Loading...
Larger font
Smaller font
Copy
Print
Contents
General Conference Bulletin, vol. 4 - Contents
  • Results
  • Related
  • Featured
No results found for: "".
  • Weighted Relevancy
  • Content Sequence
  • Relevancy
  • Earliest First
  • Latest First
    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents

    MISSIONARY SERVICE

    Missionary Talks Given in the Tabernacle, April 13, 3 P.M. (Concluded.)

    Since coming here, I have heard of four European adults of good position who have come into the company, and accepted the Sabbath. In the cities throughout India, multitudes of European and Eurasian classes are above the average in intelligence, and in habits of life; for very naturally the European who goes out to India is a man of affairs, and goes out to connect with the government in civil or military life. Perhaps he goes there to connect with some great mercantile interests, and in that field we find millions of intelligent, stable people, waiting for the knowledge of the truth. So God has planted in Calcutta a little sample of what I am sure he designs to do in many of the great cities of India. How we do long to see that work taken up in great centers like Bombay, Madras, Colombo, Rangoon, Allahabad, Lahore—great centers of population, where we can begin upon the Europeans, and English-speaking peoples, knowing that from that beginning, the light may radiate out upon many millions in the great darkness of Hinduism and Mohammedanism. But we wait, and have waited long, after the field has been made ready. Our paper published there goes to hundreds of people in these great cities, and we hear of many interested ones, in consequence. But with only one minister in such a field, with two canvassers, among double the population of North and South America together,—we are waiting from month to month, brethren; and the waiting time seems long.GCB April 16, 1901, page 257.5

    When Brother Robinson was dying, I said to him that possibly the Lord was taking him and that perhaps his death would do something to call attention to the needs of that great field, and he replied, “Perhaps; perhaps.” But we have waited sixteen months already, and not a soul from this great land has turned his face toward the East. It seems a long time, with the people calling for help,—people who should be instructed. I say, brethren, that the field is open. Talk about open doors,—doors are open everywhere. My office door has been open, and through it has come a continual stream of English-speaking natives to talk with me about religion, about Christianity. So many of them have come that it seemed almost impossible sometimes to do the necessary work that needed to be done, and yet I do not know how many seeds of truth have been sown in hearts inquiring after God.GCB April 16, 1901, page 257.6

    And so in these cities we have thousands upon thousands of English-speaking natives whom we may reach while we are working for the English people themselves. The sound of the truth has already gone out from Calcutta and the regions round about, and the natives are saying that this is a new thing. I have been told that in converted communities the word has gone out that our mission is a virgin mission, that if we can only keep from being contaminated by the other societies, it will be a new thing in India, by which the work may be wrought by the power of God and not by the power and the wisdom of man.GCB April 16, 1901, page 257.7

    Even in the Hindu papers there are selections from our paper The Watchman upon methods of missionary and all-round work in connection with the union of officialism with religion. Extracts have been quoted, and Indian papers have said, “This sounds like Christ.”GCB April 16, 1901, page 257.8

    In these cities there are multitudes of student classes, and how I have longed to leave my work, and go down to live among the university students. It is supposed that there are ten thousand in Calcutta alone; the university population of India is greater than that of England. India graduates more young men from its universities than does England, and they are bright youth. The young men there are men of thought, but the universities and colleges teach them the rubbish of human philosophy. Even the theological schools teach evolution and all these things. These young people like to read and talk English, even if but for practice, and so they are ready to hear, ready to flock about you, to look into your eyes,—and I believe God will give us many from among that population.GCB April 16, 1901, page 257.9

    There is one young man now who has passed his examination for a degree. He is at heart a Seventh-day Adventist. Missionaries have tried to buy him with the promise of a position if he would only join their ranks. He told them that whenever he became a Christian, he would become a Seventh-day Adventist. We have prayed for men like that to come out directly from heathenism without the mark of other societies’ work upon them, that they might be instructed in God, and stand as representatives of the third angel’s message before their own people. This young man has now gone so far as to sever all connection with heathen ceremonies. His father, a wealthy man, disinherited him; but the young man told me that since his father took this step, he felt he had something much better, and so felt richer than he ever did in his life before. He is now awaiting his baptism until he can go back and endeavor to win his wife to the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are many others connected with the universities and schools waiting for the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Open doors? Millions of them everywhere! Three hundred million doors, and Jesus Christ knocking at every one of them, saying, “Open, and let me come in.” But he wants us to go to speak to them and tell them that he invites them to open the door and let him come in.GCB April 16, 1901, page 258.1

