p. 10 | Review and Herald, Vol. 80, No. 17. (4/28/1903)

Words of Counsel

By Mrs. F. G. White

MRS. F. G. WHITE

I HAVE a message for those who are bearing responsibilities in God's institutions. The Lord calls upon them to bring his grace into their thoughts, their words, their deportment. They are not to leave their religion at home when they go to business for the day. Let them not, after praying to the Heavenly Father for grace and strength, go to their work with a surly, dictatorial, overbearing spirit, and a sour, disagreeable countenance. They are Christ's representatives, and they are to exert an influence that is a savor of life unto life.

God holds the managers of his institutions responsible to treat the youth in the employ of these institutions with courtesy, respect, and kindness. They are to deal with them as they themselves wish to be dealt with by Christ. Their first work is to be so kind to the youth, so thoughtful of their interests, that they will feel at home in their presence.

The Lord expects his people to bring religion into their business life as verily as into the assembly for his worship. How does he regard the testimonies borne on the Sabbath by those who during the week left Christ out of their work, and spoke harsh, unfeeling words? What impression do these testimonies make on those who have been hurt and wounded by the harsh words spoken?

Those who control others should first learn to control themselves. Unless they learn this lesson, they can not be Christ-like in their work. They are to abide in Christ, speaking as he would speak, acting as he would act,—with unfailing tenderness and compassion. They are not to think, because they are in a position of responsibility, that they are at liberty to deal harshly with those connected with them. To the one who manages, God has given a measure of power, but this power he is ever to exercise in a pleasing and agreeable manner. He is not to feel at liberty to speak and act in an unchristlike way because an error has been made. Thus he aggravates the wrong. He arouses in the workers a spirit of retaliation, causing them to lose confidence in him as a Christian.

The Lord hears the petitions of his people when they mean what they say, and when they reveal a determined purpose to live in harmony with their prayers. But he can not honor those who rise from their knees to speak harsh, angry words, words which are entirely out of place, even though the one to whom they are spoken is in the wrong.

O what a power a converted man, transformed daily, can exert to bring blessing and gladness to those around him! Those who bear responsibilities in God's institutions are to grow in grace and in a knowledge of divine things. Ever they are to remember that the talent of speech is entrusted to them by God for the help and blessing of others. It is left with them to decide whether they will speak words that will honor Christ, or words that will be a hindrance to those who hear. O what a blessing are pleasant, sympathetic words,—words that uplift and strengthen! When asked a question, one should not answer abruptly, but kindly. The heart of the one that is asking may be sorely grieved by a hidden sorrow, that may not be told. This he may not know; therefore his words should always be kind and sympathetic. By a few well-chosen, helpful words, he may remove a heavy load from a fellow worker's mind.

To those bearing responsibilities in our institutions this word is given: ‘The elders which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder, and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that shall be revealed: Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being ensamples to the flock.’

In this charge there is a threefold duty. ‘Feed the flock of God,’—by preaching to them his Word, by giving them earnest, personal labor, by setting them a right example. ‘Feed the flock of God,’ ‘taking the oversight thereof,’ having a personal care for the blood-bought heritage committed to your charge, ‘being ensamples to the flock,’ following Christ in self-denial and sacrifice, in the life revealing holiness to the Lord. All this is to be done of a ready, cheerful mind, ‘neither as being lords over God's heritage,’ tyrannizing over them.

Let those who have been exalted to the high position of managers in the Lord's institutions, who are set as guardians of their fellow workers, pray most earnestly for divine grace. Before they take up the work of the day, let them make a solemn covenant with God, promising him that they will keep watchful guard over their lips, not speaking harshly, but kindly, to those who come to them for direction. Let them remember that they themselves are ever to be under the control of the Spirit of God, rendering prompt and cheerful obedience to his commands. Let them remember that they are living epistles, known and read of all men, and that because they are Christ's representatives, they are to be one with him, ever looking to him, and from him receiving strength for every conflict.

