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Review and Herald, Vol. 86, No. 34.

The “Life and Health” Magazine for September Now Ready

Review and Herald

Aug 26, 1909

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 26, 1909

The “Life and Health” Magazine for September Now Ready

By Editor

OUR regular agents and those who are earning scholarships unite in calling this popular monthly a rapid seller. Up to the 18th inst., about 70,000 copies of the beautiful August number had been called for, and the orders were still coming in. Many of our agents took a little vacation and needed rest by attending their conference camp-meeting. Otherwise a large edition would have been sold during the same period.
FACSIMILE OF COVER PAGE. ORIGINAL PRINTED IN TWO COLORS
FACSIMILE OF COVER PAGE. ORIGINAL PRINTED IN TWO COLORS
The prospects for a large sale of the beautiful September number are good. By August 18 over 16,000 copies of this number had been called for. Taking them just as they came, the first twenty-eight orders called for 10,430 copies, or an average of 372 copies an order. One conference ordered 1,500 copies for its camp-meeting; another conference, 1,000 copies; a third, 1,000 copies, etc. An agent in California ordered 1,000; a young man in Nebraska, 1,000; two agents in Maine 500 copies each, etc. These orders were received before any of our agents had seen a sample copy. All this is truly encouraging.
Isn’t our September cover a beauty? It is truly typical of the mission and success of this our national health magazine. As we look at the magnificent ship, under full sail, the spray dashing over her bow, we can almost feel the cool sea breeze fan our cheeks and fill our lungs! This beautiful nature scene will, indeed, be a great help to our agents in selling this number.

Contents of September Number

ILLUSTRATIONS.—Over twenty full-page and smaller photo-reproductions illumine the pages of this issue, besides the beautiful cover design and a striking frontispiece showing a typical scene at the great Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition.
GENERAL ARTICLES.—Baby Foods by the Editor (illustrated)—Garden Reveries, by R. O. Eastman (four illustrations)—The Dangers of Tooth-Powders and Pastes (six illustrations), by R. Macdonald, D. D. S., of Leicester, England—The Truth About Buttermilk, or how to promote long life, by R. S. Cummings, M. D.— Summer Outings for the Children (four interesting pictures), by a Visitor—Hygiene and Sanitation at the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition (two illustrations)—Prevention and Treatment of Appendicitis, by D. H. Kress, M. D.—Surgery Useless in Neurasthenia, by W. B. Holden, M. D.—Prohibition From a Medical View-Point, by T. D. Crothers, M. D.—Problems for Parents, by E. C. Jaeger.
CARTOON.—Cause and Effect, an effective, full-page cartoon showing in pleasing form the evils of the modern lunch-counter. “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.”
HEALTHFUL COOKERY.—How to Be a Good Cook, by George E. Cornforth. Of great value to housewives.
ABSTRACTS.—The Inadequacy of the Sanatorium Treatment of Tuberculosis—A Warning to Brain Workers.
THE MEDICAL FORUM.—Is Absolutely Pure Water the Most Healthful? The Passing of Drug Therapy as an Exclusive System—Drugless Healing Versus the Medical Profession—When the Doctors Disagree—Another Unsettled Question—A Work on Hypnotism Reviewed—Plague and Vivisection.
THE MEDICAL MISSIONARY AT WORK.—In the Neglected Continent, by R. H. Habenicht, M. D.—Cairo, Egypt, by Ida Schlegel.
EDITORIAL.—What Form of Protein?—Carelessness With Infectious Diseases—The Development of Medicine.
NEWS NOTES.—Typhoid Fever Costly—To Prevent Infant Mortality—Public Health in Louisiana—Kansas Awake to Health Matters—San Francisco Free From Plague—A “Patriotic” Governor—Consumptives Can Not Marry—Hydrophobia Epidemic—Many Germs in Top Milk, and twenty-five other interesting and valuable items.

You Can Sell the September Number

Send 25 cents for five copies, or $1 for 25 copies, to sell among your friends and neighbors. If you are just beginning work, write for leaflet “How to Sell Our Magazines.” If you are interested in earning a scholarship, ask for leaflet “How to Earn a Scholarship.” Note carefully the sales points outlined in the leaflet first mentioned. Remember that the picture on the cover, and the mention of one or two striking articles,—those that appeal to you most strongly,—will usually sell the magazine. Mention the price, “only ten cents,” early in your canvass. Tell your prospect that you are not soliciting his yearly subscription. Thousands of busy people buy a magazine for the sake of just one article. You and I do that very thing.

