Signs of the Times, Vol. 33, No. 44. (10/30/1907)

Signs of the Times

Oct 30, 1907

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Oct 30, 1907

Bible Reading Series

By Editor

Twenty-four Special Numbers

BEGINNING with our next issue a series of very interesting studies will be taken up in the form of illustrated Bible-readings appearing under the head of

"Home Bible Studies for Winter Evenings."

These readings will occupy two pages in the center of the paper, and will cover all the great topics of the Gospel. They will be in the form of studies, with notes and quotations from history bearing upon the subject, and will be illustrated by diagrams, drawings, and unique little illustrations that will explain the lesson and make it simple and impressive. The topics will include:

(a) The Scriptures. (b) Prophecy. (c) The Coming of the Just One. (d) Signs of the Times. (e) The Sanctuary. (f) The Law of God. (g) The Everlasting Gospel. (h) The Everlasting Covenant. (i) Man—His Nature and Destiny (j) Spiritual Gifts. (k) The Great Threefold Message. (l) The Sabbath in All Its Phases. (m) Religious Liberty. (n) Man's Eternal Home. (o) The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit, etc., etc.

There will also be articles on the books of Daniel and the Revelation.

Articles on the book of Romans, the "therefores" and "wherefores," and the reasons for them.

Articles on the miracles, teaching, and life of Jesus Christ as the great Physician.

A series on the Ten Commandments.

The Kingdom and Priesthood of Christ.

Conditions in the world. Able correspondents in the Old World and the New. Labor and Capital. Wealth and Poverty. Plenty and Famine. Peace and War. Health and Hygiene. Home Instruction.

The regular departments of the paper, such as the Outlook, Missions, etc., will be maintained the same as usual.

The Outlook Department.

In this department special attention will be given to current events that have a bearing upon the fulfilment of prophecy. We shall continue to send representatives to all important gatherings, both political and religious, in order that our readers may be kept informed of the natural trend of events.

Home Department.

We can only suggest some of the good things to appear in our Home Department in the year to come. We know that our readers will be greatly helped by them. For instance, here is a list of twenty-one articles on

"The Building of the Home,"

by Mrs. L. D. Avery-Stuttle, whom our readers know so well.

Home—What It Means.
Honorable Young Manhood.
Beautiful Young Womanhood.
Acquaintance, Friendship, Proprieties.
Honorable and Proper Courtship.

Marriage and Its Meaning.
The Husband in the Home.
The Wife in the Home.
The Family Altar.
The Father.
The Mother.
The Son.
The Daughter.
Reading in the Home.
Order in the Home.
Simplicity in the Home.
Economy and Thrift in the Home.
Mutual Helpfulness.
Gatherings in the Home—Associations.
The Master in the Home.
The Outshining of the Home.

Besides this list of helpful articles we have the promise of another series which we may entitle

"Observations on Home-Life,"

from the pen of one known to some of our SIGNS family, and to many outside our SIGNS family, Mrs. Emma H. Adams, author of several excellent books, a lady of many years' experience, of wide acquaintance, and with a young heart. In a series of short articles she will give our readers the benefit of some of her keen observations.

Besides these there will be talks to the young, talks on health and hygiene, interesting information, and occasional helpful stories and sketches. The Home Department alone will be worth the price of the paper for a year.

With Our Inquirers.

This department of the SIGNS seems to be becoming more and more interesting and important as is evidenced by the large number of questions that come to the editor's desk, and our readers will be glad to know that this department will be kept up the same as heretofore, and all are invited to make use of its columns.

"Bible-Readers' Band."

A "Bible-Readers' Band" will be started, and it is hoped that many thousands of subscribers to the SIGNS will join this band and will read the Bible thru in one or two years. A brief outline of each book in the Bible, by whom and when written, and other important data, will be given together with suggestions as to how to take up the study in order to make it the most interesting and profitable. The senior editor will have special charge of this department.

God's Open Doors for Missionary Work

By Arthur T. Pierson

By Arthur T. Pierson, D.D., Editor Missionary Review of the World

BEHOLD, I have set before thee an open door"—"Behold, I stand at the door, and knock," are the two typical messages to the Philadelphian and Laodicean churches; and it is a singular and pathetic fact that both conditions are true now as then. Before His church God sets an open door, but His church sets before Him a closed door. Opportunity is always confronting apathy. The chance for work far outruns the zeal and even knowledge of God's people.

