How we watch for the weekly visits of the dear old REVIEW, and scan its pages for words of courage and counsel. For thirty-five years this dear old messenger has visited my home, and surely I should not know what to do were it to stop. We look so carefully for the reports of the work done by our brethren in all parts of the field, and know they, too, are interested in the work we are doing. I am reminded of our duty to send in a report once in a while, that it may be seen what God is doing for us.
This week I take up the paper of June 18, and on reading Brother Spicer’s article in the Editorial department, “The Bond of Missionary Interest,” my heart is melted and my eyes are brought to tears as I see how we, too, are remembered by those we know and by those who have never seen us in the flesh, yet have a tender care for us and an interest in the work being done by our hands. Our hearts are touched, and we have not words to express our gratitude to God, and to our brethren for all the blessings received through their prayers and their gifts. That dear little “maiden” that was so interested in Elder Sturdevant’s needs and the typewriter, God has heard and seen. The typewriter has been here nearly two years, has written many a letter, and is printing this one for me today, with much other work it does for the mission.
UPPER — M. C. STURDEVANT’S NEIGHBOR AND HIS PUMPKINS
LOWER — BROTHER AND SISTER STURDEVANT ON THEIR WAY
TO VISIT GRANDPA’S FARM
OUR MISSION SCHOOL AT PANVEL, INDIA A. G. KELSEY (IN CHARGE OF PANVEL MISSION) AND FAMILY
And to that dear little band that Sister Gilbert is training to help us and do work for God, I would say, The teacher gets his wages from your funds. His name is Elijah Matebu. He is our chief teacher here, but spends some of his time with another teacher, Joel Cheranu. They are today going out over the country, visiting their people as evangelists. They are two faithful young men. The latter is our first fruits here at the Tsungwesi Mission. Elijah is one who came with me from Matabeleland. I wish you could have seen their faces two weeks ago when, on returning from one of their tours, they told their experiences. They said, “O, my! the darkness of our people! the darkness of our people!” We gave them the Friday evening prayer meeting hour to tell their experiences. It would take a little book to relate them all. They said, “Brethren, you do not know how great is the light God has given us here at Tsungwesi,” and urged the students to more study and watchfulness. You may be sure this strengthens the hands and hearts of the missionary.
I confess we sometimes get downhearted as the days and months go by and we see little result of our labor, but again the clouds clear away, and we see that a good work is being accomplished. When we arrived home, now eight months ago, and saw what havoc sickness and death had wrought,—the closing up of our mission and the burning of many of our houses because of the smallpox,—our hearts melted within us, and we scarcely had courage to take up the work and go on with it. Then, too, our helpers who came with us broke down in health at once, and had to go to the Cape for treatment, bringing another check upon the school work. The brethren who were sent to help us soon came down with fever, one having to leave in a little while, the other laboring on with fever almost every week. This, with all the rebuilding, restoring, and trying to make the work advance, seeking to bring good cheer and courage to the students (for many had become dreadfully downhearted, and nearly all the older students had left the mission), made the work exceedingly hard on us. My own health finally gave way. It is marvelous how Mrs. Sturdevant has stood the work, sometimes caring for three sick ones at a time, and looking after the general work of the mission alone. It is all of God; the strength given has been a miracle. To him be all the glory.
The past eight months have been far the hardest time we ever spent in mission work, but thanks be to our Heavenly Father, our sickness seems to have passed. Brother and Sister Jewell are restored to their work in the school, and Brother Harry Jennings has come to help in the general farm and building work. Courage has revived, and our school has increased from thirty-four (mostly girls and small boys) to nearly one hundred, among whom are many strong young men who will help us in the heavy work of building up the mission. These are all boarding students. Surely, in the midst of perplexity the Lord has worked and has crowned our efforts with success. We give glory to God, take courage, and press on.