    Look at the millions of homes in India to be reached only by the zenana work. Most of the time we have for this work only Sister Burrus, who has gone in and out among the people. Her work does not shine out much in statistics, but she knows of many homes where the inmates are almost believers, though bound by social laws and caste, by a peculiar kind of domestic life; but I believe that when the Lord lets the final signs appear, we shall see them rising up, and breaking the bands that bind them, to meet the Lord; for we know that his Holy Spirit is working in hearts. In one home where Miss Burrus went just before I came away, she told me that the woman called her neighbors in, and said, “Oh, come and hear; this is the lady that says that their Jesus is soon coming. She says that the signs of his coming are in the earth. The wars among the nations, the famines, the pestilences, the earth-quakes—she says that these things tell about the coming of their Lord.” So, in the homes of India that work is being done. The Lord’s Spirit calls upon souls, and I expect that he will give us many from among the native classes before the final decision, to take up this work. Some time ago there was one home where there was a poor young widow, who was kept for years almost a slave to do ordinary work. This class is despised and blamed. She did not know very much, but she heard a little from our work about the Lord Jesus, and her heart was touched. She wanted to be a Christian. Her people shut her up; but in her little room she prayed for Jesus to help her, and while she was praying one day, some workmen put a ladder up next to the room where she was confined. They did some work, and then went away, leaving the ladder standing against the house. She said the Lord had heard her prayers. She went down the ladder, used it in climbing the wall, and escaped, going straight to the mission house. She was taken in, and was developed into a useful and responsible worker.GCB April 16, 1901, page 258.2

    And so in many homes I believe that God has jewels whom he is seeking to find. But oh, those who are looking for them are so few! We need the help that you can send from this land—men and women to search for souls in the needy East.GCB April 16, 1901, page 258.3

    J. O. Corliss: As in every other enterprise with which men are connected, so in city mission work the mind gradually opens up to present possibilities. Thirty years ago we hardly dared to enter a large city to do evangelical work, because we feared we would not be able to accomplish as much as we could in rural districts, and so the rural districts were worked to the neglect of the cities, though in the most primitive manner. Some of those who were in the field in those days, remember that we used to put up our cotton meeting-house, and begin the task of “working up an interest.” If we succeeded in this in two weeks, we were doing quite well; but I am glad that all this has changed, because our minds have been enlarged.GCB April 16, 1901, page 258.4

    Twenty-two years ago, when the work was opened in Denver, we put our tent on the corner of Sixteenth and Glendarm Streets, where now there are large brick buildings. We had a tent, one minister, and a tent-master.GCB April 16, 1901, page 258.5

    Thus we undertook the work in that large, rich, and popular city, and when we were through with our tent labors that summer, we rejoiced to see that thirty people had subscribed to the tenets of the faith which we preached. But I have thought many times since that if we could only have had before us the ideas and methods that we have now, how much greater would have been the work accomplished at that time.GCB April 16, 1901, page 258.6

    It would be a far better investment to expend five hundred dollars in opening up work in a place, and getting a large company of people, who, in turn, can carry the message to others, than to invest but one hundred dollars, to get about one tenth as many people. While five hundred dollars looks a great deal larger than one hundred, yet if by it the work can be given an impetus which will ultimately result in a hundredfold of returns, it is by far the best thing to do, than to expend the small outlay, with but meager results. Work can not be energetically pushed in large cities, when there is only one minister to do all the singing, praying, preaching, visiting, and everything else. We could not expect one man to stand up under such a strain, and I am thankful that we have learned better methods.GCB April 16, 1901, page 258.7

    The Saviour said, in speaking of city work, “Ye shall not have gone over the cities of Israel, till the Son of man be come.” You may say that refers to the local work of the disciples in Palestine; but I believe that it also has an application down here. I believe when our cities have been gone over, and the work done there that should be done, the Master of all Israel will come to take his people home. I believe that in these cities are jewels, hidden, perhaps, beneath the surface; but if we work and dig for them they will be found. That work, however, must be done in a different way from the old-fashioned method of laboring.GCB April 16, 1901, page 258.8

