short of the conquest of the world. He is able to carry the undertaking through to success. But he must have volunteers who are committed to the work in all its fulness, and who will press on with him until the last fortress is taken.
The response to the command of Christ to “go,” and to the call of the nations to “come,” means to send forth more missionaries, and to raise more money. It means the continual enlargement of our missionary enterprises. It means the sturdy training and sending forth of young people. It means the employment of a larger number of native helpers in all the mission fields. All this means continual and larger giving by our people; for this work can not be done without money.
Now where does the responsibility rest for making this response? Beyond all question, it rests with the whole denomination. It rests with the people. It rests upon every believer who is joined to the world-wide movement of the third angel’s message. That is where the Lord has placed this great responsibility. It is the believer who must go. But unless some are willing to say, “Here am I; send me,” there will be no such thing as going.
And, furthermore, it rests upon the believers in this message to supply the money required to send and support those who must go. Upon them rests the responsibility of supporting the Lord’s missions. They are stewards of the Lord’s means, and they are to be faithful in the support of his missions. Back of them is the Lord himself, who gives all the power any one possesses to get wealth. When this responsibility is understood and accepted and discharged by those upon whom it rests, a new and glorious era will come for our missions.
There is need of a more general, emphatic, and enthusiastic announcement by this denomination of its policy regarding missions. Shall those already established be maintained? Shall they be heartily supported? And shall new ones be opened?
These are questions that interest thousands of people. They interest the General Conference Committee, upon whom are placed the duties of administration. They very deeply interest the missionaries who are in the fields, working and planning for progress. And they vitally affect the millions in darkness, whose only hope is the light of truth God has given us to give to them.
Shall the missionary policy of this denomination be a wide-awake, forward policy? Is it our fixed purpose to keep advancing until we have reached the uttermost parts of the earth, and finished the work? If so, there must be more volunteers and larger gifts. O brethren, let us put some enthusiasm into this holy and exalted work that is committed to our trust! It is worthy of all it can possibly receive. A. G. DANIELLS.