‘Be ye clean, that bear the vessels of the Lord.’ In our institutions let self-seeking give place to unselfish love and labor. Then the golden oil will be emptied from the two olive branches into the golden pipes, which will empty themselves into the vessels prepared to receive it. Then the lives of Christ's workers will indeed be an exposition of the sacred truths of his Word.

The fear of God, the sense of his goodness, his holiness, will circulate through every institution. An atmosphere of love and peace will pervade every department. Every word spoken, every work performed, will have an influence that corresponds to the influence of heaven. Christ will abide in humanity, and humanity will abide in Christ. In all the work will appear not the character of finite men, but the character of the infinite God. The divine influence imparted by holy angels will impress the minds brought in contact with the workers; and from these workers a fragrant influence will go forth to those who choose to inhale it. The goodly fabric of character wrought through divine power will receive light and glory from heaven, and will stand before the world as a witness, pointing to the throne of the living God.

Then the work will move forward with solidity and double strength. A new efficiency will be imparted to the workers. Men will learn of the reconciliation from iniquity which the Messiah has brought in through his sacrifice. The last message of warning and salvation will be given with mighty power. The earth will be lightened with the glory of God, and it will be ours to witness the soon coming, in power and glory, of our Lord and Saviour.

Experience of God's Prophets

By John Norton Loughborough

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH

(Concluded)

“Ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchers of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers.” Matt. 23: 29-32.

Human nature is the same in all ages. “The carnal mind is enmity against

God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” Rom. 8: 7. Those in ancient time who were reproved for a wrong course of action in following the natural inclination of the heart, rebelled against the reproofs given them. These, their children in the days of our Saviour, were doing the same thing. The sinless life of Christ, and his reproofs of a pharisaical, self-righteous course, angered them, even as the teachings and lives of the ancient prophets had stirred the hatred of their fathers until Satan led them to take the lives of those holy men of God. Those who lived in Christ’s time could see how their fathers had erred in the course they had taken. Their self-sufficiency, and hatred of reproof, led Stephen to say of them, “Ye stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.” Acts 7: 51. Paul referred to what Isaiah had said of that people, in these words: “The heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed; lest they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.” Acts 28: 27.

Similar influence of unsanctified hearts will lead to a rejection of the instruction which the Lord sends to his people in these last days. A retrospective view shows how unwise it was, in the days of the ancient prophets, and in the days of Christ and his apostles, for the people to sit in judgment upon and reject the Lord’s instruction to them, simply because it reproved them. Are we sure that we are not in similar danger? It is easy to admit the teachings of God’s servants in ancient times, and easy to condemn their persecutors; but are we certain that we would have done differently in their circumstances? While it may be easy to believe that which is in harmony with our thoughts and plans, are we sure that we should not reject that which reproved our wrongs? “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” Jer. 17: 9. “Who can understand his errors?” Ps. 19: 12.

The natural heart does not love reproof, and consequently many have been led to reject the instruction which the Lord is giving to his people. This is plainly stated in the following quotation: “Many who have backslidden from the truth assign as a reason for their course, that they do not have faith in the Testimonies. Investigation reveals the fact that they had some sinful habit that God has condemned through the Testimonies. The question now is, Will they yield their idol which God condemns? or will they continue in their wrong course of indulgence, and reject the light God has given them, reproving the very things in which they delight. The question to be settled with them is, Shall I deny myself, and receive as of God the Testimonies which reprove my sins?”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. IV, page 32.

Again: “Faith and love are golden treasures, elements that are greatly wanting among God’s people. I have been shown that unbelief in the Testimonies of warning, encouragement, and reproof, is shutting away the light from God’s people. Unbelief is closing their eyes, so that they are ignorant of their true condition. The True Witness thus describes their blindness: ‘And knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.’”—Id., Vol. III, page 255.

A few months ago, in a place where for three days I had been speaking on the subject of spiritual gifts, and had presented more than a score of comparisons between the Scripture gift of prophecy and the manifestation of the gift among this people, showing that it met the Bible standard in every particular, an individual said to me, “I do not believe in that gift.” I said, “Have you heard the proofs I have presented of its being genuine?” “Yes!” I then inquired, “What do you do with those proofs?” The reply was, “I don’t do anything with them; but I don’t believe in testimonies restraining appetite. I think a person should be free to eat and drink as he pleases.” That one sentence explained the difficulty. Yet this same individual was one who professed to keep all the commandments of God.