I wish our brethren over the sea could have been here today and heard the sermon our native ox driver, Frank Mlombe, preached to us. He took his text from the fifth chapter of James, and admonished and comforted his brethren and fellow students in a remarkable way. Taking a train of cars as an illustration, he said: “When we want to go on a journey, we first get ready. Then we go to the station master and get our tickets. After we have the tickets, we can go through to the end of the journey.” Then with eyes aglow and face shining, he said: “Brethren, we are soon going to heaven. The Lord has sent us the station masters [pointing to his teachers] to give us the ticket [holding up the13Bible]. Have you taken your tickets? We are soon going home. It is time we were getting our tickets.” It was the thought of his own heart. A few years ago he was a poor heathen in Matabeleland, with no knowledge of a Saviour. Today he is an ordained deacon in our native church. I sat behind him and listened. I thought to myself, “This is enough to pay me for coming to Africa.”
So while the clouds gather and the tempests at times rage, God is behind it all, and the work is advancing. Be assured your prayers are not in vain. Your gifts are appreciated. Hold the ropes firmly a little longer, and we will stay here to find the jewels. Encourage those dear little children to keep up their works of benevolence. Their gifts will be rewarded at the coming of our Lord. Finally, pray for us.
Medical Missionary Work Among the Porto Ricans
By Clarence E. Moon
CLARENCE E. MOON
It has now been five months since we landed on this beautiful little island and began the study of the Spanish language. These months have been full of interesting experiences for newcomers in a foreign country. As most of our time and attention were given to the language, we did very little medical work, but spent some time in visiting and holding cottage meetings. Many came to us for dental work, and this helped us to get acquainted with them and to win their confidence. These people are whole-hearted, and one grows to love them as he gets accustomed to their ways of thinking, and enters into their joys and cares and becomes one of them.
It seemed to us at first that we never should be able to understand the Spanish language; but little by little our ears became accustomed to the sound, and we could catch a familiar word now and then, until now it seems quite plain. We made our home in Santurce during our first months of language study. We were fortunate in having a nice six-room cottage in a pretty part of the city. We took a special interest in our little church there and became much impressed with the devotion and self-sacrifice of its members. Most of them are very poor people, the larger share being women whose only income is from washing and ironing, but they raised in cash and pledges $450 for a new church building. If some of our people in the States could but visit these poor people in their homes, and see their poverty, they would wonder how it could be possible for a church with such a small membership to raise so much money.
Most of our members are better equipped than the majority of the people, but we do not find their homes bedecked with costly furniture or rugs. Everything is very simple. A folding canvas cot to sleep on, a charcoal stove for cooking purposes, and a small table are about all the furniture they have. Some of our wealthier members in the States could do no better than to invest their money in mission fields. I have talked with some of our people who have said that they were holding their money until the Lord tells them to sell their property and give; but could they hear the cry that is ascending to God day and night from thousands of souls out in the dark fields, going down to eternal death without hope and without God in the world, they would surely say that it is time now to give their means. Now is the harvest time. Soon it will be said, “The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.”
I was holding a cottage meeting the other day, and one of the women present said: “And will God destroy us because we never knew about him? We have had no one to teach us.” She said it so earnestly, with tears in her eyes, leaning forward in her eagerness to catch every word. I thought to myself, If our people only knew of the poor souls who are perishing without a knowledge of their Saviour, it would stir them to still greater endeavor.
Our work for the past month has been here at Moca, in the hills of Porto Rico. We have been kept busy assisting in the meetings conducted by Brother William Steele—visiting and doing medical work. People call for us by day and by night for treatment and medical advice. Mrs. Moon was called out one night to treat a woman living on the mountain side. She rode horseback over a narrow trail made doubly dangerous by recent rains, and had scarcely returned home and got in bed when we were called out for the rest of the night on another case. There are great possibilities for the medical work, but our main issue is the gospel; so we improve every opportunity to teach the Bible, and at present many in this vicinity are calling for meetings to be held in their homes.
Our meetings have been well attended from the first. Our hall will seat about one hundred, and has been well filled every night, besides many people standing in the streets and at the windows and doors. Last evening a call was made for those to arise who would keep God’s commandments and honor the day set apart by Jehovah for rest. There were fifty or sixty who stood up. It was a blessed occasion to see so many stand for Jesus, when we realize that it means perhaps their very bread should they keep the Sabbath. But in the face of all difficulties, we find that there are those who will be faithful to God, walking in all his commandments. May the day soon come when the faithful of all the nations will be called out. “And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.”