Address Your Tract Society

If at all possible, please order your magazines through, and arrange for territory with, your conference tract society. If you must order direct, send cash with order. Try 25 copies for $1.

Prices of This Number

Single copies, 10 cents; 5 to 20 copies, 5 cents each; 25 to 400 copies, 4 cents; 500 to 800 copies, 3½ cents; 1,000 or more, 3 cents.

Send Written Recommendation

In applying for agency, kindly send a written recommendation from your tract society, pastor, teacher, banker, or leading business firm of your town. Address your conference tract society, or Life and Health, Washington, D. C.

THE WORK — AND — THE WORKERS

By Editor

SCORES of orders are still coming in for the beautiful, easy-selling August number of Life and Health. The edition of 82,500 copies is nearly all sold.
BROTHER S. G. WHITE, secretary of the California Tract Society, has just sent us an order for 3,500 September Life and Health and 2,000 Liberty No. 3, a total of 5,500 ten-cent magazines. All but 1,000 of these are for use at their coming camp-meeting.
DURING the five weeks ending August 18, we sold out our entire first edition of 50,000 copies of Liberty magazine No. 3,—and more. We are now rushing through a second edition, of 10,000 copies (exhausting our present stock of paper), making a total of 60,000 copies issued to date. And the three months during which this beautiful number can be sold, are only half gone.
ONLY a cent will bring to any one a vital message of health. There are but few persons who do not really need these health messages printed in our series of ten tracts on important health topics. Order a supply of these Life and Health Leaflets to place in the possession of those in need of them. These little Health Leaflets will serve as “entering wedges” to the greater message we have for the people. Send at once for a sample package, 10 cents.
BROTHER R. C. SPOHR, missionary secretary of the Indiana Conference, states that Liberty is the best seller “for Sunday work.” He says: “On Sunday seven of the young ladies sold 246 copies of Liberty. The ten ladies who worked Saturday night sold 372 copies of Liberty on the streets of —, Kentucky. Most of them worked less than two hours. One sold 62 magazines in that time. The best Saturday night’s work previous to this was 357 magazines sold by eleven young ladies.”
SOMETHING SPECIAL.—In unpacking a large box of odds and ends of printed matter from the old Review and Herald plant, at Battle Creek, Mich., we found a small bundle of portraits, 9 x 12, of William Miller and Joshua V. Himes, the two leading lecturers on the second advent of Christ, in A. D. 1843-44. These are very rare pictures, and will be greatly appreciated by all of the old-time members of the church. As long as they last, we will send them, post-paid, at 25 cents each. Order of the Book Department.
“BATTLE HYMNS OF THE KINGDOM” is the title of a beautiful little volume containing fifteen full-page illustrations, with full-page poems on opposite pages, with the text of the illustration, all of which vividly portrays fifteen leading events that precede or follow the second coming of Christ. In many ways, it is very attractive, and will teach the second coming of Christ where it might not be possible to do so by other means. The illustrations will materially impress the facts of this great event. As long as our present stock remains, we will send the book, post-paid, for 25 cents.

“He Delivereth Them Out of the Hand of the Wicked”

A Warning Voice

In the appendix to his “Book of Martyrs,” Fox tells us he was “loath to insert anything in this book which may seem incredible or strange,” yet he felt constrained to report the following story of deliverance. It was told by the escaped man himself to a minister well known to Fox. This is the account:—
There was one Laremouth, otherwise called Williamson, chaplain to the Lady Anne of Cleve, a Scottishman, to whom, being in prison in Queen Mary’s days, it was said (as he thought), thus sounding in his ears, “Arise and go thy ways.” Whereunto when he gave no great heed at the first, the second time it was said to him again in the same words. Upon this, as he fell to his prayers, it was said the third time likewise to him, “Arise and go thy ways;” which was about half an hour after. So he arising upon the same, immediately a piece of the prison wall fell down, and as the officers came in at the outward gate of the castle or prison, he, leaping over the ditch, escaped, and in the way meeting a certain beggar, changed his coat with him, and coming to the seashore, where he found a vessel ready to go over, was taken in and escaped the search, which was straitly laid for him in all the country over.