In the fifty years past that I have been connected with this people, and have watched the Testimonies given, I have seen instances that in principle are like those recorded in Jeremiah’s time. The people who were left in Jerusalem at the time of the captivity, wanted to go to Egypt instead of remaining as Jeremiah, who had the mind of the Lord, had advised them.

“Then all the captains of the forces, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and Jezaniah the son of Hoshaiyah, and all the people from the least even unto the greatest, came near, and said unto Jeremiah the prophet, Let, we beseech thee, our supplication be accepted before thee, and pray for us unto the Lord thy God, even for all this remnant (for we are left but a few of many, as thine eyes do behold us); that the Lord thy God may show us the way wherein we may walk, and the thing that we may do. . . . Then they said to Jeremiah, The Lord be a true and faithful witness between us, if we do not even according to all things for the which the Lord thy God shall send thee to us. Whether it be good, or whether it be evil, we will obey the voice of the Lord our God, to whom we send thee; that it may be well with us when we obey the voice of the Lord our God.” Jer. 42: 1-6.

After ten days this message came to them: “The Lord hath said concerning you, O ye remnant of Judah; Go ye not into Egypt: know certainly that I have admonished you this day. For ye dissembled in your hearts, when ye sent me unto the Lord your God, saying, Pray for us unto the Lord our God; and according unto all that the Lord our God shall say, so declare unto us, and we will do it.” Jer. 42: 19, 20.

We read of this still further: “And it came to pass, that when Jeremiah had made an end of speaking unto all the people all the words of the Lord their God, for which the Lord their God had sent him unto them, even all these words, then spake Azariah the son of Hoshaiyah, and Johanan the son of Kareah, and all the proud men, saying unto Jeremiah, Thou speakest falsely: the Lord our God hath not sent thee to say, Go not into Egypt to sojourn there: but Baruch the son of Neriah setteth thee on against us, for to deliver us into the hand of the Chaldeans, that they might put us to death, and carry us away captives into Babylon.” Jer. 43: 1-3.

There are those who for various causes have been prevented from carrying out their cherished schemes and their special methods of working, who have said, “O that the Lord would speak through the gift of prophecy on these things!” When, at last, light in this way did come, contrary, however, to their ideas, they have said, “O, that is not the Lord’s instruction, it is simply the opinion of the writer, who is influenced by some one not in harmony with my plan.”

May the Lord help us to heed the apostle’s instruction given for this time, “Despise not prophesyings. Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” 1 Thess. 5: 20, 21.

The New Thought Salvation

It is more than a coincidence that with the marvelous increase in the acceptance and promulgation of the “higher criticism” we see a wonderful increase in the spread of the doctrine of man’s power to save himself. The two facts are not only in harmony with each other; they are interdependent. The latter has grown out of the former as naturally as a shoot grows out of a parent stock. The destruction of faith in the teachings of God’s Word, the destruction of faith in the plan of salvation which God instituted, was bound to result in a man-made plan of salvation; and it has come. Schools for the propagation of this faith-destroying and soul-wrecking doctrine, or philosophy, are starting up in many places in this and other countries, the tenor of whose teaching is the sufficiency of man for the salvation of man. With the destruction of faith in God’s Word, God’s plan, and consequently in God himself, man has begun to look to himself, to exalt himself, to make a savior of himself, while treating as a myth or a fable the Saviour who only can save any one in the world or out of it.

That theory, or philosophy, works the work of the “man of sin” as truly as the papacy has ever done it; for it puts man in the place of God as Saviour, abolishes the Mediator, dethrones the everlasting King, and puts the creature in the place of the Creator, by making the creature the chief being in the universe. All that is what Satan tried to do in heaven, and he is seeking now to accomplish it in the

minds of men; and men and women are allowing themselves to be deceived into taking just such a disastrous position.

