Earlier text: GOD’S ALMONERS.In carrying forward the Lord’s work at home and abroad, those in positions of responsibility must plan wisely, so as to make the best possible use of men and of means. The burden of sustaining the work in many of the foreign fields must be largely borne by our conferences in the home land. These conferences should have means with which to assist in opening new fields, where the testing truths of the third angel’s message have never yet penetrated. Within the past few years, doors have been thrown open as if by magic; and men and women are needed to enter these doors, and begin earnest work for the salvation of souls. Our educational institutions can do much toward meeting the demand for trained workers for these mission fields. Wise plans should be laid to strengthen the work done in our training-centers. Study should be given to the best methods for fitting consecrated young men and young women to bear responsibility and to win souls for Christ. They should be taught how to meet the people, and how to present the third angel’s message in an attractive manner. And in the management of financial matters, they should be taught lessons that will help them when they are sent to isolated fields where they must suffer many privations and practise the strictest economy. The Lord has instituted a plan whereby many of the students in our schools can learn practical lessons needful to success in after-life. He has given them the privilege of handling precious books that have been dedicated for the advancement of our educational and sanitarium work. In the very handling77 of these books, the youth will meet with many experiences that will teach them how to cope with problems that await them in the regions beyond. During their school life, as they canvass for these books, many may learn how to approach people courteously, and how to exercise tact in conversing with them on different points of present truth. And as they meet with a degree of success financially, some will learn lessons of thrift and economy, which will be of great advantage to them when they are sent out as missionaries. The students who take up the work of selling “Christ’s Object Lessons” and “Ministry of Healing” will need to study the book they expect to sell. As they familiarize their minds with the subject-matter of the book in hand, and endeavor to practise its teachings, they will develop in knowledge and spiritual power. The messages in these books contain the light that God has revealed to me to give to the world. The teachers in our schools should encourage the students to make a careful study of every chapter. They should teach these truths to their students, and seek to inspire the youth with a love for the precious thoughts the Lord has entrusted to us to communicate to the world. Thus the preparation for handling these books, and the daily experiences gained while bringing them to the attention of the people, will prove an invaluable schooling to those who take part in this line of effort. Under the blessing of God, the youth will obtain a fitting up for service in the Lord’s vineyard. There is a special work to be done for our young people by those bearing responsibility in local churches throughout the conferences. When the church officers see promising youth who are desirous of fitting themselves for usefulness in the Lord’s78 service, but whose parents are unable to send them to school, they have a duty to perform in studying how to give help and encouragement. They should take counsel with parents and youth, and unite in planning wisely. Some youth may be best fitted to engage in home missionary work. There is a wide field of usefulness in the distribution of our literature, and in bringing the third angel’s message to the attention of friends and neighbors. Other youth should be encouraged to enter the canvassing work, to sell our larger books. Some may have qualifications that would make them valuable helpers in our institutions. And in many instances, if promising youth were wisely encouraged and properly directed, they could be led to earn their own schooling by taking up the sale of “Christ’s Object Lessons” or “Ministry of Healing.” In selling these books, the youth would be acting as missionaries; for they would be bringing precious light to the notice of the people of the world. At the same time they would be earning money to enable them to attend school, where they could continue their preparation for wider usefulness in the Lord’s cause. In the school, they would receive encouragement and inspiration from teachers and students to continue their work of selling books; and when the time came for them to leave school, they would have received a practical training fitting them for the hard, earnest, self-sacrificing labor that has to be done in many foreign fields, where the third angel’s message must be carried under difficult and trying circumstances. How much better is this plan than for students to go through school without obtaining a practical education in field work, and, at the end of their course, leave under a burden of debt, with but little realization of the difficulties they will have to meet in79 new and untried fields! How hard it will be for them to meet the financial problems that are connected with pioneer work in foreign lands! And what a burden some one will have to carry until the debts incurred by the student have been paid! On the other hand, how much might be gained, if the self-supporting plan were followed! The student would often be enabled to leave the educational institution, nearly or wholly free from personal indebtedness; the finances of the school would be in a more prosperous condition; and the lessons learned by the student while passing through these experiences in the home field would be of untold value to him in foreign fields. Let wise plans be laid to help worthy students to earn their own schooling by handling these books, if they so desire. Those who earn sufficient means in this way to pay their way through a course at one of our training-schools, will gain a most valuable practical experience that will help fit them for pioneer missionary work in other fields. A great work is to be done in our world in a short time, and we must study to understand and appreciate, more than we have in past years, the providence of God in placing in our hands the precious volumes, “Christ’s Object Lessons” and “Ministry of Healing,” as a means of helping worthy students to meet their expenses while in training, as well as a means of liquidating the indebtedness on our educational and medical institutions. Great blessings are in store for us, as we wisely handle these precious books given us for the advancement of the cause of present truth. And as we labor in accordance with the Lord’s plan, we shall find that many consecrated youth will be fitted to enter the regions beyond as practical missionaries;80 and, at the same time, the conferences in the home field will have means with which to contribute liberally to the support of the work that shall be undertaken in new territory.
