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THERE he lay for hours and hours, a miserable, half-clad, bleeding leper. Starvation, not more cruel or relentless than the gnawing disease, but an added enemy, had driven him forth (if indeed he had a fixed place of shelter) to seek of his less unfortunate fellows a bit of food with which to eke out an existence that was a living death to himself and a source of harrowing pain to all who beheld him. Carefully avoiding the main thorofares, he placed his well-nigh lifeless body on the edge of a rough, cobblestone-paved road connecting two main streets in a foreign concession in the city of Shanghai. With still life enough to feel the sting of the cold wind, he selected a place in the road just behind the splint bamboo fence where the minimum of the chilling north wind sifted through, and where the rays of the impartial and beneficent sun brought the most warmth. Too weak and full of pain to sit upright, he lay on his side seemingly all unconscious of the cold earth and jagged stones under him. His face was turned toward the road to catch the eyes of the passers-by who now and then cast a few “cash” pieces onto the small, ragged piece of grass matting that he had spread just in front of his face for that purpose.
His body, doubtless full of the loathsome disease, was scantily covered with a mass of rags, so hiding at least from the human eye the larger part of the man’s wretchedness, while his feet, hands, and head were fully exposed to the bleak January weather. His feet—mere stumps they were, the insatiable disease having already consumed the toes and beyond, leaving open, running sores, as if with its invisible fangs it had just then made a fresh attack. With some of his fingers entirely gone, and others to the first or second joint, his hands, if such they could be called, were pressed together and moved in the way of Chinese salutation; and this was his only appeal, unless an occasional moan escaped his lips, to the people as they passed back and forth in the way. His face so listless, so pinched with pain, and so hardened with that stoical feeling that runs deep in the Chinese life, together with his almost fixed eyes, plainly told the whole story of the wasting life within.
This man is one of China’s suffering ones, a member of a large class. To meet such cases of abject wretchedness is one of the common experiences of the missionary, and there is perhaps nothing that tells more on his strength. He can not possibly escape such sights, since at every turn they are present; but the fact that in the face of such suffering he is quite helpless to extend any real relief, is still more wearing to his nerves and feelings. All about him is a veritable ocean of physical suffering, whose tides and waves incessantly beat up against him, while he is the mere sport of their buffetings.
A Worse Evil
But why, indeed, should this suffering of which this man is so striking a type, excite our sympathies so profoundly, as tho men of this class were the most to be pitied? It is only right and quite natural that we should feel for, and seek to extend help to, any of our fellow men who are in great physical need; but are we not touched overmuch by the physical sufferings about us, to the exclusion of feeling compassion for a still larger class smitten with the still more deadly leprosy of sin? Are there not many who at the sight of the wretched man described in the above paragraphs would feel their hearts wrung with commiseration, while in the presence of what is still more distressing, say a company of idol worshipers prostrating themselves in abject fear before senseless images, there might be absolutely no feeling of pity?
A group of lepers in Syria. The dread disease is the same everywhere.
Why is this? If the physical sufferer deserves our sympathy (and no one can gainsay this), what shall we say of the man who is without hope and without God in the world, upon whom the wrath of God abides, whose fixed vision of the future is “a certain fearful expectation of judgment”? Is it not the spirit of man, the eternal life, that are of priceless value? The present world is marked with physical suffering, and this is particularly true of the great heathen lands where the powers of darkness exercise well-nigh full sway. The spirit of the Gospel leads us to do all in our power to alleviate this physical suffering, but the same Gospel goes infinitely beyond this. The real end of all missionary endeavor is to cast out of the human heart the devil and all his works; it is to go about “doing acts of kindness, and curing all who are crushed by the power of the devil,” and testify “that through His name all who believe in Him receive the forgiveness of their sins.” (Weymouth’s translation.)
Let us then be up and doing; let us know that to us has been committed “the Word of reconciliation,” that invites man to be reconciled to God and so become forever free from the darkness and slavery of Satan. In this great day of God’s mighty preparation and unparalleled opportunity, let us quit ourselves like men, and be “sons of light, and sons of the day.”
J. N. ANDERSON.
An Incident by the Way
THE scene of the incident, a beauty spot in the mountains of Switzerland. The gathering, a large company of English tourists, and an enthusiastic Swiss maiden who saw in it an opportunity to spread abroad the “everlasting Gospel.” Using the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, with other publications, she tells us her experiences as she began to distribute the papers:
“These are Seventh-day Adventist papers,” said a clergyman, when I offered him a copy; “so the Seventh-day Adventists are here also, I see.”
“Yes, Monsieur,” I said, “we are trying to let the light shine everywhere.”
Another clergyman said, “These are from America; your doctrine comes from America.”
“No, Monsieur,” I said, “it comes from the Bible and from the Lord.”
“You do not believe in the baptism of children,” he replied.
“No, it has come from Rome,” I said.
Again he said, “You believe that the end of the world is soon coming, and that the Lord will not save anybody after that.”
“Yes,” I replied, “but now is the time to come to the Lord. It is not for any one to wait until the Lord comes before finding His salvation.”
Then as I went on distributing papers, I found a clergyman smoking. I offered him a paper. He refused, saying,
“No, these things are from the devil.”
“Well,” I said, “now I will tell you something. I believe there is where the habit of smoking comes from.”
“Why do you say that?” he replied.
“Because it is an evil habit; it is a harmful one. You could not think of the Lord Jesus doing such a thing as going about with a pipe in His mouth. Our bodies are too sacred to injure them by such a habit; and you are a clergyman.”