An Open Field.

At this, the beginning of the twentieth century, the whole world is like an open field, with the fences down, inviting tillage. When the Haystack Band at Williamstown, a century ago, were praying and planning for missions, scarce one country on earth presented an opening for Christian labor. Africa was the unexplored continent; Asia stood like a great city with adamantine walls and gates of steel. Papal Europe was as forbidding to Gospel effort as pagan isles in the South Seas. The Moslem world floated its green flag of defiance, and scarce had within it one evangelical worker. South America, the "Neglected Continent," was wrapped in a pall of impenetrable night.

Since then on every side the iron gates have opened as of their own accord, and there was a single decade of years, about the middle of the century that stretches between 1807 and 1907, when access was secured to three-quarters of the inhabitants of the heathen world.

Keys Used of God.

It is interesting to note what are the keys which God has been using to unlock these closed gates and give His church access to the nations that sat in the death shade.

There are seven such keys that might be mentioned: First of all, the simple spoken Gospel message, as under John Williams in the South Seas and William Johnson in Sierra Leone and Titus Coan in Hilo and Puna, or the printed word, as in Korea under John Ross; second, the key of commerce, as in China and Japan; third, the key of education, as in the work of Duff and Clough in India; fourth, the key of medical missions, so conspicuous, for instance, in Doctor Allen's work in Korea; fifth, the key of conquest, as in the control of Britain generally in India, Thibet, and other provinces under her sway; sixth, the key of progress, which is now apparently invading even the colossal empire of China and opening breaches in her wall; and seventh, the key

of philanthropy, as has been seen in a multitude of cases when help given in famine and plague has broken down long-continued opposition. But whether by His word, or by trade and war, or by letters and medicine, or by civilization and unselfish ministries of love, He has been working to put before His people a great, world-wide opportunity.

It may be well to glance rapidly at the open doors now set before the church of God.

The Sunrise Empire.

Beginning at the remote East, the Sunrise Empire may be said to present perhaps the widest opening in the world for missionary effort. Japan, of all Oriental countries, is the most tolerant and liberal in policy. Buddhism, since the middle of the sixth century, has overshadowed the older cult of Shintoism, especially prevalent since in the ninth century Kobo rebaptized Shinto ideas and rites with Buddhist names. But Japan has, since 1873, when the Edict Boards were removed, taken a tolerant attitude toward Christianity, and, in fact, toward all religions, very much as Rome admitted to her Pantheon, as its name indicated, any and "all gods."

The strategic value of the Island Empire is immense, and is due to two facts: first, Japan is the point of approach to the northern Buddhism; and, second, it is the outpost of all Asia, the country contiguous to Korea and China, and the natural eastern gateway to the rest of the continent. Let Japan be permeated with Christianity, and the problem of Asia's evangelization is half solved.

The Hermit Kingdom.

Korea, with its 8,000,000, is also substantially open. Already there are about 600 Protestant centers of mission work, and a total of about 160 missionaries and nearly twice as many native workers, with about 35,000 professed Christians, and schools and hospitals and very important publishing-houses. The influence of Japan is, of course, dominant, and this is promotive of religious toleration. Christianity is making most remarkable and rapid advance. Since, in 1875, John Ross sent over from Manchuria the Korean New Testament, translated by him without his ever having set foot on Korean soil, and especially after, in 1884, Dr. H. N. Allen so skilfully treated Prince Men Young Ik during the riot in Seoul, Korea has opened her gates wide. The emperor openly befriends the missionary, and while recently destroying thirty heathen fanes and officially deploring the money wasted on idols, he favors Christian churches, schools, and hospitals. The Bible Society sold 70,000 copies in 1900, and half the professed converts, both Catholic and Protestant, have been gathered within the last decade. At this time such a great revival pervades Korea that it seems as tho it is about to become a Christian nation.

The Celestial Empire.

China has been slow to open her ports. In 1842 five were opened by the guns of the first "opium war," nine more by the treaty of Tientsin in 1858; but the present reform movement seems to be preparing for a new era of religious liberty which always goes hand in hand with enlightened civilization. Contact with the Occident and its progressive spirit is obviously modifying the hatred of "foreign devils," while it humbles the conceit of Chinese literati. In 1900, about 2,800 Protestant missionaries were at work in this gigantic field. There were nearly 7,000 native workers and 113,000 converts.

Siam.