    You raise the question, “How, then, can it be done?” There should be Bible workers to go from house to house. These men and women should search out the Lord’s people, the lost sheep of the house of Israel. How are they going to find them? There are ways by which these may be searched out. This has been done in some places by the distribution of papers and other literature. In Sydney brethren went out with their arms full of the paper, Bible Echo, published in Melbourne, Australia. They went from house to house and sold them to the people. About the second or third time they went around, the people in different places said, “What about this that I saw in the last paper you left here?” calling attention to some article in the same. “It is a new idea to me. I have never looked at it in that way before. Can not you tell me something more about this thing?” Then that worker had something to do, had he not? He had an opportunity to sit down with these people, and tell them more about the things they had seen in the paper. In this way our workers in Sydney found out who were interested, and in many instances the distribution of these papers ended in bringing persons to a saving knowledge of the truth. Those who distributed the papers would refer those interested to the regular Bible workers, and thus the work was carried on. In a little while the whole neighborhood where those papers were being circulated, was stirred.GCB April 16, 1901, page 258.9

    The results have been similar in this country. In Oakland we did not take the Signs of the Times to sell, which we ought to have done, but we had a tent paper. During those meetings we published the principal sermons in a little four-page paper, which was handed out the following night to those in the tent. We told the people that this paper contained the talk of the previous evening, and was given them for their study, as no doubt there were some points which they failed to catch, or which had slipped their minds, and which they desired to look up. In the morning our workers would take them and go everywhere through the city, and many eager hands were held out for those papers. I have since learned by correspondence that as the result of the short series of papers published during that one tent-meeting in the city of Oakland, people in the State of Maine embraced the truth through reading them. I also found people in the Southern States who accepted the truth through reading them. How did they get them? People in Oakland who had received them, sent them to their friends in Maine, in the South, and other parts of the country. The influence of that little sheet went almost over the United States. There is a great deal of difference between that sort of work, and a man standing in the desk and preaching a single discourse to a few people, having the influence of his words stop right there within a small circle. True, it costs something to circulate our literature, but it pays in the end. We have tried this plan in other places, and it has been carried out twice in the city of Oakland. The paper was called The Tent-meeting Review. Some had them bound up, and are carefully preserving them, reading them frequently to refresh their minds concerning the truth.GCB April 16, 1901, page 259.1

    There is a large diversity of nationalities in many of our great cities. There are thirty thousand Chinese in the city of San Francisco. These Chinese people must hear the message. Some of them have received it, thank God. We have Chinese brethren in the church in San Francisco. Last year one of these graduated with honors from a medical college; and still another is taking a medical course. Three Japanese were recently baptized, and united with the church. One of that nationality is taking a course in dentistry. There are from fifteen to twenty thousand Japanese in San Francisco,—as nice people as ever lived, and I believe there is a work yet to be done among them. What can one minister do with such a diversity of people? What can he do in such a cosmopolitan city as San Francisco? There are thirty thousand Germans, twenty thousand Scandinavians, and two thousand Finns in that city, and I might go on and enumerate many other nationalities. Shall we let these people continue to walk in moral darkness?GCB April 16, 1901, page 259.2

    I could mention some of the large cities of the United States, where the conditions are quite similar—Boston, New York with its teeming millions, Buffalo, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago, Denver, New Orleans, Atlanta, Nashville, Mobile, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Louis, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Milwaukee, Washington,—I can not mention them all. There are fifty-two cities in this country having a population of over seventy-five thousand. I believe the time is not far distant when all of us will feel the importance of these things, and take hold of this city work as we have never done before.GCB April 16, 1901, page 259.3

    Dr. A. J. Read: Brethren, I believe the God whom we serve is a God of mercy and love. I believe that every message he has given to the world to the present time is a message of mercy and love. I believe the medical missionary work is given to sound the key-note of the third angel’s message. It is God’s design, I believe, that as the medical missionary work goes forth to the fields of the world, it will impress upon the minds of the people with whom we come in contact the true character of the message which God is sending to the world.GCB April 16, 1901, page 259.4

    It has never seemed to me that God’s message to the world was simply a message to convince men’s minds that they were wrong and were in error. God’s message to the world is a message inviting men up to higher and holier ground, up onto a plan of true Christian living; and for that reason, it seems to me, God is sending the third angel’s message, to bring before the people the whole truth. For this reason God has brought together into one message all the grand truths that this world has ever been taught; that at this time, as he sends forth his truth to the world, he wants the medical missionary work to go in advance, as a pioneer work, in order men may know that God’s message is sent to do them good. It is sent to show them God’s true character of love and mercy.GCB April 16, 1901, page 259.5

    I have felt sometimes as if some of our brethren who have gone out into the medical missionary work have not perhaps given the message the true ring, not because they have failed to present the peculiar doctrines which we may hold; but they have failed to give the message the true sound, because the real spirit of mercy, love, purity, and truth has not been lived out in the lives of the messengers, to impress the hearts of those with whom they come in contact.GCB April 16, 1901, page 259.6