John Bunyan’s Jailer

John Bunyan’s jailer at Bedford, at one period, at least, allowed his prisoner to visit his friends occasionally. The following incident is reported in the story of those times:—
It being known to some of his persecutors in London that he was often out of prison, they sent an officer to discover the facts. He was to get to Bedford jail in the middle of the night. Bunyan was at home with his family, but so restless that he could not sleep. He therefore acquainted his wife that, though the jailer had given him liberty to stay till morning, yet, from his uneasiness, he must immediately return. He did so, and the jailer blamed him for coming at so unseasonable an hour. Early in the morning the messenger came, and interrogating the jailer, said:—
“Are all the prisoners safe?”
“Yes.”
“Is John Bunyan safe?”
“Yes.”
“Let me see him.”
He was called, and appeared, and all was well. After the messenger was gone, the jailer, addressing Mr. Bunyan, said, “Well, you may go in and out again just when you think proper, for you know when to return better than I can tell you.”

Meeting an Armed Attack by Prayer

An old account of missionary experiences, published by the Religious Tract Society, of London, contains the following:—
During the rebellion in Ireland, in 1793, the rebels had long meditated an attack on the Moravian settlement at Grace Hill, Wexford county. At length they put their threat into execution, and a large body of them marched to the town. When they arrived there, they saw no one in the street nor in the houses. The brethren had long expected this attack, but true to the Christian profession, they would not have recourse to arms in their defense; they assembled in their chapel and in solemn prayer besought Him in whom they trusted, to be their shield in the hour of danger.
“The ruffian band, hitherto breathing nothing but destruction and slaughter, were astonished at this novel sight; where they expected armed hands, they saw them clasped in prayer, and the whole body of men bending before the Prince of Peace. They heard the prayer for protection, the request for mercy to be extended to their murderers, and the songs of praise and confidence in the sure promise of the Lord. They beheld all in silence; they were unable to raise a hand against them; and, after having for a night and a day lingered about, they marched away, without having injured a single individual or stolen a loaf of bread. This singular mark of the protection of Heaven induced the inhabitants of the neighborhood to bring their goods and ask for the protection of these Christians.”
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Not always has the Lord warded off the blow aimed at children of his who put their trust in him. But always he has given sustaining grace and assurance that round about are the everlasting arms. And through the long conflict these special deliverances noted show that all the time the angels have been watching round about his people. It is good to know that they are still his ministering spirits in all the earth.
W. A. S.