In Siam, in 1828, Gutzlaff and Tomlin did the pioneer work. These visitors from India, finding an open door, appealed to the American churches to occupy it, but already the first Christian book ever printed in Siamese had been introduced—a catechism translated by Doctor Judson's wife in 1819. Other missionaries began to enter the country in 1830, notably Doctor Bradley, but until 1857 little progress was made, for the king was hostile and despotic. But his death that year marked a great crisis. The man who was called to succeed him was a Buddhist monk, Maha-Mong-Kut, who had been trained by a Christian missionary, and he inaugurated a liberal policy. For seventeen years he and Chulalangkorn, his successor, were the patrons of Protestant missions. Here then is another open door to at least 5,000,000 people in the heart of Asia.

India and Burma.

India and Burma certainly present few obstacles to missions and no exclusive policy. Great Britain's flag is unfurled over this great Oriental empire with its 1,500,000 square miles and 300,000,000 people. Here Brahmanism is the ruling cult, but there are also 63,000,000 Moslems and 10,000,000 Buddhists. Missions here date back just two centuries to the days of Ziegenbalg and Plutschau. But the grand crisis was in 1858 when the rule of the East India Company, always hostile to missions, was broken,—one beneficial result of the bloody mutiny. As to Burma, from the baptism of Moung Nan, in 1819, and Ko-Thah-byu the Karen, in 1828, the work has gone steadily on with uninterrupted success. The greatest transformations in modern mission history have been seen in Tinnevelly and the Telugu district; and in the latter the largest church in the world to-day is to be found, at Ongole.

Persia.

Persia seemed to repel Henry Martyn, who went there in 1811, but left without knowing of one convert after his eleven months in Shiraz. But his translations of the New Testament and Psalms were not lost, nor was Pfander's "Balance of Truth," twenty years later. Under Fidelia Fiske, a three years' revival, from 1844 to 1847, left an impression never to be effaced. It was an outpouring so copious that all the girls in her school, over twelve years, were converted, and many of them became missionaries in their degraded Persian homes. In 1885 revivals again prevailed, and of late years there have been signs of a great movement toward Christianity among the 9,500,000 Moslems who constitute the bulk of the population. In no other Mohammedan country does such liberty prevail, partly because here the Moslems are torn into sects.

Solusi Mission, Matabeleland. (See Page 25.)

The Dark Continent.

Africa for the most part presents a magnificent door of opportunity, tho in some districts like Khartum there are restraints upon Protestant work. The Nile Valley is the great field for the United Presbyterians, and they are doing a great work. In Uganda, since Stanley wrote his famous letter to the London Telegraph in 1875, appealing in Mtesa's name for "teachers," progress has been so rapid that scarce anything in mission history equals it. It has been a martyr history, and one of revolution, civil as well as religious. But Hannington's death has been avenged. Thirteen years ago began a revival, first among the missionaries themselves, and then among native Christians, the especial feature of which has been for all these years a thirst for the word of God, the like of which has never

been known before. Three years later two hundred "synagogi," or reading-houses, had been built by native Christians to accommodate "Bible-readers," people who yearned to learn to read God's Book, and 6,000 were under instruction daily. So great did the opportunity become that even India's missionaries bade the church missionary society send candidates to Uganda instead of India, as on the whole most needed there. And where in all Africa can we now complain of no opportunity?

Even Arabia, the stronghold of the prophet of Mecca, seems letting down the bars of exclusion. Two noble efforts have been made to enter this forbidden land—the Keith-Falconer Mission at Aden with its chief station at Sheikh-Othman, and the mission of the Reformed Church of America, operating from Turkish and independent territory on the Persian Gulf, with three stations. That heroic pioneer, Mr. Zwemer, feels that the church has a great responsibility just now for this land with its 6,000,000, to turn Arabia Deserta into Arabia Felix.

A Century of Missions

By Irwin H. Evans

THE history of a “century of missions” is a story so full of church activity, of organized labors, and of heroic self-sacrifice that it reads more like romance than real history.

The morning of the nineteenth century gave promise of great things. The Revolution in France, together with the wars and conflicts of Napoleon I, had awakened every nation in Europe and alarmed the civilized world with fear of what might take place. The United States of America had just shaken off the shackles of Old World tyranny, and launched itself upon the ocean of time as a nation whose destiny lay entirely before it.

Ferry on the Sunida River, Tokyo. (See Page 22.)

