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Review and Herald, Vol. 91, No. 32.

THE WORK AND THE WORKERS
Earlier text: THE WORK AND THE WORKERS

Visiting Foreign Mission Centers

By A. G. Daniells

ON June 3 I sailed from San Francisco on the steamship “Wilhelmina” to fill appointments in Australia, China, and India. The arrangement to visit these fields was made at the General Conference held a year ago. The representatives from all the centers of our work outside of North America came to that conference with a united and earnest request that the officers of the General Conference spend more time attending the general meetings of the division and union conferences and missions throughout the world. This request, with the reasons therefor, was given careful study by the full committee, and was agreed to as a part of our general policy hereafter. In harmony with this decision it was then and there arranged that I should spend the summer of 1913 in the European Division Conference, the following winter in the North American Division, and start on my present trip in the spring of 1914. It was also decided that I should attend the biennial union conferences in Argentina and Brazil, South America, during the early part of 1916.
As this extensive traveling may seem to some of our people who are giving of their hard-earned means for the support of our work, to be an unnecessary expenditure of mission funds, I feel that a brief statement of our present situation throughout the world should be made.
We are connected with a living cause. It is continually growing, enlarging, and advancing. For this reason conditions are continually changing. Changes in conditions call for changes in plans of administration. There was a time when we had no organized conferences nor institutions of any kind. We occupied but a small section of territory. Then our plans were very simple. We wrote, printed, and distributed small papers and tracts, and preached the message in schoolhouses and small halls in villages.
But a great change has taken place. The cause of present truth has extended from that small section into every part of the world. Churches, local conferences, union conferences, and great continental division conferences have been organized. In foreign mission fields, local, union, and continental division missions have been developed. In all these organized fields there have been established institutions for the printing and circulation of literature on a large scale, and for the education and training of workers in many languages. It may now justly be claimed that this is a world-wide movement. In the Western Hemisphere its representatives are hard at work all the way from Alaska to Cape Horn. In the Eastern Hemisphere they form a line along the arctic circle from Iceland eastward through Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, and Siberia, and extending on into Korea and Japan. From this long line in the north, the work of the third angel’s message has been established in nearly every important division of territory as far south as men dwell in the Southern Hemisphere. The movement has not been like a great tidal wave rolling over the continents, but like gentle showers falling upon all lands.
And in every part of the world where the message has been proclaimed, believers have been gathered, new avenues have been opened, new conditions formed, and new demands created. Unless one follows the development of this work very closely, its advance will get far beyond his realization. One must study all phases of the work in every part of the world field in order to form true conceptions of its onward march. Few realize how many conferences have been organized and how many new countries entered during the last ten or twelve years. At the General Conference held in Battle Creek in the spring of 1901, a very definite and earnest call came to us to reorganize our administrative affairs, to bring more men within the circle of management, and to extend our operations far and wide throughout the world. Since then we have increased our union conference organizations from two to twenty-three, and our local conferences from forty-five to one hundred and twenty-eight. At that time we were operating missions in forty-two different lands; now we are working in more than one hundred.
In all these foreign lands the growth in membership, funds, and the sale of literature has been very encouraging. The European Division Conference has increased its number of believers from 7,500 to nearly 32,000, a gain of over three hundred per cent. At the same time its annual tithe has increased from $46,000 to $364,000, an increase of seven hundred per cent. Its offerings to missions have been raised from $15,000 to $106,000, a gain of six hundred per cent. The sale of literature has been increased from $75,000 to $482,000, a gain of more than five hundred per cent.
This great division conference, embracing all Europe, Asiatic Russia, Asiatic Turkey, Persia, Arabia, and the northern half of Africa, is now entirely self-supporting. With the close of the year 1913 this territory, with its millions of people, was removed from our General Conference appropriation list, thus allowing us to concentrate our offerings to missions on other needy fields. The Australasian Union, with its institutions and all its island mission fields in the South Pacific, has also become fully self-supporting.
While writing this report, I am sailing over the Pacific Ocean along the same track I traveled twenty-eight years ago on my way to New Zealand. I am having some quiet hours for study and reflection. My heart is thrilled as I review the progress of the message during these twenty-eight years. Then we were just beginning our work in the Southern Hemisphere. We had not entered either Africa or South America. There were no Sabbath keepers on any of the islands south of the equator, except Pitcairn. There were only two ministers in the Southern Hemisphere. These were in Australia; and they were being supported by contributions from the brethren in America. Now one may find fellow workers and believers in every important seaport in the Southern Hemisphere.
When I went out to New Zealand in 1886, our cause seemed a large and important one to me. We had 23,000 members, 28 local conferences, and nearly 400 conference laborers. Now we have more than 100,000 members, 128 local conferences, and more than 5,000 conference workers. We were then working in three foreign mission fields. At the present time we are operating in 103. At that time our total annual tithe was $146,000. Now it is $1,750,000. Our book and periodical sales in 1886 amounted to $76,000, while last year they mounted up close to $2,000,000. From the statistical point of view, the European Division alone is far stronger today than our whole movement was when I came on this long journey twenty-eight years ago.