The Coming Missionary Campaign

By Arthur G. Daniells

It is now nearly a year since we, as a people, carried forward what we called a Thanksgiving Missionary Campaign. This was the first undertaking of the kind we ever attempted. We lacked both the knowledge and the experience necessary to secure the largest results. Yet, all things considered, that campaign was a grand success.
Seven hundred thousand copies of the special number of the REVIEW AND HERALD were ordered by our churches and by individuals, and we suppose the larger number of these were distributed among those not of our faith. The specific object of the special number of the REVIEW was to give those not belonging to our people a true knowledge of the world-wide work being carried forward by Seventh-day Adventists. Should three persons, on an average, have read each copy of the REVIEW, two million one hundred thousand persons would have read something concerning the world-wide message which we are endeavoring to carry to the world.
In addition to the information given in the REVIEW, doubtless many of our missionaries had good talks with their neighbors and friends concerning our denominational work. This was helpful, both to the one who gave the talk, and to the one with whom the conversation was held. Viewing the work of last year from the standpoint of the information concerning our missionary undertakingsimparted to our neighbors, we believe that the campaign was a splendid success.
The ingathering of funds was not so large as we had hoped, yet it was a goodly sum that was collected. There has been received into the office of the General Conference, up to Aug. 1, 1909, from this ingathering, the sum of $43,-359.91. When we think that we undertook this campaign without any previous experience as a guide, that we had never, during our denominational history of more than half a century, gone to the world soliciting funds with which to carry forward our work, but had depended entirely upon the gifts and donations of our own people for the development of all the enterprises that we had undertaken, we believe that the ingathering was most encouraging. It brought substantial help to the treasury of the General Conference for the support of missionaries in many heathen lands. The funds gathered at this time were scattered to all the nations of the world, and there is scarcely a heathen country where some of this money has not found its way.
Some held that the ingathering, coming so late in the year, and so closely preceding the week of prayer, would greatly lessen the annual offering of our people. But it did not work that way. The annual offering last year was a good one, aggregating $28,898.51. Taking from the ingathering, $14,000 for expense, we have as a net income to the mission treasury $58,258.42 from the Thanksgiving ingathering and the annual offering combined. This is by far the largest sum ever received by the Mission Board at the close of any year for the support of the mission fields.
At the late session of the General Conference, it was voted that we should have another harvest ingathering, the time to be fixed by the General Conference Committee. This matter has been taken up by the members of the General Conference Committee, and the date for the commencement of the ingathering for 1909 has been fixed for November 1.
It is planned that the special number of the REVIEW for circulation at this time, shall consist of thirty-two pages, printed on better stock than was used last year, and that it shall be ready by the first of October. This special number of the REVIEW will excel last year’s paper in make-up. We are endeavoring to make the illustrations appear better. There will be articles from some of our general men, giving an outline of the work that we are carrying forward.
We have faith to believe that our people will do better work this year than last. The 1908 effort was a new experience to our people, and they did splendid work. This year we have the knowledge acquired by last year’s experience, and we can undertake our effort more intelligently. In view of all this, we surely have reason to look for far larger results from our efforts.
It is not necessary for us to set before our own people the great needs of our General Conference treasury and the imperative demands made upon us to supply workers for nearly every field in the world. Those who have read the General Conference Bulletin, and closely followed the reports of the superintendents and delegates from the mission fields, know how imperative it is that recruits be sent to most of our mission stations at an early date. There is scarcely a country in the world that did not make heavy demands upon us for men, and for the expenditure of funds for equipping the stations that we already occupy. A halt must be made in all aggressive work, or additional funds must be supplied with which to carry the work forward.
Is not this opportunity to go to our neighbors and friends, showing them the great work that God has given us to do, one of God’s means by which his work may be carried forward? If so, should not every Seventh-day Adventist have a part in extending a knowledge of the work that we are doing, and in gathering funds for the accomplishment of that work?
Plans will be laid by union and local conferences to organize the churches into working bands for this coming campaign. We earnestly appeal to our people to plan for definite work at this time. The special REVIEW will be ready for delivery by the first of October, and it is greatly desired that all will place their orders early for as many copies as they shall need. Last year we were unable to supply the orders that came to us late. We had not only provided for all orders that had been placed with us, but had printed fifty thousand additional copies, supposing that they would supply every need. At the last moment, however, many thousands of copies were ordered by telegraph, and we were unable to fill these orders promptly. We wish to obviate a like difficulty this year, and earnestly entreat our people to give their orders early attention.
Information concerning this campaign will be given from time to time in the REVIEW. We hope our people everywhere will heartily engage in this undertaking, not only giving of their time, but also most earnestly seeking the Lord for his blessing upon us, and upon our work, that there may be a large ingathering during this coming campaign.
Let us not forget the date when the effort is to begin — Nov. 1, 1909. It will continue during the entire month of November, thus including Thanksgiving week.
A. G. DANIELLS.

Editorial

By Editor

“THOU shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins.” “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.”
The only way of salvation is through the sacrifice and merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is true to-day; it has been just as true in every age of earth’s history. The cross of Calvary stands as the great central figure of the whole scheme of salvation, from the days of Adam to the close of human probation.