Moca, Porto Rico.
One of the Missionary Perils
THROUGHOUT the tropics it is a constant battle with the malaria, spread about by the mosquito. Speaking of these experiences, and of the first line of defense, Dr. Elmer F. Otis, of the Republic of Dominica, says:—
“The malaria is a real daily and hourly struggle for those who wish to survive in these tropical lands. Malignant malarias of the worst type are developing rapidly of late in Porto Rico, and we find them here even more abounding. There is only one protection,— screen yourself absolutely and continuously from the mosquito. There is likewise only one safe cure. It is heroic treatment under a good doctor’s care. None of our missionaries ought to die of typhoid fever or smallpox, for they can take the vaccinations. But malaria and these tropical diseases contracted by bites, are a constant danger to us all. We ourselves are tempted these hot nights to throw aside our mosquito protection, for the sake of more fresh air or for other reasons, but we know that we should thereby remove our lives from a providential, protecting influence.”
By Strange Paths
AN illustration of the Lord’s overruling hand in bringing his children into light over strange paths comes to us in a letter from Sister Helen Williams, of South Africa, who writes from one of the colonial cities:—
“A young woman, a member of our church in this place, who accepted the truth through my Bible work some years ago, was left in a condition requiring her to earn her living. She preferred to take up work in some other place, and so went to another town and became housekeeper in the home of a professor whose wife was assisting him in his school work.”
“After leaving us she became cold and careless spiritually, and did things that were wrong. The professor reproved her sharply. In the course of the conversation concerning religious experience, she asked him why he continued breaking the fourth commandment. This led to her sending to me for reading matter, and I sent her a number of tracts on different points of the truth. The outcome of it all is that the housekeeper herself was reconverted, and the professor accepted the truth and is with us. He is rejoicing in the light that he has found, and assisting in the meetings of the church.”
The Little Room Glorified
DR. J. H. JOWETT tells how he once called upon a cobbler whose home was in a little seaside town in the north of England. He worked alone in an exceedingly tiny room. “I asked him if he did not sometimes feel oppressed by the imprisonment of his little chamber. ‘O, no,’ he replied, ‘if any feelings of that sort begin, I just open this door.’ And he opened a door leading into another room, and it gave him a glorious view of the sea. The little room was glorified by its vast revelation.”—Selected.
How Parents May Live With Their Children and What They May Do to Save Them
By Mary H. Moore
MARY H. MOORE
IT is not enough that parents provide food, raiment, shelter, and education for their children. The true family life, the real living of parents with their children, requires far more than this; for a man's life consists not in the abundance of outward possessions.
To secure this ideal family life, this true living with our children, the parents must be agreed, must be united in purposes and plans, and must be one in an intense sympathy with their children. This is not a silly, sentimental sympathy that cultivates self-pity, “the basest emotion of the mind,” but such a sympathy as helps to endure the trials of life; such a sympathy as will rightly weigh in the balance the issues of life, and discard the fleeting pleasures of the present in favor of the immeasurably greater future good. The parents will be able by this sympathy to put themselves in the place of their children, and so to understand the workings of their minds as to take them by the hand and lead them in the way of life.
Fathers and mothers, remember the days of your own youth, your own mistakes and follies, and deal accordingly with your children. Take for your model your Heavenly Father's relations with you. How do you wish him to deal with you in your weaknesses and shortcomings? Then deal the same, as far as sinful man can, with the children God has given you. By all your hopes of heaven, I implore you, make the ways of the Lord with you your ways toward your children.
Study the temperament and disposition of each child. This study, pursued in humble dependence on the source of all wisdom, will enable you to understand the peculiar needs of each child, to meet its faults with the right form of discipline, to administer the right antidote for evil tempers, and to encourage the virtues and graces.
A wise writer concerning the family relation has said that “in a Christian home the discipline of children is not so much a matter of exhortation as of contagion.” Our own lives are molded and determined by the ideals implanted in our minds in early life. If we as parents have, and hold to, right and pure ideals in our own lives, it will be easy to imbue the children with the same ideals. It is the girl brought up to desire as the greatest good, luxury, ease, gay clothes, and amusements who falls an easy prey to the tempter. It is the boy who grows up in idleness and in selfish indulgence, without the bracing tonic of self-denial and honest labor, who becomes the menace to society.