Sanitarium, Cal., April 17, 1908. God desires that the sale of “Christ’s Object Lessons” shall be recognized by all our people as His method of relieving our schools from debt. It is because this plan has been neglected that we now feel so keenly our lack of means for the advancing work. Had the schools availed themselves of the provision thus made for them, there would be more money in the school treasuries, and more money in the hands of God’s servants with which to relieve the necessities of other needy departments of the cause; and, best of all, teachers and students would have received the very lessons that they needed to learn in the Master’s service. In the cities within easy reach of our sanitariums and training-schools, a mission field is open to us that we have as yet only touched with the tips of our fingers. In some of these places, a good beginning has been made. But it was God’s purpose that by the sale of “Ministry of Healing” and “Christ’s Object Lessons” much means should be raised for the work of our sanitariums and schools, and that our people might thereby be left more free to donate of their means for the opening of the work in new missionary fields. If our people will now engage in the sale of these books as they ought, we shall have much more means than we now have to carry the work in the way the Lord designed that it should be carried. CAMP-MEETINGS AND OUR PUBLICATIONS.
In connection with our camp-meetings in past years, God’s servants have improved many precious opportunities for instructing our people in practical methods of presenting the saving truths of the third angel’s message to their friends and acquaintances. Many have been taught how to labor as self-supporting missionaries in their home communities. Many have returned home from these annual gatherings, to labor with greater zeal and intelligence than hitherto. It would be pleasing to God if far more of this practical instruction were given the church-members who attend our camp-meetings, than has usually been given in years past. Our general workers and our brethren and sisters in every conference should remember that one of the objects of our annual gatherings is that all may gain a knowledge of practical methods of personal missionary work. This phase of our camp-meetings is outlined in “Testimonies for the Church,” Volume VI, as follows: — “God has committed to our hands a most sacred work, and we need to meet together to receive instruction, that we may be fitted to perform this work. We need to understand what part we shall individually be called upon to act in building up the cause of God in the earth, in vindicating God’s holy law, and in lifting up the Saviour as ‘the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.’ John 1:29. We need to meet together and receive the divine touch that we may understand our work in the home. Parents need to understand how they may send forth from the sanctuary of the home their sons and daughters so trained and educated that they will be fitted82 to shine as lights in the world. We need to understand in regard to the division of labor, and how each part of the work is to be carried forward. Each one should understand the part he is to act, that there may be harmony of plan and of labor in the combined work of all.”—Pages 32, 33. “Properly conducted, the camp-meeting is a school where pastors, elders, and deacons can learn to do more perfect work for the Master. It should be a school where the members of the church, old and young, are given opportunity to learn the way of the Lord more perfectly, a place where believers can receive an education that will help them to help others. . . . “The best help that ministers can give the members of our churches is not sermonizing, but planning work for them. Give each one something to do for others. Help all to see that as receivers of the grace of Christ they are under obligation to work for Him. And let all be taught how to work. Especially should those who are newly come to the faith be educated to become laborers together with God. If set to work, the despondent will soon forget their despondency; the weak will become strong, the ignorant intelligent, and all will be prepared to present the truth as it is in Jesus. They will find an unfailing helper in Him who has promised to save all that come unto Him.”—Pages 49, 50. In some of our conferences, the leaders have hesitated to introduce these practical methods of instruction. Some are naturally inclined to sermonize rather than to teach. But on such occasions as our annual camp-meetings, we must never lose sight of the opportunities afforded for teaching the believers how to do practical missionary work in the place where they may live. In many instances it would be well to set83 apart certain men to carry the burden of different lines of educational work at these meetings. Let some help the people to learn how to give Bible readings and to conduct cottage meetings. Let others bear the burden of teaching the people how to practise the principles of health and temperance, and how to give treatments to the sick. Still others may labor in the interests of our periodical and book work. And let chosen workers take a special interest in teaching many how to handle “Christ’s Object Lessons” and “Ministry of Healing.” Many have never learned how to sell the books dedicated to the advancement of our institutional work. But such should not excuse themselves. They should study diligently how they may do their part faithfully in connection with the circulation of these precious books. Our schools and sanitariums must be conducted on a high plane of efficiency, and a solemn responsibility rests upon us all to help place these institutions on vantage-ground by giving the relief books a wide circulation. God will be glorified by every one