Yet no prophet nor seer ever divined the mighty accomplishments of the nineteenth century. Year by year, in its onward march, it marshaled its forces along all lines of material development, scientific investigation, and the increase of national wealth. Nearly every year astonished the beholders with the inventions it thrust upon the world. Steam, electricity, railroad engineering, telephony, telegraphy, and new manufacturing machinery came so fast that old formulas were completely revolutionized, and the world stood in silent amazement at its own progress.

Greater growth was made in all material things during the century just closed than in all the six thousand years of earth’s previous history. The wealth of nations multiplied amazingly. The population of the civilized nations of the world increased more than in all their preceding history. The ages never saw such wide diffusion of knowledge, of toleration and liberty in religious beliefs, such growth into almost universal political freedom, and such liberty of the press, as were worked out during the nineteenth century.

For a thousand years preceding the days of the Reformation, the professed church had confined itself largely to political intrigues, with the supreme idea of securing political prestige and “exterminating heresy.” During this time scarcely anything had been done for the spread of the Gospel among those who were beyond its influence. The dawn of the Reformation in the sixteenth century placed the word of God in the hands of the laity, and there was a great spiritual awakening thruout Europe. But so fiercely did the war with Catholicism rage that for nearly two centuries Protestantism did little but battle with existing errors among so-called professed believers in Christ, and hardly held its own. The close of the eighteenth century found but few missionaries among the nations of heathenism. Ziegenbalg and Carey and a few others had entered India, but little had been done in any land. A beginning had been made, and what had been so sadly neglected for ages in the past, the church of the nineteenth century undertook to accomplish.

Think of the Herculean task that lay before the churches. Almost nothing was known of the Dark Continent except of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, the extreme southern point in Cape Colony, and what knowledge the wicked slave-traders had gained of eastern Africa. No Livingstone, no Stanley nor Gordon, had yet explored its interior. Burton, Speke, and Baker were yet unknown for half a century. The languages, dialects, and religions of interior Africa were an unknown quantity.

India, with its more than 300,000,000 of human beings, was almost a total stranger to Europe. The great East India Company had been operating in parts of India for some time, but their control wherever they were only made it all the more difficult to introduce the Gospel.

There was no Bible nor parts of the Scriptures in the languages of India. Before much could be done, some one must learn the native language, and translate the word of God into the native tongue. On the other hand, India did not speak a universal language, but there were scores of dialects spoken by colonies scattered in various parts. Again, but few of India’s millions could read even their native tongue; hence when the word of God came to them, they were wholly unable to receive the help it would have been to them had the masses been able to read. The same conditions existed in China, Japan, and Korea, and in the islands of the Pacific Ocean. Besides, in the early part of the nineteenth century, many of these doors were closed to the missionaries and to all missionary efforts. A foreigner could teach the Gospel in scarcely any of these countries. Even his life was unsafe, and it was with the greatest danger that any foreigner could enter these forbidden fields.

Ox Teams Starting to the Railroad with Grain, Solusi Mission, Matabeleland. (See Page 25.)

Many of the islands of the Pacific Ocean were given up to cannibalism and the lowest forms of idolatrous worship. They did not desire light from the word of God, and considered it a part of their religion to take the life of any one who should bring to them teachings contrary to that which had been taught them by their priests for generations in the past.

But Christ said before He ascended to His Father, “This Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” To one who is familiar with human history, it would seem impossible that this text of Scripture could ever reach fulfilment. But what seemed an insurmountable task at the beginning of the nineteenth century looks quite easy to us who are living at this time and know what mighty things God hath wrought in our day.

Early in the nineteenth century there came a great missionary awakening among the strong Protestant churches, and an earnest zeal to go out and carry the Gospel to the heathen nations. Carey had already gone

to India, and was sending back earnest appeals for additional help. The English Church, together with others, was already coming to realize the great need of getting the Scriptures into the hands of the laity, and many organizations had been created to extend the circulation of the Scriptures in the languages of the people. The British Bible Society, and later the American Bible Society, came into existence, and have proven mighty factors in the building up of the Gospel of the kingdom in all these foreign fields.

The Scriptures have been already printed in more than 500 of the languages and dialects of the earth, so there is scarcely a country in the world but has some part of the Scriptures in its own original tongues. The results of the work put forth by missionaries in these foreign fields have been so marvelous, and the reception of the Gospel in the hearts of those who have heard it has worked such transformation of character, that it is almost impossible to believe what we know to be facts.