Our talk attracted considerable attention, and he seemed to be quite embarrassed by it. Some of the ladies took part in the talk, and seemed rather to think that smoking was all right.15
However, the first clergyman who had spoken to me came to me a little later, and said,
“Mademoiselle, will you come here on the steps of the station, and talk to the people about smoking, and tell them why you think it is a wrong thing to do?”
I told him that I could not talk English well enough to speak in that way.
“Well,” he said, “you can talk English well enough to do it, and you tell them just why tobacco using is not a good practise.”
So I felt that I must answer the call, and in the best broken English that I could command I spoke for quite a little time to about three hundred people, on the duty of caring for our bodies, and on the evils of the use of tobacco.
Our Work and Workers
SIX have taken a firm stand for the truth at Rayville, Louisiana.
PASTOR E. G. OLSEN baptized ten persons at Council Bluffs, Iowa.
SIX souls have responded to the call of the message at Altoona, Pennsylvania.
THREE persons at Davis City, Iowa, have received baptism, and three others at Des Moines.
MISS RUTH SANTEE, a Bible worker at Rockford, Illinois, reports three converts among her readers.
NEARLY fifty souls who have received the call of the message in Los Angeles, California, have embraced it.
A BAPTISMAL service was held at Wahroonga, N. S. W., Australia, where eight persons took part in the ordinance.
AS A result of tent meetings held during the summer in Baltimore, Maryland, fifteen persons were baptized October 1.
AT the annual camp-meeting of the Western Colorado Conference, twenty persons, mostly young people, gave themselves to the Lord.
LAST July a church of twenty-eight members was organized at Orange, California. Since then fourteen have been added to the number.
BROTHER J. W. OWENS reports five colored candidates for baptism in Detroit, Michigan. Two new in the faith have been added at Lansing.
TWENTY-SEVEN were baptized at the camp-meeting at Shelbyville, Illinois, and a Sabbath-school of twenty-four members has been organized.
A SWEDISH church of thirteen members has been organized in Kansas City, Kansas. Five or six others are ready to unite with the new church.
THE church at Clearwater Lake, Wisconsin, has added fifteen members to their number, nine of whom will receive baptism, being new in the faith.
ONE sister this summer in the Eastern States has sold, besides other magazines, over one thousand truth-filled periodicals in twenty-one different languages.
AT Miami, Florida, a church of twenty-seven members has been organized. Twenty-one of this number were received into fellowship on profession of faith.
AT Dillwyn, Virginia, eleven have pledged themselves to "keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus," and a Sabbath-school of twenty members has been organized.
AT the close of tent meetings at New Haven, Connecticut, nineteen candidates were received into church fellowship. Baptism will follow later. Four or five more are keeping the Sabbath whom we believe will join us soon.
A VERY impressive service was the dedication of our international church in Los Angeles recently, the auditorium being appropriately decorated with the banner of nearly every nation in some cluster beautifully grouped along the walls.
A CHURCH of nineteen members has been organized at Simcoe, Ontario, and eight or ten more are deeply interested. As the result of tent meetings held at Fenelon Falls and Hamilton, in the same province, nine are rejoicing in the faith.
FOUR persons have been baptized and have united with the West Side church at Indianapolis, Indiana. Three young persons from this state have gone to the Foreign Mission Seminary to receive instruction preparatory to engaging in missionary work in some one of the world's needy fields.
A COPY of excellent earnest "Appeal to the Young People of the Lake Union Conference from the Students of Emmanuel College" comes to our table. It ought to arouse young people to the importance of a Christian education, and to the desire and purpose to obtain it.
BROTHER F. M. DANA, South Lancaster, Massachusetts, writes: "Eleven persons in one town in one of our conferences have accepted the truth as a result of reading the Home Bible Series of the SIGNS last year." At Natick, Massachusetts, seven dear souls have pledged themselves to obey all the commandments.
Expressed in Verse
By Editor
[It is in this way that one of our readers is moved to express herself (or is it himself?) in her (or his) appreciation of this paper. We would give the name, but the manuscript became separated from the letter, and no name was signed to the verses.—Ed.]
Signs and Signs
IN olden times God gave us signs,
That we might know His will;
And so to-day He gives us signs,
That He may lead us still.
The sun and moon and stars gave signs;
The Saviour said they would.
O that we would but heed those signs!
He gave them for our good.
So let us thank Him for the signs
He gives from year to year;
For we may know fulfilling signs
Point to His drawing near.
And let us thank Him for the SIGNS
He gives from week to week;
For through the columns of the SIGNS
His Spirit oft will speak.
Union College Missionary Work
BESIDES having 93 alumni of Union College actively engaged in spreading the third angel's message in home missions, 120 students and teachers have gone to foreign fields to engage in missionary labor. They may be found in South Africa, Abyssinia, South America, China, Germany, Austria, Scandinavia, Central America, and the Philippine Islands. During the last three years the student body has invested about $2,300 in Africa alone. Two hundred and seventeen students have enrolled so far this year.
APPROXIMATE CHRONOLOGY, OR THE TIME OF THE CRUCIFIXION
Places in condensed form a few facts, from Scripture, history, and astronomy, that will enable the reader to understand the exact time of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, giving the year, the month, the day of the month, the time of the moon, the day of the week, and the day of the Jewish month. Price 25 cents. Address H. H. Perry, 67 19th St., San Diego, California.
Having read the "Time of the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Christ," we testify that to our minds it contains a clear and interesting statement of the facts in the case, fortified with good evidence for the positions taken.
J. N. Loughborough, J. O. Corliss, E. J. Hibbard.
Bibles.—Remember that we are headquarters for anything in the Bible line. We shall be pleased to send you our catalog of Bible selections on application. Pacific Press, Mountain View, Cal.