This “new thought” is expressed in various forms; but a prominent exponent of the idea has clothed it in such language as this: “Man is his own savior, by virtue of the divine immanence within. It is an eternal decree of life that man must evolve and work out his own destiny throughout the earth and in the more interior spiritual spheres of his existence. The Christ [by which they mean the spirit of life] must be generated from within in every individual soul. . . . Every living soul must be its own saving power. There will not be a single human soul saved by any power external to itself.”

What that salvation means it is difficult to imagine. What that kind of a savior is able to do for one they do not tell us. But every one who has measured his own life by the true Pattern, and realized how far short he has come of it, can determine that for himself. It is certain that the salvation of which they speak is not the salvation which the blessed Bible brings to view. The savior of whom they teach is not the Saviour by whose life and sacrifice man, and the earth on which he walks, are to be redeemed from the curse of sin. They are different entirely; and not only different, but diametrically opposed the one to the other. The inspired Word declares that, “In none other is there salvation.” This latter-day philosophy makes every man his own savior; and not only that, but goes so far as to declare that there is no salvation outside of man,—no one but man who can save man, thereby taking direct issue with God, contradicting God’s pronouncement word for word.

Christ declares, “Without me ye can do nothing.” This philosophy declares, in effect, that Christ himself can do nothing for us. These are its words: “There will not be a single human soul saved by any power external to itself.”

God’s Word teaches that in him is the treasure-house of wisdom and knowledge; that in him is the fountain of life. The “new thought” receives “the fundamental truths of life directly from the interior realms of being,” which they hold to be the “central home of all truth.” Its reception by the individual “will make him free in thought and action, and enable him to become independent of all external methods of salvation.” Certain it is that such a belief will put one beyond the reach of salvation. While promising him a savior and a salvation, that philosophy robs him of both, and unfits him for the salvation which God has prepared.

But these two things, the contradiction of God’s Word and the building of this new tower of Babel, are working in perfect accord, under the direction of one mind, for the accomplishment of one purpose. That purpose is the ruin of souls, and the directing power is the same that contradicted God’s word in Eden, and inspired wicked men to build a tower of self-salvation on the plains of Shinar. There is only one power that can save souls, and that is the power of God. Any agent that comes to you with any other plan is the agent of God’s age-long enemy, who is bent upon your ruin. It will come to you in ingenious phrases, folding and infolding into each other, interweaving and intertwining, until the thought in your mind is lost in its mysterious mazes, confused, and mayhap unsettled.

Do not dally with the tempter. There is One whom you know to be Truth. Cling to him. There is one sure way, straight and narrow. Take that; the straight line is the shortest line, and the narrow way is the safest way. It is plenty wide for you and the Man of sorrows and sympathies to walk side by side. There is a vast difference between desiring to be like Christ in purity, truth, and love, and the assertion that we are Christ—deity incarnate in our flesh. The first is the legitimate outgrowth of yielding to God, while the second is the fruit of selfishness and disobedience. “Choose you this day whom ye will serve.”—Signs of the Times.

Comfort in Discouragement

God called Gideon to rid Israel of their foes, the Midianites and Amalekites. Gideon had received abundant proof that the Lord was with him. Yet when he came upon the brow of the hill, with only three hundred men, and looked down on the host in the valley below, “like locusts for multitude,” and knew that on the morrow he must meet them in conflict, he trembled. He knew that he and his handful of men were no match for that great army. True, God had said, “I have delivered it [the host] into thine hand,” but he couldn’t see how, and therefore it couldn’t be. In the night season, while in this discouraged condition, the Lord appeared to him, and in substance said, “I know you are discouraged—you do not believe what I have told you. Take your servant and go a little way down toward the enemy’s camp, and there you will hear something that will give you courage.” Gideon did as commanded, and there he heard one of the men relate a dream he had had, which was interpreted by his companion to mean that into Gideon’s hand “hath God delivered Midian, and all the host.” This was enough. Immediately the two returned, and at once set about executing a plan of attack, given by divine direction, and the result was that the enemy was routed, the foremost ones were slain, and the whole host was delivered into his hands. Judges 6, 7.