The Church and the Colleges

By William W. Prescott

In the September number of the Cosmopolitan Magazine Mr. Harold Bolce completes his series of articles “dealing with scholastic repudiation of all solemn authority.” In concluding his work, Mr. Bolce presents in condensed form the response of some leading representatives of the church to the indictment framed by college professors, and this to a certain extent gives the answer to some startling teachings which appeared in his previous articles.
A thoughtful reading of Mr. Bolce’s well-written reply in behalf of the leading ministers of the gospel leaves the impression that assertion has been met by assertion, and denial by denial, and that there is still lacking an authoritative dealing with the question based upon the Word of God instead of upon mere creedal statements.
Perhaps the most suggestive portions of Mr. Bolce’s article are those which reveal that discriminating observers of present tendencies in the religious world are able to point out such results of the rejection of the special message for this generation as to fulfil very clearly those delineations of last-day conditions found in the Scriptures. We quote one paragraph:—
Throughout America the conviction is strong in church circles that what is best in our present-day civilization is menaced. It is agreed on many sides that a new renaissance, with all its liberty of thinking and riot of brilliant apostasy, is indeed possible. That professors are teaching that there is nothing fundamentally true or sacred, that no commandments came from God, that society by its approval can constitute any action right, or by its censure decree it to be wrong, is dangerously suggestive of that period of intellectual brilliancy, but moral decay, that placed Boccaccio, the teller of immoral tales, in a professor’s chair in the University of Florence. From the churches’ standpoint the universities are building a new tower of Babel, and in their alarm over the lack of religious instruction in the universities, they have undertaken to establish religious societies inside of college walls.
During the last half century the world has heard from very many representatives of the church that the law of God has been abolished, and that we “are not under the law, but under grace,” meaning thereby that there is no longer any positive obligation to conform the life to the requirements of the ten commandments. The teaching now being given by college professors that “there is nothing fundamentally true or sacred, that no commandments are from God,” may properly be regarded as the fruit of the seed sown by those who now seek to counteract the results of their own work. Doubtless the actuating motive of some of those ministers who have thus attempted to set aside God’s law was the desire to escape the obligation toobserve the seventh-day Sabbath, but in their effort to do this they have contributed to a result which they did not foresee. Their attempt to abolish the ten commandments and then re-enact nine of them, omitting the fourth, has awakened in the minds of the present generation a question regarding the authority of God as a ruler of the universe, and has left men free to set up their own standard, or to accept the consensus of public opinion as the only standard of right. What has thus been done can not be undone by emphasizing human creeds and dogmas.
The reference to the tower of Babel is a striking one. In the olden time men set themselves against the word of God, and sought by human means to find out the mysteries of God, and to provide a means of escape from a second world-catastrophe. The wise men of to-day are attempting the same thing, although not in the same way. But the builders of this Babel tower of speculation, human philosophy, and scientific hypothesis will be brought to confusion no less surely than were their prototypes in the plain of Shinar.
Another paragraph from Mr. Bolce’s article is of special significance:—
Clergymen rooted and grounded in the orthodox faith lament the passing of the appeals to fear. They say that nothing in the universe is so certain as sin’s retribution, and that the incarnation, ministry, and crucifixion of the Son of God are meaningless if they do not purchase for the repentant immunity from the wrath to come. The various theories, denials, explanations, etc., regarding beliefs to which humanity throughout Christian ages has subscribed, lead Dr. Keigwin to say that the modern preacher too often “is proclaiming either a blindly amiable God or a purely ethical redemption.” And he says that he does not wonder that a spiritual famine stares the world in the face. Pastors in all parts of America say, with an emphasis born of profound faith in God and the Bible and with unmistakable reverence for litanies and songs, that what is needed is not the enthronement of a new Jehovah, but the recognition and fear of the Lord of hosts, the Creator of earth and heaven, who visits the iniquities of the fathers upon even the third and fourth generations, and who has eternal joys in paradise reserved for those who serve and worship him. “We are told,” says Dr. Keigwin, “that we need a new theology, but it will not do for the age to be caught by a term. The new theology of our age was just as new when Lot moved into Sodom. New theology then rejected supernaturalism and glorified man above God. It does so now.”
That false emphasis upon, and that false interpretation of, the love of God which excludes his justice are responsible for a namby-pamby gospel which ignores the wrath of God, and holds out the hope of redemption either here or hereafter to every despiser of God’s goodness. Now comes the inevitable result— “a spiritual famine.”
The gods which have newly come up in this generation are quite different from the God of the Bible. But who is responsible for this state of things? Surely not those who have in this generation carried to the world this message: “Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come.” Those who have rejected this message, and who have taught the people smooth things, have been sowing to the wind, and they ought not to be surprised if they now reap the whirlwind.
The situation revealed in this series of articles by Mr. Bolce constitutes a startling fulfilment of prophecy. Without any thought of expounding the predictions of Scripture, this writer, after much painstaking study of actual conditions, has submitted the clearest evidence of that apostasy, of that repudiation of the truth, of that exaltation of the creature above the Creator, which it was long ago declared would characterize the very last days. Such undesigned testimony to the fulfilment of the prophetic word ought to have great weight in the minds of thinking people.
It remains for those who know the truth for this time to proclaim it most earnestly, and to set forth with clearness and power that threefold message in which alone can be found the answer to all the scientific and theological vagaries of the present hour, and which reveals the only hope in this time of the fall of Babylon—the personal coming of Christ to save his people from the wrath to come. W. W. P.