    I know of no other way in which so quickly to come onto common ground with the people whom we meet, of whatever nation, tongue, or circumstance in life, as by relieving their suffering, showing them that we have a real, disinterested kindness for them,—not that we are using the medical missionary work as an advertisement for the third angel’s message: the third angel’s message needs no advertisement.GCB April 16, 1901, page 259.7

    God does not want us, I believe, to parade the great work that we are doing as an advertisement. The truth itself will stand as a sufficient advertisement for itself. Men learn to love the principles of truth. The simplest principles God has ever given to the world, have been to lead men on step by step as long as they walk in the light, I am satisfied if I see a man drinking in the simplest of the precious principles of truth, because I have confidence to believe that it will awaken in him hungering and thirsting for righteousness that will not be satisfied until his soul is filled with the whole precious truth that God has given.GCB April 16, 1901, page 259.8

    When in Tahiti, I labored with the native brethren, even before I could speak a word of their language. Ministering to them seemed to speak a language that was understood by us both. I remember very well after I had been laboring for over two years among this people, I was one day called to go down to the beach, where a man had been injured. I was on horseback, and riding as fast as the horse could go. Passing the house of one of our native sisters, who was one of the pillars of the church that had been raised up, she hastened out, and laid hold upon the bridle of the horse, and said, “Where are you going?”GCB April 16, 1901, page 260.1

    “I am going down to help that man who is hurt on the beach.”GCB April 16, 1901, page 260.2

    “Oh, don’t go to him. Don’t you know he has said all sorts of mean things about us? There is nothing too mean for him to say about the truth. Don’t disgrace the truth by going down to minister to that man, when he has done, so much against the truth. As soon as he gets up, he will begin to talk against us, and will do us all the harm he can. I plead with you, don’t go.”GCB April 16, 1901, page 260.3

    I whipped up my horse, and said, “I will go as fast as I can get there.” And I did go; and I felt as if that day I had an opportunity to present truth to the heart of that native woman, which two years of preaching could not bring into her heart.GCB April 16, 1901, page 260.4

    You will imagine my joy, after being down on the beach and working for half an hour over that man, to find that same native sister among those bringing water. Is not that the fruit of the spirit of the third angel’s message? Does it not tell us if our enemy hunger, feed him; if he is naked, clothe him? Not because you think it is going to win him to the truth, but because it will bring home to his heart the real essence of the truth; and if he once gets the real essence of the truth, he will get the whole truth. Has not God wrought that way in you and me? Did we get the whole truth first?—No; but the precious principles of truth, and the truth came little by little to us, and God brought the whole precious truth home to our hearts.GCB April 16, 1901, page 260.5

    It seems to me that what God wants in this world to-day is men and women who will go forth with the honest purpose to do their fellow men good,—to do them good because it is good; to do them good because it is right; to present to them the right principles of healthful living, because they are true, not because we know more than they do about it. I believe God wants the spirit of truth to go forth because it will do men good, and will uplift them. I believe the whole object of medical missionary work is expressed in Paul’s epistle to the Romans, twelfth chapter, verses 1, 2, where he says: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.”GCB April 16, 1901, page 260.6

    In these words the whole object of medical missionary work is set forth, and of the work God is going to do to prove before the world, to open up before their minds what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. He says: “Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.”GCB April 16, 1901, page 260.7

    If we could only lay aside that selfish and ambitious spirit of presenting to the world something that we have, because it is better than they have, and present to them the precious truth of God because it will do them good, that would inspire confidence in them. I believe here is the real spirit of medical missionary work; and that God wants every man and woman who goes forth with this message, to carry it in that spirit.GCB April 16, 1901, page 260.8

    The scope of the medical missionary work has also lain heavily upon my heart. I believe, brethren and sisters, that this work is to reach to the heathen, to the people in earth’s remotest bounds. It is also to reach our brethren in our own country.GCB April 16, 1901, page 260.9

    I never shall forget one experience I had. When in Ann Arbor, I met a minister who had come from India, where he had been laboring as a missionary for years. He felt a longing to take up medical work, believing that it would help him in his work; and so he came to Ann Arbor to study medicine. And when he came, one of the leading men in his church, who had a congregation in Ann Arbor told me about him, and wanted that we should become acquainted. We did become acquainted; and as we talked about medical missionary work, our hearts were knit together; we compared notes, and gave to each other such helpful things as we had. And that man kept hungering and thirsting for more. He inquired of some of the other brethren for more of the light of truth, and finally accepted it. That man was our Brother Brown, who went back to India as a medical missionary, and labored faithfully there till his death.GCB April 16, 1901, page 260.10