How many times in the life of many Christians there come seasons of depression. Temptations press sore; reverses come; the purest motives are misconstrued; the most unselfish acts are criticised; and for the truth’s sake, even their dearest friends forsake them. They know that up to this time the Lord has led them—they are sure of it—yet how hard to believe that he still is going before them. They think, as did Jacob, “All these things are against me,” and perhaps murmur and complain. Then right in the midst of their bitterest sorrow and deepest grief, there comes a turn in affairs. The dark clouds roll away, the apparently insurmountable obstacles vanish, and what were looked upon as mountains of difficulty prove to be not mountains at all. And all this, though unexpected, comes in such a natural way that it never occurs to them that it is God who has brought it all about.

When will Christians learn that in times of darkness they are to look up and not down? Though cast down, they are not forsaken. God’s people are more precious in his sight than fine gold (Isa. 13:12), and he never willingly afflicts, even though he permits them to pass through the “furnace of affliction.” Even here he suffers none to be tempted above what they are able to bear.

“We know,” says the apostle, “that all things work together for good to them that love God.” Now any one would undergo, without a murmur, the pain of the surgeon’s knife, if he knew that it was the only means of saving his life. So when Christians, in their experience, actually know this truth, how easy it becomes to bear the severest trials; and not only to bear them, but even welcome them; for it is only through “much tribulation” that any one can be fitted for eternal life. So hereafter can we not all say with the poet,—

“Let good or ill befall, It must be good for me, Secure of having thee in all, Of having all in thee”?

—Present Truth.

When Christ Is Essential to Us

If we need Christ at all, we need Christ in all. If we trust Christ in one thing, we should trust Christ in all things. That is the way we are to feel about him in our weakness and need, as we consider him in his strength and his sufficiency. This has been the restful, joyful trust of Christ’s disciples in the past, and is our privilege as Christ’s loving, faith-filled disciples to-day and all days. This was the thought of St. Patrick in his missionary conflict with the Druids, as evidenced in his glad battle-hymn:—

“Christ, as a light, Illumine and guide me! Christ, as a shield, o’ershadow and cover me! Christ be under me! Christ be over me! “Christ be beside me, On left hand and right! Christ be before me, behind me, about me! Christ this day be within and without me!”

Of ourselves we can do nothing. Through Christ we can do all things that Christ would have us do to-day.—Sunday School Times.

A Glimpse of Bocas del Toro

By I. G. Knight

I. G. KNIGHT

HAVING been called to this field of labor, we landed at Bocas del Toro about four weeks ago. We found the work in fair condition, although left without a laborer for about seven months after Elder Hutchins’ death. Brother Brooks, a native of the Bay Islands, standing at our left in the picture, had charge of the work here until we came. The mission building is a good one for this place.

Since coming here, we have been busy visiting interested ones, holding meetings, and encouraging those who have already taken their stand for the truth. Truly there has been an awakening. We believed that the time had come when the work should be placed on a more solid basis by organizing the believers here into church fellowship. Brother Hutchins was intending to do so when sickness and death prevented. The organization took place Sabbath, March 28. Five were baptized, and others expect to be baptized next Sabbath. Twenty-one united with the church, and there will be between twenty-five and thirty members when all are taken in who are ready. They are somewhat scattered among the islands, which are very numerous, about four hundred stretching along down the coast some forty miles. We are anxious to visit these islands with the message for this time, but we find it difficult to do this without a steam launch of our own, as we can not go where we would, nor when we would, when depending upon others. We hope soon to be relieved of these disadvantages and perplexities.

Just now is a favorable time to enter these island homes with the proclamation of the truth. We find them good fields for the canvassing work. One of our brethren who has been in the truth but a short time—I was the first Adventist he ever heard preach—was induced to try canvassing. In three hours he sold $20.50 worth of books, and the next day he sold fifty dollars’ worth, Colombian money, which is equal to twenty dollars of American money. He takes the books along, and sells for cash.