who takes an active interest in the work of placing these books in the hands of the multitudes who are in need of the saving truths of the gospel. The opportunity we have of doing good by striving to carry out the Lord’s plan for the relief of our schools and sanitariums, has been presented to me over and over again in connection with the Southern California Conference. The conditions there are unusually favorable for a long-continued effort to push the sale of “Christ’s Object Lessons” and “Ministry of Healing.” Our brethren and sisters in Southern California should never weary of this plan for raising money to meet the debts that have accumulated. The students of the Fernando school, and the nurses of the three sanitariums that have been84 established, can ill afford to lose the precious experiences in missionary work that come to those who handle the relief books. And the conference can ill afford to lose the results, spiritual as well as financial, that would accompany a continued effort of this sort. But years have passed, and students who should have been gaining rich experiences in actual missionary work, have not been encouraged to launch out heartily in the sale of “Christ’s Object Lessons.” Church-members in many places have daily met with strangers,—tourists, men and women of means and influence,—and yet such opportunities as these for circulating “Christ’s Object Lessons” and “Ministry of Healing” have been allowed to pass by unimproved. Many honest-hearted persons who could have been reached by diligent, whole-hearted effort, have not been given the light of the third angel’s message. Had the Lord’s plan been followed, His name would have been glorified, and many spiritual victories would have been won. Those having means would have been more able and willing to come up to the help of the Lord when He was leading out in an extraordinary manner in the establishment of strong medical missionary centers in the vicinity of great thoroughfares of travel. Students would have received a training that would have greatly increased their efficiency as practical missionaries at home and abroad. Churches would have been revived with spiritual blessings. Many would have been won to the truth, and these would have brought into the cause their influence and their means. In such places as Southern California, where thousands of tourists, many of them in search of health and strength, are constantly coming and going, special and continuous efforts should be put forth to scatter the bright rays of light and truth. The books85 “Ministry of Healing” and “Christ’s Object Lessons,” are peculiarly adapted for use in tourist centers, and everything possible should be done to place copies of these works in the hands of those who have leisure and inclination to read. Especially do those who are seeking for restoration of health, need the book “Ministry of Healing.” Every favorable opportunity for reaching this class is to be improved. My heart has rejoiced as I have learned of a revival of the relief work in Southern California during the past few months. At Loma Linda some of the nurses have been given a special training for the work of selling “Ministry of Healing;” and as they have visited homes in the neighboring cities and villages, the blessing of heaven has rested richly upon them, and favorable impressions have been made in behalf of our people and their work. At the Fernando school, the teachers have recently led out in reviving an interest in the sale of “Christ’s Object Lessons.” Bands of students, after prayerful study of the book, have visited Los Angeles in company with their teachers, and have gained a sound, solid experience which they prize above silver and gold. This kind of work is, in fact, one of the means God has ordained for giving our youth a missionary training; and those who neglect to improve such opportunities lose out of their lives a chapter of experience of the highest value. By entering heartily into this work, students can learn how to approach with tact and discretion men and women in all walks of life, how to deal with them courteously, and how to lead them to give favorable consideration to the truths contained in the books that are sold. Our greatest burden should be, not the raising of money, but the salvation of souls; and to this end we should do all in our power to teach students how86 to lead souls to a knowledge of the third angel’s message. When we are successful in the work of soul-saving, those who are added to the faith will, in turn, use their ability in giving the truth to others. When we labor diligently for the salvation of our fellow men, God will prosper our every effort. To the presidents of conferences, and to others in positions of leading responsibility, I would say: Let us do all in our power to impress upon the teachers connected with our educational institutions the great value of the blessings in store for those who seek diligently to make the best possible use of the gift, “Christ’s Object Lessons.” Let us encourage the teachers to unite with many of their students in a prayerful study of this book, preparatory to going out with them into active field work. Let us help the educators to understand their responsibility in this matter. Let us do all we can to revive the “Christ’s Object Lessons” work, and to inaugurate plans for an active campaign with “Ministry of Healing.” As teachers and students engage heartily in this line of work, they will gain an experience that will fit them to do valuable service in connection with our camp-meetings. Through the instruction that they can give to the believers in attendance, and through the sale of many books in the places where such meetings are held, those who have been in the school will be able to do their part in reaching the multitudes who need to be given