    I remember a Congregational minister I met in the East, who was very much prejudiced against our truth. He invited me to his house to do some work, and told me that the only thing that he knew about Seventh-day Adventists was that he had heard they were people who delighted to go out and hoe corn on Sunday, while other people were going to church, and thus disturb their neighbors on that day. I told him he was mistaken; that they were people who believed in doing to others what others should do to them.GCB April 16, 1901, page 260.11

    We had some further acquaintance, and were doing some work together, and one day he sent a message to me like this: “Will you please tell Mr. Read that as Saturday is his Sabbath, and as Sunday is my Sabbath, that little piece of work that he and I are doing together can not go on very rapidly, because there are two days in the week when it is stopped. So if he will come down to my house, he can go into my shop, and carry on that work next Sunday, and the next day, Monday, I will carry it on. And thus we shall get the work done quickly.” That man’s feeling had changed. The message I sent back to him was: “As I do not feel free to invite you into my shop to work on the Sabbath, I do not feel like going over your head into your shop, and pounding and hammering on your Sabbath.” And from that day to this that man has been studying to know more of the precious truth.GCB April 16, 1901, page 260.12

    I believe the scope of the medical missionary work is not only to reach people whose hearts are prejudiced, but to go to all our brethren,—not simply our own brethren, because they are not living up to the light of health reform as they should. God does not place me to accuse you because you are not doing that which is right; but he does want the light of his precious truth on health reform to shine out, that my brethren will want it because I have it; that your brethren will want it because you have it; that your brethren who are not living just straight on this principle will want to get straight on it, because they see how much good it is doing you.GCB April 16, 1901, page 260.13

    Brethren, I hope and pray that the true knowledge of the principles of God’s truth may reach into every one’s heart, and that the medical missionary work, in harmony with every other phase of the third angel’s message, may gain the victories God designed it should gain, not only in the hearts of those without, but in each of our hearts.GCB April 16, 1901, page 261.1

    H. Champness: If I could take this whole congregation, and transport them speedily to London, I dare to affirm that I could scatter them so far apart from each other that they would have trouble in finding their neighbor; and that while they were trying to find their nearest neighbor, they would find so much need about them, that they would begin to work for the salvation of souls in that vast city. What I want to impress upon you during the short time I have to speak is that when you get face to face with the need, then you go to work. We may sit here all day, and hear facts and figures, but if the power of the gospel will not move you to go out to the fields where there is need, facts and figures will not move you. The word of God is the only thing that will move us to go to a place where there is need.GCB April 16, 1901, page 261.2

    I remember reading some time ago in the early days of your history over here, that the great cry was. “Young man, go West.” It seems to me that the great cry of this Conference is, “Seventh-day Adventists, go East.” That you have got to turn your face away from this country, and take a broad view of the great harvest field, and to know that God is calling you as definitely and clearly as he called you into this truth, to go to the needy fields. And if that call of the gospel does not reach your heart, I am afraid that if I tell you of the forty millions of people in Great Britain, and the five millions of people in London, that that will never move you. O, I wish you could see what I have seen; I wish you could be in a place where you could find millions of people around you, and walk street after street, and never meet a Seventh-day Adventist, and never know a person who has this message but yourselves. Then you would begin to realize something of the need of the field.GCB April 16, 1901, page 261.3

    The work in England has moved slowly. The English people have that characteristic, they tell us, of being slow to move. Well, I expect that is true; but I will tell you this, that when they do move, they move, and they move surely, and when they are once moved, it takes a great deal to turn them back again from the principles they stand upon. But I am not so sure that it is perfectly true that the English people move so slowly. In my experience I have found that the people of England are coming to move as quickly as the people of America when they get the right message. To illustrate: I had the privilege of putting up the first tent that was ever used in London, two years ago. Before that time it was thought that it would take twelve months, or probably eighteen months, for people to come into this message,—that a long series of addresses had to be given,—but we are beginning to find out that the people of England will move out just as quickly as the people of America, or even quicker, when they get the real gospel message to move them.GCB April 16, 1901, page 261.4

    What did we find there? We found in northeast London that within the three weeks’ time that the tent was pitched, fifteen took their stand for the Sabbath, and the fourth week, ten more took their stand, and now there is a church of about fifty members, including some who have moved in from different parts. This gives me courage to believe that there is to be a great and quick work done in England when we have the real message to give to the people.GCB April 16, 1901, page 261.5