We cannot teach what we do not ourselves know; and in order that we may help our children to be saved, we must first have a real, saving experience of the gospel, which is the power of God unto salvation. Our lives must be daily a fresh experience of communion with God.
It is our own lives that tell most forcibly for the religion we profess. A young man was once taken by a friend to hear Robert Ingersoll lecture against the Bible. As they came away, the friend said, “What do you think of that? Didn’t he overthrow the Bible?” “Perhaps,” answered the young man, “but there is one thing he did not overthrow,—my mother’s life.”
Always set your children the example of regular attendance at all the means of grace,—the Sabbath school, church, and prayer meeting. Do not send them alone, but always go with them if possible, and by the help of God you can make it possible oftener than you think. Study the lessons with them at home, and take a real interest in what they hear and learn at Sabbath school. Question them on the sermon, and never criticize the minister or teacher before them.
Read the Bible with them, and often kneel with them in prayer in private, besides the faithful maintenance of the family altar. In every way impress upon their young and tender minds that you expect them to grow up Christians. While your children are young, your attendance at their bedtime hour is a material necessity. But, mothers, this is your golden opportunity. Then you can teach them of Jesus and his love, and they will easily learn the tender words of prayer. There is no time when loving counsels find a more responsive chord. This is the time for sacred confidences, and the bond of unity between you and your child will become the threefold cord of love, trust, and obedience that will not be quickly broken.
As the children grow older and do not need your material aid so much, they will still need the loving good-night kiss and the affectionate embrace and the helpful counsels. So do not lightly drop the bedtime visit.
When adolescence approaches and symptoms of waywardness and impatience of restraint appear, do not grow discouraged. Renew your importunity at the throne of grace, and continue with love, faith, and patience to gently guide them and keep ever before them a practical illustration of the high ideals you wish them to follow. Study continually the workings of your child’s mind, and adapt your methods accordingly. God will show you how. Remember that as a man sows, so shall he also reap; and if you sow sparingly of your efforts in this direction, you will reap sparingly; but if you sow to the Spirit, you will of the Spirit reap life everlasting.
It is worse than useless for you as parents to preach truthfulness while you practice deception in any form. If you teach your children that it is wrong to steal, your teaching will be in vain if you practice petty underhand meannesses. You cannot inculcate purity of heart and speech while indulging in low scandal-mongering. So we might go on through all the scale of morals. Be yourselves always what you want your children to be.
Jesus tells us that if two or three are agreed on earth touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of his Father in heaven. No “ifs” or “ands” about it. What power, then, there must be in the united prayers of parents for their children. The salvation of souls is one of the objects for which we may pray with full assurance that our prayers are in harmony with God’s will. All power, then, of heaven and earth is on our side when we pray for the conversion of our children.
But besides religious instruction, prayers, and holy examples, there are15certain practical hints which may be of value in training children to right habits of life. First, make companions, comrades, and confidants of your children, not to the exclusion of all youthful associates, but make yourself first, dearest, and best among their friends. Invite their young friends to your home, and carefully but unobtrusively watch over their intercourse, so you will be able to guard their associations with others.
Let your children share in the duties of the home, and you yourself take a part in their recreations. All children love to help. Do not snub their early aspirations to learn to do things. Encourage them to take responsibilities. No more fruitful cause of youth going astray can be found than idleness. As the poet says:—
“Idle boys and girls are found
Standing on the devil’s ground;
He will give them work to do,
And he will pay them wages, too.”
Habits of industry can be formed early in life, and a love for useful employment can be cultivated.
“All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,” is a trite saying, but none the less true; and parents must provide proper recreation for their children. Space will permit only one principle to be laid down here, one which is the foundation of all right living: “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” Any amusement or recreation, therefore, which leaves one in an unfit state of mind for the worship of God is to be avoided.
The same rule applies to reading, and it is imperative for every parent to know what his children are reading, and so judiciously train them to love good reading; for one may become a slave to pernicious reading just as truly as to intoxicating drink or any other poison. Fiction truly intoxicates the mind, and unfits it to realize the solemn truths of life.
