The Beginning of the Harvest in Szechuan, China
By F. A. ALLUM
After almost two years of seed sowing in Szechuan, we are now beginning to reap the harvest. Last Sabbath was indeed a blessed day, when fifteen precious souls were buried with their Lord in baptism. Eleven of these were men, and four were women, and only four had ever been members of other missions. They were a very intelligent class of candidates, and we believe several of them will make excellent workers,—our greatest need in this field just now. A daily class was held with the candidates for two weeks before the baptism, during which time all important points of the message were covered. Others also have requested baptism, and we hope to see them go forward later, after they have received further instruction. After the baptism we had the ordinances of the Lord's house. Our church membership is now thirty. We are greatly encouraged, and believe that we shall see still greater things here in Szechuan. Our school work is growing. We now have four day schools, with an attendance of one hundred and ten, nearly all of whom are paying students. Most of them attend our Sabbath services. We are conducting daily Bible classes in all the schools. This is a very interesting feature of our work here at present. We now have four colporteurs in the field, who are doing excellent work, considering the political conditions here. With the rebellion and with robbers all around, conditions are very unfavorable. When we consider the frightened condition of the people, it seems marvelous that the colporteurs can make any sales at all; but within the last week or two we have received no less than one hundred and twenty-eight subscriptions from two colporteurs, and these have come from a district which has just recently been in the hands of the robbers. The interest created by the colporteurs in the town of Hochow continues, and we have secured a chapel there. This is the town which was partly burned by robbers a short time ago. I am planning to go there next week with an evangelist, to conduct a special series of meetings. Thus we see that literature is the forerunner of the message in this place, as in others. We have been having some very hard thunderstorms. During one of these the lightning struck the chimney of our house, and splintered the casings of our attic door, sending some pieces of wood no less than thirty-seven feet away. The lightning traveled down the brick wall, disturbing some of the plaster, and killed our dog, which was lying on the front porch. Our baby, who was lying asleep in an iron cot within one foot of where the lightning struck, was not in any way harmed, although his bed was strewn with plaster, splintered wood, and glass. The damage done to our house did not amount to more than a dollar, Mexican. We recognize in this our heavenly Father's special protection. During the same storm, several persons in the city were killed. Since then we have had several other storms. In all, no less than five places near us have been struck by lightning. These occurrences are a call to us to be always ready; yet we firmly believe that our heavenly Father has a special protection over his children.