There is a great work to be done here, and so few to do it as yet! When I face the situation, and realize, as I certainly do, that this work must be finished soon, I fall back on the Word of God for my confidence, and the watchword, “The Message to the World in this Generation.” We find ourselves all absorbed in the work. We brought our hearts with us when we came to work for this people. We have learned the blessed experience that wherever we are in this world, that is the best place to work. We have no country of our own; we seek one to come. The people are of a different race; it is a different country, different customs, etc.; but the work of the third angel’s message has the same true ring as it is sounded from the lips and hearts of this people that it has in the United States.

Bocas del Toro is situated on the island of Columbus. Its population is about three thousand. The principal houses, both for business and for residence, are built along the water’s edge, the back part extending out into the water a little, the front facing the street, of which there is but one principal one. The walk is in the middle of the street, as there are no horses and wagons here. Merchants deliver their goods in steam launches.

There are but few pests. We use nets over our beds, as a protection from the mosquitoes. Although this is the warmest season of the year, we have seen but three house-flies. We are told that they never come in sufficient numbers to become a pest. Staple articles are expensive here. Flour is seven dollars a barrel; butter is forty cents a pound; eggs are forty-five cents a dozen. The temperature scarcely ever goes above eighty-four degrees. All things considered , we feel that this is not a bad place in which to live. Our health was never better.

Let Us Take Advantage of Our Opportunities

By C. W. Davis

C. W. DAVIS

We who have been blessed by being born of Christian parents and in a professedly Christian country, do not fully appreciate our privileges for serving Jesus, until we have closely compared our opportunities with those of a heathen child.

While in Canton, China, I wished to present a Bible printed in the Chinese language, to a boy of about nineteen years, who was in my employ. I thought that he would be eager to accept my gift, as he was a poor boy; but to my surprise he refused it, saying, “Master, if I were to accept that book which talks of the foreign man’s God, my father would thrash me, and turn me out into the streets, and not allow me to return again, and I would be ill used by those who worship the Chinese Joss.”

On another occasion I had a map of the world before him, and was trying to teach him the formation of the earth. “Now,” said I, “this part represents America, and this Europe, and this China.” He said that he thought he understood me, but when I pointed to the dot which indicated Canton city, and said, “This is Canton,” with a smile he replied in broken English, “He belong too small em.”

How one’s heart goes out in pity as one sees the thousands about their various occupations who have never heard of Jesus as the Saviour of the world. When that name is mentioned among many, it is as the detestable foreign man’s God. They know little or nothing about things outside their sphere of daily routine.

Brother Wilbur was taking passage from Canton to Hongkong, and as he was having a few words with one and another, he met a Chinaman, who said, “I want to be a Christian, but do not know how.” Who will go into the heart of China, among its millions, for the sake of those who want to be Christians, but who do not know how?

Ought not we to be thankful who have so many advantages to help us to live Christian lives, so many willing hands to help and encourage us to do something for Jesus? Why not give earnest heed to all our lessons, and seek for that wisdom which cometh from above, so that we may be truly wise, and be ready to say, should God call us to go to a heathen land, “Here am I; send me.”

Hongkong, China.

Worship of Confucius Required in China

THE authorities in China have issued an order requiring all students in Chinese universities to render worship to Confucius. This will debar many Christian students from attending Chinese universities, and result in the resignation of many Christian professors. The native Christian students in China need special prayer during this trying crisis.

_Opportunities in Alaska_

By Earle A. Rowell

EARLE A. ROWELL

“THERE are places which are now a moral wilderness, and these are to become as the garden of the Lord. The waste places of the earth are to be cultivated, that they may bud and blossom as the rose. New territories are to be worked by men inspired by the Holy Spirit. New churches must be established, new congregations organized. At this time there should be representatives of present truth in every city, and in the remote parts of the earth.”—“Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VI, page 24.