Let me also lay down one simple rule for permissions and refusals, which form so large a part of parental discipline. When you consent, consent cordially. Do not fling the consent to the child as you would toss a bone to a dog to get rid of him, but graciously, as you would to an equal. When you refuse, refuse finally. Let your “No” have not one particle of “Yes” in it; and in order that you may be able to do this with justice, consider well before you decide upon your answer.
What has been written applies equally to fathers and mothers. It is too often the case that the burden of child training is put upon the mother alone. This is not God’s plan. It was Abraham, not Sarah, that commanded the household. But if through the stress of modern life, the pressure of modern business, or a lack of unity in the faith, the burden falls wholly upon the mother, thank God that he comes to the rescue and gives added grace to do the work. It was the mother and the grandmother who instructed Timothy, and he became a messenger of the gospel, even though his father was a Greek.
You may say, “Who is sufficient for these things?” True, it is a great and solemn thing to enter into partnership with God and give life to a child and train it for eternity. But the rewards are as great as the work, and “angels of God are waiting to cooperate with the human agent who devises plans to save souls.”
While there is a peculiarly tender relation existing between mothers and sons, and fathers and daughters, yet there is work to do for sons that only fathers can do; and only a mother can enter wholly into the mysterious and oftentimes seemingly unreasonable vagaries of the adolescent girl.
Fathers and mothers alike, I appeal to you in the name of Jesus, who died for your children, and in the name of the Father, who gave up forever his only Son that your children might be redeemed, let there be no failure on your part to accomplish this divine work. If the work is hard, you are partners with God, and he gives the increase.
Work, pray, sacrifice, and cease not your vigilance day or night until you can say, Here am I, and the children that God has given me.
College View, Nebr.
The Lesson
By Ella A. Fanning
SHE gazes at her little brood,
Their clamorous wants she must supply.
New tenderness is in her tones—
“O, blest and happy mother I!
“But yesterday this humdrum life,
Its homely burdens, wearied me.
Impatient I, and discontent,
My cares were all that I could see!”
“From dawn to dusk new tasks arose—
How blessed each one seems today!
The plain farm duties! How I joy
Here, safe, protected, dull, to stay!”
“The plenteous fields are stretching wide,
The quiet village lies below;
No rumor comes of pillage, want;
There’s no alarm of threatening foe.
“Gay hollyhocks nod by the wall,
The boughs with ripening fruit hang low,
From yonder oat field sounds the voice
Of one whose fealty well I know.
“God pity women oversea,
Who husbands, sons, must give to die!
God make me thankful! They deserved
Love, safety, peace, as much as I.”
— Ella A. Fanning, in New York Sun.
Conducted by Mrs. C. C. Lewis, Takoma Park, Washington, D. C
By Mrs. C. C. Lewis
Through the columns of this department, hints will be given on all matters pertaining to the home life. Short articles and letters are solicited from home makers, telling of their everyday experiences,—their joys and sorrows, their failures and successes.
Mrs. Middleton’s Mistake and How She Corrected It
By Mrs. C. C. L.
(Concluded)
WHEN they were seated alone in the parlor, Mrs. Wiseheart said: “How is it John goes out so much evenings without you? When the tent was pitched here, you and he were always running around together, and seemed to be so happy in each other’s society.”
Mrs. Middleton sat silent for some moments, absorbed in deep thought. As she turned her face toward her friend, she said: “I fear I have been making a great mistake. I have often been lonely without him. I have asked him to go to the prayer meeting with me, but he does not care to go. He used to buy me beautiful things to wear, but I thought it wrong to put them on, and now he does not bring me any more.”
As the two women talked, Mrs. Middleton’s heart was deeply touched. She began to see that her husband’s soul was just as precious in the sight of God as the souls of other people, and that if she did not win him to Christ, perhaps no one else ever could. Mrs. Wiseheart said, “Did you ever read what it says in 1 Cor. 7: 12-17 about the unbelieving companion?” “Why, no,” replied Mrs. Middleton. “Does it speak of such a case as that? I am sure I should be very glad to see it.”