A Day of Opportunity

By I. H. Evans

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS believe that at this time there is due to the world a special message to prepare a people for the soon coming of the Lord. That this message is world-wide and to go to every kindred and tongue and people, they truly believe is taught by the Word of God itself. They also believe that God has given this message to them that they might pass it on to the whole world in this generation.
The opportunities for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ were never so numerous as at the present time. The doors of the nations have been thrown wide open, and the cry is heard from every land, “Come over and help us.” Those who read the reports from the mission stations in the General Conference Bulletin during the session of our last General Conference, can not but be impressed with the universal call for means and workers from almost every land. China calls to this people for forty families to be sent to that country during the next two years. Korea stretches forth her hands most appealingly for help. Japan is looking to America that additional workers may be sent to help preach the gospel in that country. India calls for eleven families to be sent this year, if possible, to her needy fields. The Philippines, Africa, South America, Mexico, and the islands of the sea all appeal to us with outstretched hands, crying for help to spread the gospel of the soon-coming Saviour.
It is most encouraging to note the progress that the work is making among these nations. Since April more than ninety persons have accepted the truth in Korea alone. China, too, is reporting special progress, and the Lord is blessing in the work in that great field. India sends most encouraging reports of the work bestowed upon her people, and earnestly pleads that the General Conference will not fail to send recruits this year, to develop the work in the many openings that are calling for helpers.
What will the General Conference do with all these calls for additional workers? Is it able to supply the demand? Week after week, the General Conference Committee met at the close of the General Conference session, canvassing every conference in the United States, carefully scrutinizing the Year Book, trying to determine whom they could call upon to go to these foreign fields. Not one fourth of the workers called for at the last General Conference have been supplied by this denomination up to the present time. Is it not a sad pity that this people, with sixty thousand members in the United States, with schools scattered from the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, with ten thousand young people in training for the Master’s service, can not give to needy India, to the far East, and to darkened Africa the needed help to preach this truth? Think of these benighted heathen lands imploring a General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists to send them teachers of the third angel’s message.
The Mission Board greatly desires to secure the services of ten families to go to China this fall. Where are they? Who will go? Do we say that there certainly must be plenty, and that the call does not mean me? We must have young, strong, vigorous men and women who can learn the language, who will give their lives unselfishly to the preaching of the message to those poor heathen. The self-denials will be many, but the blessings that will come into the soul as the result of giving one’s life to this great work will amply repay all the sacrifice necessary to become a worker for this needy people.
We must have young men who will go to India, and study the various dialects and languages of that great country. One hundred forty-seven different languages are spoken in India, and we have not mastered so many as half a dozen ofthese languages. We must supply recruits to all these various nations in India before the Lord will come. Is the message to drag on indefinitely? Are the months and years to pass, and we yet be unable to supply the call for helpers in these various nationalities? If so, when do we expect the Lord to come? If the message is to go to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, and we have not manned more than six of the one hundred forty-seven languages in India; if we have entered only five of the eighteen different provinces of China; if Manchuria, Tibet, and Mongolia are all untouched, when can we expect the Lord to come unless we arise and do our work? Do we expect the Methodists, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, to preach the message to these heathen nations? Do we expect that other Christian people will take the third angel’s message and carry it to these nations of the world? What has God called us to this work for, if it be not to give this truth to the world in this generation?
But where are the men who will go to these needy fields? Shall these heathen die in their sin, while God’s people delay to do the work committed to them? Ought not the church of Christ to look to itself and determine whether there be those in its midst who ought to go to these distant fields? Why should not the church select its young people and arrange that they go to school and secure a training that will qualify them to do the Master’s work? It may be that these young people have not the funds with which to put themselves through school. What better work can a church do than to select its consecrated young people and give them a training, even at the expenditure of considerable means, in order that they may become workers in God’s cause?
We believe that the hour has come when this people must make advance moves. It will not do to let China rest another year. It will not do to let India go unrecruited and its calls unanswered simply because sixty thousand believers of the message in this country think they are unable to go to a foreign field. Surely God has given to this people strength, both financially and numerically, to do the work that he has committed to their trust. If we fail to do this work now, God must either wait our time, or he must raise up other men who will do the work, and receive the reward for their service.
We appeal to our people everywhere, to consider whether these great, needy fields shall receive the help they need, or whether they must languish or perish for the lack of the truth which we possess. We believe this is the day of God’s opportunity. The gateway to the nations of the world is open, and we are welcomed everywhere in all the world, to preach the gospel. Should we not quicken our pace? Should we not hasten our steps? Should we not consecrate our lives and means to the work of this message, as never before? Surely something must be done to cause us to arouse, that we may realize the responsibility of the work committed to this people, and to prompt us to quick action.
Why should not the church pray most earnestly that God will lay upon the hearts of those he can use in these fields, a great burden to go? There ought to be at least a score or more of families in addition to the workers already selected to go to the East, who would start for those countries this fall. While we are praying for workers, let us not forget to get the means necessary for their support. It means men, it means money, it means service and sacrifice on the part of those who go, and on the part of those who remain, if we finish this work.
As Mordecai said unto Esther when she, called to go before King Ahasuerus, feared that her life might be forfeited; so can we say to ourselves at this time, “Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king’s house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father’s house shall be destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” I. H. EVANS.
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