    We have one worker in England who has done more to carry this gospel message to the people of Great Britain, and not only there, but to all parts of the world, than any other worker. That worker has proved very efficient. He is a very quiet worker; he does not make much noise, he does not make a great stir about his work; but he does his work effectively. You know what his name is,—Present Truth. I always prefer to go to work in a field where Present Truth has preceded me, for I find the ground is well prepared. Here are some facts concerning the circulation of this paper: In 1895 the circulation of Present Truth was 598,050, the average sale per week during that year, being 11,520. In 1896 the circulation was 681,400; the average sale per week was 12,856 during that year. I will give the figures consecutively: 1897, 607,300 sold, averaging 11,679 per week; 1898, 578,340 sold, averaging 11,122 per week; 1899, 692,100 sold, averaging 13,310 per week; 1900, 799,400 sold, averaging 15,373 per week. Now this year that we have just started, 1901, the average sale per week is 17,000, and we are beginning to see some good results.GCB April 16, 1901, page 261.6

    You have doubtless heard about our plan in England. Even as was mentioned of the Bible Echo in Australia, we have our workers take the paper around to the homes of the people from week to week, and by so doing, they have the opportunity of meeting the people, and speaking and praying with them, and helping them into the message. And when the people read anything in the paper, the worker has the opportunity of conversing with the person, and opening the Bible right there in the house. I believe that is the Lord’s plan. I believe the Lord wants just such work as that done in our large cities; that is how we are going to reach the masses.GCB April 16, 1901, page 261.7

    As I say, Present Truth has an average circulation, per week, of about 17,000. I might say that nearly the whole of this number is taken out by our workers to the homes of the people. We want to see this paper going by leaps and bounds. We were greatly encouraged when we got out the Christmas number, of which 37,000 were disposed of in that week. That shows what can be done. Our churches took hold of it, and we took that paper and circulated it among the mass of the people. All of us worked with a will, and we found great blessing in doing so.GCB April 16, 1901, page 261.8

    Now, brethren and sisters, it seems to me when I come here to Battle Creek, and see you all seated here so comfortably, and think of London, with its five millions, I would to God that the Spirit of the living God would fall upon this congregation to-day, and that you would yield yourselves to the Lord, and say, “Here, Lord, I am willing to go, whether it be to England, or India, or China, or Japan, I don’t care where.” It seems to me it is time for you to move, and you don’t want to wait until you are sent by some Conference. The time is coming,—I believe it is here,—when the Lord wants families to go out to these distant fields, and settle there, and work there. You can work in England just as well as you can here. You say, “The circumstances are not so good.” But we have got a great God, and he is able to overrule all our circumstances, and he can take you and your family, and can find you employment, and he can settle you among the people, and you may live the truth right out there. We have one family in Scotland who are living the truth out in that way. The brother is working in the mines, and his wife is doing self-supporting medical missionary work among her neighbors, and their influence is good. They are doing a good work.GCB April 16, 1901, page 261.9

    Let me refer to just one fact in closing. In the New England Conference, I understand, the tithe is about the same as it is in Great Britain—$10,000. Now put the English on the same sort of a scale, and you can understand our needs. If the New England Conference had half the United States to work, they would understand something of our needs in England. Now they have more workers than we have in Great Britain; but they would need to take in half the population of the United States to understand something of our need in England.GCB April 16, 1901, page 262.1

    Brethren and sisters, if you think that we have enough workers in England, and enough help, then I say, God pity you here; but if you see their need, and if you can not go yourselves, then do what you can, give of your means to help forward this glorious work of circulating the present truth. I hope there will come a call in this Conference here for means to circulate the Present Truth; and if the call does not come from this platform, let the Lord give the call to your heart; and you give freely of what the Lord has given you, and you will be the means of sending forth the truth into that much neglected country.GCB April 16, 1901, page 262.2

    “If we go through life timidly, weakly, ineffectively, the fault is ... with ourselves. When one sets himself to live a grand life, man can not interrupt him, God will not!”GCB April 16, 1901, page 262.3

    “Progress and improvement are every man’s duty. It is not right to remain as we were, or as we are.”GCB April 16, 1901, page 262.4

    Sin has many tools, but a lie is the handle that fits them all.—Holmes.GCB April 16, 1901, page 262.5

    Larger font
    Smaller font
    Copy
    Print
    Contents