“My dear,” said Mrs. Wiseheart, “let us make this matter a subject of prayer. It will never do for you to lose your influence over John. Can you not plan little surprises for him? Invite in some of his friends; put on your prettiest dress and go for a car ride, a picnic, or some little outing. Take the children into your confidence; find an interesting book, have yourself and the children daintily dressed, and spend the evening together occasionally, in reading and in innocent diversion.”
“Of course you cannot go to all the places of worldly pleasure you once did, but I believe God will help you to bind your husband to you. If you will plan interesting and pleasant entertainment at home, I think he will decide it is more pleasant to stay with you and the children than to go out to find other company. Be sure you leave nothing undone you can consistently do to please him and make him happy. It may be that God will touch his heart, and by your conversation and well-ordered, devoted life, you may win your husband to Jesus.”
Mrs. Middleton was getting a new vision of life. As she studied the Word and the spirit of prophecy, she got a glimpse of the position of a believing wife in an unbelieving household. She was led to see what a golden opportunity she had to preach Christ to her family. On one occasion, as she was praying, the case of Augustine came to her mind. He was a man of violent temper, yet the prayers and patience of his consecrated wife prevailed in his behalf, and he was led to the Saviour. She said in her heart, “Would that I might thus win my husband.”
But how to begin was the question. She studied the situation with much prayer. She and Mrs. Wiseheart decided to talk the matter over with their other friend, Mrs. Heartsease, who was also an earnest Christian. They chose a certain hour each day for prayer. No matter where they were — at home or on the street, together or alone — at the set time they agreed to lift their hearts to God and plead with him for Mr. Middleton’s conversion, and for Mrs. Middleton’s guidance in her efforts to do her part in their home.
These prayer seasons soon brought renewed strength and spiritual vigor to Mrs. Middleton’s own life, so that her heart was overflowing with praise and good courage in the Lord.
One day, nearing Thanksgiving time, she began to plan a family dinner. She took the children into her confidence. They wanted to have things well started before they told the father. She planned a menu that she knew he would enjoy. Some things were not suited to her own taste, but she recognized that it was his home as well as hers, and she tried to make the best of the situation.
That evening when Mr. Middleton came home, he was quite surprised to find his wife dressed as if she were going out; but it was long after the hour for the prayer meeting, and she had not gone. On his inquiring if she were not going to the meeting, she said she had decided to remain at home with him.
Mr. Middleton wondered in his own mind if his wife was backsliding or what had changed her mind. But she was so patient and did so much for his comfort16and pleasure that he could not help feeling she was like a good angel in the house. Later she told him that they were considering changing the time of the meeting, and she hoped to get it on the evening he had to be out, so they could be at home on the same evenings.
Not long after this there was to be a musical entertainment in their town, and Mr. Middleton brought home tickets for himself and family. He noticed with ill-concealed pleasure that his wife was willing to accompany him. He thought to himself, “I wonder what has got into Marie; I can’t believe she is going back on her religion, for she reads her Bible more than ever, and is so patient with the children. Even though I have been such a grouch at times, she bears it all so quietly. Of course she has some strange notions about parties, fashions, and other things; but let her have them. She has a right to have her own opinions. She is a good wife, anyhow.”
Mrs. Wiseheart was much encouraged on her next visit to learn that the Middletons were out to the musical in full force. She did not need to be told that things were going better in the home of her friends.
But complete victory did not come at once. The praying women were often reminded that sin and the love of worldly pleasure die hard. Mrs. Middleton’s heart often ached over things she could not control. Sometimes her husband spent his evenings away from home, and sometimes he wanted the children to attend places of pleasure which she could not indorse. At such times she could only flee to her secret place of prayer, and ask God to raise up a standard in their young hearts against the enemy.
Mr. Middleton was fond of society and “a good time,” but he loved his children more. One day it occurred to him that the division in sentiment in his home was not conducive to the best results in child training. He admitted to himself that either he was going wrong or his wife was. He had to own she was more patient, economical, and unselfish than he. As he thought over his life for the past few years, he could see only selfishness and personal gratification in almost everything he had done. Something brought that text of Scripture to his mind which says, “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” He felt more and more impressed, for the sake of his children and for his own peace of mind, that he must turn over a new leaf. His wife had struggled along alone a good while, and he said to himself: “It’s no use; I can’t hold out longer. I will go with her;” and he did. The prayer band had done its work.