There is already working among these benighted nations of earth a mighty army of well-trained, consecrated workers. No fewer than 40,000 professed Christian men and women are engaged in extending the Gospel to the benighted millions of the earth. These 40,000 workers are assisted by more than 80,000 native helpers, giving their lives to the accomplishment of the same end. Among these workers there are more than 6,000 clergymen, 8,000 women, and 700 physicians.

Twenty-four thousand professed Christian schools are in operation in these heathen lands, of which more than 1,000 are institutions teaching advanced work. These schools are giving instruction to no fewer than one million of students, who are being both educated in and won to the teachings of God's word. About 1,000 hospitals and dispensaries are maintained by the home land, where the poor and sick receive medicine and treatment, either entirely free or at a nominal cost. Annually there is being contributed more than twenty millions of dollars for the maintenance and extension of the work in foreign fields.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century there were very few church communicants in all these heathen lands, while at its close there were 1,317,684 communicants. In the year 1899 there were received into the church more than one hundred thousand believers. The number of church communicants does not cover the total amount of work done by these missionaries in foreign fields. There are those who have not yet joined the church who are greatly benefited by the preaching of the Gospel and by the teachings of the word of God.

There have been scattered copies of the Bible either in its entirety or in portions to the amount of over 320,000,000 copies. There were ten translations in foreign fields before the nineteenth century, there have been 466 during the nineteenth century. More than 14,494,000 books and tracts bearing on the Christian religion have been circulated. There are 148 publishing houses and printing-presses engaged in printing the Gospel to be scattered to these people, which annually circulate more than 375,000,000 pages of Christian reading-matter. There are being printed in the native languages 366 periodicals, with an annual circulation of over 297,000 copies.

The thousand Christian hospitals and dispensaries above mentioned give treatments in a single year to more than 2,579,000 patients. Over 213 orphanages have been established in these heathen lands, which are caring for over 13,000 orphans. There are ninety Christian leper-homes and hospitals, caring for more than 5,000 inmates. Besides these, there are 67 steamers and ships used in evangelistic, medical, and other departments of missionary service in the foreign field.

In Europe and America, there are 87 institutions of training where missionaries going abroad can receive a training for their future work.

One can imagine something of the tremendous growth of interest in foreign missionary work on the part of the professed Christian churches, when it is known that from the year 1649 to the year 1800, only twelve missionary societies were formed. From the year 1800 to the year 1900, there

were organized 387 missionary societies. During the last decade of the century, one hundred missionary societies in the home lands were organized for the extension of the work in foreign fields.

These agencies, which have been scattered to almost every heathen nation under heaven, have done a great and mighty work for God. The light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is breaking thru the darkness that has enshrouded these millions of our fellow beings for ages, and the heathen are appealing to the followers of Christ for help. That the church militant intends to answer this Macedonian cry is evidenced by what we see on every hand. What has been done is only a beginning of what will be done in the near future.

The great Threefold Message of Revelation 14, which is to go to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, has already entered most of these great heathen lands. India has already nearly forty laborers. China has about the same number. Japan and Korea have been entered, and many of the islands of the Pacific have received the living messenger and heard of the thrilling truths for these days. Nearly every country in South America has been entered, and God is greatly blessing the work in Brazil, in Argentina, in Chile, in Ecuador, in Peru, in Bolivia, in Guiana, and in the islands of the Caribbean Sea. We also have our stations planted in Central America, in Mexico, and in all the countries of British America and Alaska, while in Africa the Lord has done a great and mighty work in establishing missions at various central points for future work and missionary extension. Cape Colony has long since been an organized conference, while important out-stations have been planted in the Transvaal, in the Orange Free State, among the Matabele people, among Zulus, up in Victoria, Rhodesia, Nyasaland, German and British East Africa, the Gold Coast, and Sierra Leone, in Egypt, Algeria, and in various other places in Africa.

No people in the world are doing so much for the preaching of the Gospel to the heathen lands, measured by their numbers and material wealth, as those who believe in the soon coming of Jesus Christ. Last year the Seventh-day Adventists contributed $333,378.12 for the extension and maintenance of the work in foreign fields.

We believe the preaching of the Gospel to the heathen nations of the world is a sure sign of the soon coming of Christ. Let us not forget His saying that the “Gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come.” To this end let us live and pray.

Continue reading: The Divine Program of Missions