Most parts of the United States have a goodly number of representative Sabbath-keepers, but in Alaska there is a dearth of our people. Alaska is usually considered as nothing more than a huge mining camp, from which all persons soon return. That any one should come here to settle seems as preposterous to most persons as the idea of settling on the Pacific Coast seemed to many thirty years ago. Feeling, as religious people usually do, that the larger number of those in Alaska will return from the land of gold to the gospel land, either rich, and hence with minds free from the strain of fortune hunting, and ready to listen to the claims of God, or else poorer than ever, and hence in condition to receive that which is better than gold, slight effort has been made as yet to establish churches or mission schools. Some denominations have sent traveling missionaries into the country; and a few resident missionaries are scattered here and there. But religious work is in its infancy; and if we would, we might press our work to advantage. Creed feeling is notably lacking; due, partly, I admit, to the tolerance of all beliefs, rather than adherence to any.

Now is the time to work here; now, while Sunday sentiment is slack, is the most fruit-promising season in which to cast our seed. Before Sunday ideas form and harden is the God-given period in which to trace the truth on the tablets of the heart. This country is growing rapidly. Why should we not grow in and with it? That Alaska is to be a resident country is evidenced by the fact that men are coming here by scores and hundreds every month, from everywhere, bringing wives, sons, and daughters. They secure land, build houses, invest their money in some business, and, in fact, prepare for a permanent stay. Why should we not gain a foothold in this land immediately? Why should we not have representatives in this remote part of the earth? This is indeed a waste place, and shall we be backward in cultivating it, that it may bud and blossom? In many lands, and in all large cities, it is hard for a poor man to earn a living and keep the Sabbath. Ruin glares at him on every hand. But here hunger would not be a bugbear to deter a man convinced of the truth of the third angel’s message, from avowing his conviction and living up to it.

The practice of healthful living is at low ebb, while scurvy and rheumatism are at flood. One would think these diseases were held at a premium, judging from the persistence with which persons will eat flesh that has traveled a thousand miles or more, and that probably was fairly ripe at the outset. If the principles of health reform were once taught, they certainly would cause many to reform. If the inhabitants of Alaska knew of anything that would take the place of the decaying and canned and salted meats they use so much from necessity, they would gladly use it. Shall we let them die of needless disease, in ignorance of the fact that such a substitute does exist?

Alaska is much more than a mining camp. The canning industry stands out in increasingly gigantic proportions. Millions of cases of salmon are shipped out every year; and still the canneries rise like mushrooms, in a night. A plant that cans fifty thousand cases a season is a small one. The usual capacity is a hundred thousand. It takes a building three hundred feet by one hundred feet to put out this number. A case contains forty-eight pound cans. It takes about ten average-sized salmon to fill a case. The average cost to a company is only a cent a fish, making the material for a case cost but a dime, and this they sell for three or four dollars, and the middlemen sell it for five. In spite of the enormous output of the numerous canneries, the demand for Alaska canned salmon is greater than the supply. The writer thinks, however, that if the eager consumer could follow the fish from the time they are caught till they are daintily dished at his table, the reverse condition would increasingly prevail.

One would naturally think that a man could not make more than a meager living, catching salmon for a cent a piece. But when one takes into consideration the fact that four men with a seine often catch several thousand at a haul, he can see that they are not likely to starve. A few miles from here one seine boat made a single haul of forty-five thousand. An average fisherman will net five hundred dollars for a season’s work. Some make double or even treble this.

When the season is over, then the saloons reap a golden harvest. The churches are few and powerless. The saloons are in every town and on almost every corner, furnished with all improved allurements. Lawlessness goes unchecked through the streets, and unblushing.

Again I ask, Shall the needs of this vast country plead for evangelical and medical missionary help until too late—until the image of the beast is formed and dutifully worshiped even here? For years there have been workers in every other part of the United States, but where are there any here? A small branch sanitarium combined with a health food store would certainly thrive in more than one place. Money is plentiful; land for location is abundant for a small consideration, and in some places for nothing; good lumber is nearly as cheap as anywhere in the States. There must be a start made here; for the Spirit of God says so. The Lord, furthermore, insures success to the faithful: “There are places which are now a moral wilderness, and these are to become as the garden of the Lord.” “God calls upon his workers to annex new territory for him.” Read also pages 436-443 of “Testimonies for the Church,” Vol. VI. Who will lead out in this work? A rich blessing awaits him who will.

Kasaan, Alaska.

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