the third angel’s message. Let teachers and students nobly bear their share of the burden of showing our own people how to communicate the message to their friends and neighbors. When we follow plans of the Lord’s devising, we are “laborers together with God.” Whatever our position,—whether presidents of conferences, ministers, teachers, students, or lay members,—we are held87 accountable by the Lord for making the most of our opportunities to enlighten those in need of present truth. And one of the principal agencies He has ordained for our use is the printed page. In our schools and sanitariums, in our home churches, and particularly in our annual camp-meetings, we must learn to make a wise use of this precious agency. With patient diligence, chosen workers must instruct our people how to approach unbelievers in a kindly, winning way, and how to place in their hands literature in which the truth for this time is presented with clearness and power. My brethren and sisters, let us not become weary in well-doing. During His earthly ministry, Christ traveled on foot from place to place. Wearied, as He ofttimes was, His human nature taxed to the uttermost, yet He was ever ready to heal all who came unto Him, and to teach them the way of life eternal. Though often physically exhausted, He left not His work. There was a world to be saved. He made every sacrifice possible, in order that light and truth might shine forth. The Lord God of Israel desires us to link up in holy union with Himself, and exercise the living faith that works by love and purifies the soul. He desires that we shall be a working corps of laborers endowed with adaptability for His service; and to such He promises power to win a glorious victory for Him. Sanitarium, Cal., July 10, 1908. The men who stand as leaders in any part of the solemn work of the last gospel message must cultivate and cherish broad views and ideas. It is the privilege of all who bear responsibilities in the work88 of the gospel to be apt learners in the school of Christ. The professed follower of Christ must not be led by the dictates of his own will; his mind must be trained to think Christ’s thoughts, and enlightened to comprehend the will and way of God. Such a believer will be a follower of Christ’s methods of work. Our brethren should not forget that the wisdom of God has made provision for our schools in a way that will bring blessing to all who participate in the enterprise. The book, “Christ’s Object Lessons,” was donated to the educational work, that the students and other friends of the schools might handle these books, and by their sale raise much of the means needed to lift the school indebtedness. But this plan has not been presented to our schools as it should have been; the teachers and students have not been educated to take hold of this book and courageously push its sale for the benefit of the educational work. Long ago the teachers and students in our schools should have learned to take advantage of the opportunity to raise means by the sale of “Christ’s Object Lessons.” In selling these books the students will serve the cause of God, and, while doing this, by the dissemination of precious light, they will learn invaluable lessons in Christian experience. All our schools should now come into line, and earnestly endeavor to carry out the plan presented to us for the education of workers, for the relief of the schools, and for the winning of souls to the cause of Christ. “I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.” Isa. 6:8.
CONDITIONS IN THE CITIES.
There is coming rapidly and surely an almost universal guilt upon the inhabitants of the cities, because of the steady increase of determined wickedness. We are living in the midst of an “epidemic of crime,” at which thoughtful, God-fearing men everywhere stand aghast. The corruption that prevails, is beyond the power of the human pen to describe. Every day brings fresh revelations of political strife, bribery, and fraud; every day brings its heart-sickening record of violence and lawlessness, of indifference to human suffering; of brutal, fiendish destruction of human life. Every day testifies to the increase of insanity, murder, and suicide. The cities of to-day are fast becoming like Sodom and Gomorrah. Holidays are numerous; the whirl of excitement and pleasure attracts thousands from the sober duties of life. The exciting sports—theater-going, horse-racing, gambling, liquor-drinking and reveling—stimulate every passion to activity. The youth are swept away by the popular current. Those who learn to love amusement for its own sake, open the door to a flood of temptations. They give themselves up to social gaiety and thoughtless mirth. They are led on from one form of dissipation to another, until they lose both the desire and the capacity for a life of usefulness. Their religious aspirations are chilled; their spiritual life is darkened. All the nobler faculties of the soul, all that link man with the spiritual world, are debased. Through the working of trusts and the results of labor unions and strikes, the conditions of life in the cities are constantly becoming more and more difficult. The intense passion for money-getting, the thirst for display, the luxury and extravagance,— all are forces that, with the great mass of mankind, are turning the mind from life’s true purpose. They are opening the door to a thousand evils. Many, absorbed in their interest in worldly treasures, become insensible to the claims of God, and the needs of their fellow men. They regard their wealth as a means of glorifying self. They add house to house, and land to land; they fill their homes with luxury, while all about them are human beings in misery and crime, in disease and death. By every species of oppression and extortion, men are piling up colossal fortunes, while the cries of starving humanity are coming up before God. There are multitudes struggling with poverty, compelled to labor hard for small wages, unable to secure the barest necessities of life. Toil and deprivation, with no hope of better things, make their burden heavy. When pain and sickness are added, the burden is almost unbearable. Care-worn and oppressed, they know not where to turn for relief. The Scriptures describe the condition of the world just before Christ’s second coming. James the apostle pictures the greed and oppression that will prevail. He says, “Go to now, ye rich men; . . . ye have heaped treasure together for the last days. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.” James 5:1-6. This is a picture of what exists to-day. “Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity can not enter. Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey.” Isa. 59:14, 15. Even the church, which should be the pillar and ground of the truth, is found encouraging a selfish love of pleasure. When money is raised for religious purposes, to what means do many churches resort? — To bazaars, suppers, fancy fairs, even to lotteries and like devices. Often the place set apart for God’s worship is desecrated by feasting and drinking, buying, selling, and merrymaking. Respect for the house of God and reverence for His worship are lessened in the minds of the youth. The barriers of self-restraint are weakened. Selfishness, appetite, the love of display, are appealed to, and they strengthen as they are indulged. From age to age the Lord has made known the manner of His working. When a crisis has come, He has revealed Himself, and has interposed to hinder the working out of Satan’s plans. With nations,92 with families, and with individuals, He has often permitted matters to come to a crisis, that His interference might become marked. Then He has made it manifest that there is a God in Israel who will maintain His law and vindicate His people. In the antediluvian world, human agencies brought in all manner of devisings and ingenious practices to make of no effect the law of Jehovah. They cast aside His authority because it interfered with their schemes. As in the days before the flood, so now the time is right upon us when the Lord must reveal His omnipotent power. In this time of prevailing iniquity we may know that the last great crisis is at hand. When defiance against God’s law is almost universal, when His people are oppressed and afflicted by their fellow men, the Lord will interpose. Satan is not asleep; he is wide-awake to make of no effect the sure word of prophecy. With skill and deceptive power he is working to counterwork the expressed will of God, made plain in His word. For years Satan has been gaining control of human minds, through subtle sophistries that he has devised to take the place of the truth. In this time of peril, right-doers, in the fear of God, will glorify His name by repeating the words of David, “It is time for Thee, Lord, to work: for they have made void Thy law.” Ps. 119: 126. THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD ON OUR CITIES.
While at Loma Linda, Cal., April 16, 1906, there passed before me a most wonderful representation. During a vision of the night, I stood on an eminence, from which I could see houses shaken like a reed in the wind. Buildings, great and small, were falling to the ground. Pleasure resorts, theaters, hotels,93 and the homes of the wealthy were shaken and shattered. Many lives were blotted out of existence, and the air was filled with the shrieks of the injured and the terrified. The destroying angels of God were at work. One touch, and buildings so thoroughly constructed that men regarded them as secure against every danger, quickly became heaps of rubbish. There was no assurance of safety in any place. I did not feel in any special peril, but the awfulness of the scenes that passed before me I can not find words to describe. It seemed that the forbearance of God was exhausted, and that the Judgment day had come. The angel that stood at my side then instructed me that but few have any conception of the wickedness existing in our world to-day, and especially the wickedness in the large cities. He declared that the Lord has appointed a time when He will visit transgressors in wrath for persistent disregard of His law. Terrible as was the representation that passed before me, that which impressed itself most vividly upon my mind was the instruction given in connection with it. The angel that stood by my side declared that God’s supreme rulership, and the sacredness of His law, must be revealed to those who persistently refuse to render obedience to the King of kings. Those who choose to remain disloyal, must be visited in mercy with judgments, in order that, if possible, they may be aroused to a realization of the sinfulness of their course. Throughout the following day I pondered the scenes that had passed before me, and the instruction that had been given. During the afternoon we journeyed to Glendale, near Los Angeles; and the following night I was again instructed regarding the holiness and binding claims of the ten commandments,94 and the supremacy of God above all earthly rulers. I seemed to be in an assembly, setting before the people the requirements of God’s law. I read the scriptures regarding the institution of the Sabbath in Eden at the close of the creation week, and regarding the giving of the law at Sinai; and then declared that the Sabbath is to be observed “for a perpetual covenant,” as a sign between God and His people forever, that they may know that they are sanctified by the Lord, their Creator. Then I further dwelt upon the supreme rulership of God above all earthly rulers. His law is to be the standard of action. Men are forbidden