“Prayer is appointed to convey
The blessings God designs to give;
Long as they live should Christians pray,
They learn to pray when first they live.”
MRS. C. C. L.
Minnesota
By G. W. Wells
In looking over the record of work done in our conference the past few months, I find there is evidence of progress, and we have reason for gratitude to God. His Spirit has gone out before the workers and has rested upon all who have faithfully performed their service for him.
We have had seven tent companies in the field this season, and as a result of these efforts and of other meetings held, there have been about one hundred and sixty persons baptized. This is encouraging, but in view of the passing events, which clearly indicate that we are living in the closing scenes of this world, it seems as if much more should have been accomplished.
There have been strong efforts put forth in scattering the printed page, and the results show that we made a gain of nearly $4,000 over last year’s record for nine months. Our sales this year amount to over $15,000. Adding to this the sales on trade books and tracts increases the totals to $17,641. The magazine sales have come to $4,500, making a grand total of $22,141.
Our churches responded splendidly in the distribution of the REVIEW WAR Extra, and now efforts are being made in the Harvest Ingathering campaign. We are indeed thankful for the spirit of cooperation shown in carrying forward the work in the home field, but glad it is not confined here. Our interest and desire to see the message rapidly spreading to all parts of the earth, has been made manifest by the spirit of liberality in our gifts to missions. We are still a little above the quota mark, and are expecting nothing less than the full amount when the year closes.
The magnitude of the work yet to be done and the nearness of the end should urge us to more earnest consecrated effort, to untiring diligence and unceasing prayer; and then the blessed Holy Spirit will fill our hearts, the work will be finished, and the Lord will come; and for the faithful there will be joy forevermore.
G. W. WELLS.
Home Missionary Work in Brazil
By Pauline Hennig
A FEW months ago the members of the Missionary Volunteer Society began tract work in São Bernardo. The same families were called on once a week and a tract left. As a result, we have been able to gain entrance into several homes, where we are regularly giving Bible studies. One family are Spiritualists, and the man has been a medium for four years. We feared they would reject the studies as soon as they found out what we believe about their doctrine, but they did not. They are earnestly seeking more light. We have had several studies on the Sabbath question with a Polish family, and they have now promised to keep the Sabbath. A young man who works with the father in the blacksmith shop is also much interested.
One of our brethren has been working with a Roman Catholic neighbor for some time. The man was wealthy, and did not seem to be serious about the truth; but the Lord allowed sickness to come into his family, and all his money was spent in the hospital. Our brother, to whom he told his hardships, explained to him that the Lord uses such ways to lead people to him. The man then began to read again the books that had been lent him. He also bought a Bible and studied earnestly, even laying it under his pillow at night, so that he could look up passages that came to his mind. One time after studying with him, our brother asked to have prayer. The neighbor went to get a prayer book, but the brother, of course, would not use it. After the prayer, the man said: “Please do write that prayer down for me, so that I can pray it, too.” My husband is studying with him now, and the Word of God is indeed precious to him. He is ready for baptism, and is planning to enter the canvassing work. His family is accepting the truth with him.
Recently a man, a director of a Catholic hospital, came several hours' ride from the interior to be baptized. Four years ago he bought some books of one17of our canvassers, and began studying the truth. After last New Year's Day a canvasser again went there, and found the man keeping the Sabbath. He sent us his address, and our young people began corresponding with him, and also sent him more literature. So he fully decided to obey the truth, and came for baptism. In the place where he works he was prohibited from having a Portuguese Bible, so he bought an English one, and studied that. Another man in that place is also keeping the Sabbath, but could not come on account of sickness. That shows that our literature reaches people where no minister has ever been.
In São Paulo a German family had heard the truth some time ago, but did not accept it, because they thought they could not keep the Sabbath. So the Lord permitted them to lose everything they had. Now in their need they are seeking the Lord, and are ready to accept the truth.