to pervert their senses by intemperance, or by yielding their minds to satanic influences; for this makes impossible the keeping of God’s law. While the divine Ruler bears long with perversity, He is not deceived, and will not always keep silence. His supremacy, His authority as Ruler of the universe, must finally be acknowledged, and the just claims of His law vindicated. Much more instruction regarding the long-sufferance of God, and the necessity of arousing transgressors to a realization of their perilous position in His sight, was repeated to the people, as received from my instructor. “On April 18, two days after the scene of falling buildings had passed before me, I went to fill an appointment in the Carr Street church, Los Angeles. As we neared the church, we heard the newsboys crying, “San Francisco destroyed by an earthquake!” With a heavy heart I read the first hastily printed news of the terrible disaster. Two weeks later, on our homeward journey, we passed through San Francisco, and, hiring a carriage,95 spent an hour and a half in viewing the destruction wrought in that great city. Buildings that were thought to be proof against disaster, were lying in ruins. In some instances buildings were partially sunken in the ground. The city presented a most dreadful picture of the inefficiency of human ingenuity to frame fire-proof and earthquake-proof structures. Through His prophet Zephaniah, the Lord specifies the judgments that He will bring upon evildoers: “I will utterly consume all things from off the land, saith the Lord. I will consume man and beast; I will consume the fowls of the heaven, and the fishes of the sea, and the stumbling-blocks with the wicked; and I will cut off man from off the land, saith the Lord.” “And it shall come to pass in the day of the Lord’s sacrifice, that I will punish the princes, and the king’s children, and all such as are clothed with strange apparel. In the same day also will I punish all those that leap on the threshold, which fill their master’s houses with violence and deceit. . . . “And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that say in their heart, The Lord will not do good, neither will He do evil. Therefore their goods shall become a booty, and their houses a desolation: they shall also build houses, but not inhabit them: and they shall plant vineyards, but not drink the wine thereof. “The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly. That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and96 gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness, a day of the trumpet and alarm against the fenced cities, and against the high towers. And I will bring distress upon men, that they shall walk like blind men, because they have sinned against the Lord: and their blood shall be poured out as dust, and their flesh as the dung. Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord’s wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy: for He shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land.” Zeph. 1: 2, 3, 8-18. God can not forbear much longer. Already His judgments are beginning to fall on some places, and soon His signal displeasure will be felt in other places. There will be a series of events revealing that God is master of the situation. The truth will be proclaimed in clear, unmistakable language. As a people we must prepare the way of the Lord under the overruling guidance of the Holy Spirit. The gospel is to be given in its purity. The stream of living water is to deepen and widen in its course. In all fields, nigh and afar off, men will be called from the plow and from the more common commercial vocations that largely occupy the mind, and will be educated in connection with men of experience. As they learn to labor effectively, they will proclaim the truth with power. Through most wonderful workings of divine providence, mountains of difficulty will be removed, and cast into the sea. The message that means so much to the dwellers upon the earth, will be heard and understood. Men will know what is truth. Onward and still onward the work will advance, until the whole earth shall have been warned; and then shall the end come. More and more, as the days go by, it is becoming apparent that God’s judgments are in the world. In fire and flood and earthquake, He is warning the inhabitants of this earth of His near approach. The time is nearing when the great crisis in the history of the world will have come, when every movement in the government of God will be watched with intense interest and inexpressible apprehension. In quick succession the judgments of God will follow one another,—fire and flood and earthquake, with war and bloodshed. O that the people might know the time of their visitation! There are many who have not yet heard the testing truth for this time. There are many with whom the Spirit of God is striving. The time of God’s destructive judgments is the time of mercy for those who have had no opportunity to learn what is truth. Tenderly will the Lord look upon them. His heart of mercy is touched; His hand is still stretched out to save, while the door is closed to those who would not enter. The mercy of God is shown in His long forbearance. He is holding back His judgments, waiting for the message of warning to be sounded to all. O if our people would feel as they should the responsibility resting upon them to give the last message of mercy to the world, what a wonderful work would be done! Behold the cities, and their need of the gospel! The need of earnest laborers among the multitudes of the cities has been kept before me for more than twenty years. Who are carrying a burden for the98 large cities? A few have felt the burden, but in comparison with the great need and the many opportunities, but little attention has been given to this work.