What is true of the growth of believers, tithes, offerings, and the sale of literature in the European Division, is true of many other parts of our world field. A dozen years ago we were carrying on missionary work in but one country of the Asiatic Division. That was Japan. Now we are permanently established in Korea, China, the Philippines, the Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and Borneo. We now have in this territory so recently entered more than 2,000 believers, paying an annual tithe of about $8,000, and selling more than $5,000 worth of literature each year. These converts also contribute $2,000 a year to the cause of foreign missions.
Such is the record throughout the world, with the exception of the increase of membership in the United States. Here there has not been the same increase in membership as there has been in tithes, offerings, and the sale of literature. Some would endeavor to weaken the confidence of our people in this movement by claiming that the lack of growth in the homeland is evidence of general inefficiency, weakness, and retrogression; but this is not true. While we are no doubt at fault somewhere in this matter, yet it can be said to the credit of the believers in the United States that for a number of years they have been working most earnestly for the great regions beyond. Conferences have cheerfully let their most promising young preachers go in answer to the call of the Mission Board. Schools have surrendered their best teachers to take charge of new schools being established in foreign lands. From the Atlantic to the Pacific, union and local conferences have divided their tithes with the needy fields abroad. The officers and administrative committees of these conferences have refrained from calling upon the people for needed funds to carry forward their local work, while at the same time they have united with the members of the Mission Board in the effort to continually increase the annual gifts to foreign missions. These offerings have been raised from $90,000 in 1900 to more than $500,000 during the year 1913, while the annual tithe has increased from about $400,000 a year to more than $1,000,000, and the sale of literature from a little more than $100,000 in 1900 to $1,172,000 last year.
This review of progress is not given to glorify either the people or the movement. These comparisons are made to show what God has wrought. He has been fulfilling his word. Two thousand years ago he declared that this threefold message should at this time be proclaimed to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people; and now he is bringing it to pass. When we consider the age in which we live, and the character of the message we bear, its triumphant march through the world is truly marvelous. The hand of God is in this work. To be rightly connected with it is the greatest honor that can come to one in this world.
Now this steady extension of our work from the New England States to the whole wide world has called for changes, adjustments, and enlargement of plans of administration. In the early days before there were conferences, Elder James White, whose administrative gifts were recognized by all the believers, took the general oversight of the work. He and Sister White traveled from place to place, visiting, instructing, and encouraging the little companies of Sabbath keepers. Later when churches and conferences were organized in a few States, Elder White as president of the General Conference, which was formed of these State conferences, took the general supervision of affairs in all these local conferences. For many years the president of the General Conference attended all the annual sessions of the local conferences, giving instruction in all the details of the work, and taking an active part in the work of the committees on nominations, resolutions, credentials and licenses, and auditing. He helped to audit the accounts of every laborer in the cause.
But as the work enlarged and the organizations increased, the president of the General Conference began to drop details. Finally he found it impossible to attend the annual meetings of all the conferences. To supply the place of the president of the General Conference the general committee called to their assistance the most experienced and capable presidents of local conferences. Great care was taken to see that some representative of the General Conference was present at every annual meeting of the local conference.
All this detailed supervision was right and necessary in those days when the administrative foundations were being laid; but we have journeyed a long way since those days. There came to be so many conferences and missions in so many parts of the world that large union organizations were fitted in between the General Conference and the local conferences, to take the supervision of the latter. And now great continental division conferences are fitted in between the General Conference and the union conferences to take the oversight of the unions.
These developments have necessarily changed the field of operation and the problems of the officers of the General Conference from time to time. They have been steadily pushed on to wider stretches of territory and to administrative work of a more general character. This steady expansion, this firm rooting, and this systematic development have at last enlarged the territorial supervision of the General Conference from the six States of which it was originally composed, to the whole world. And so the call for the officers of the General Conference to visit the largest and most important centers of our work throughout the world seems as reasonable and as insistent as was the call for their help by the six local conferences at the time of their organization fifty-one years ago. The conference committees and the institutional boards in charge of the schools, publishing houses, and sanitariums in these widely separated union and division conferences and mission fields throughout the world, have their hands and hearts full. They are all struggling with perplexing problems that often well-nigh overwhelm them. They feel the need of the presence, the experience, and the help of the general men. The General Conference officers need the association and information to be obtained by visiting these great divisions. All this helps to bind our cause together everywhere, and to maintain the world-wide unity so necessary to the speedy finishing of our work.
If I may here speak a personal, and somewhat confidential, word to our people, I will say that the extensive traveling required by this program is not my personal choice. Twenty years of knocking about on railway trains and ocean steamships has more than satisfied any hankering I may have had to travel in my younger days. I should prefer a quiet life and a settled home with my family, rather than tramping over the world, living in suit cases, and having no regularity regarding food, rest, or work. For three years I have had the privilege of being with my boy, who is now eighteen, about one month each year. For twenty years I have been separated from my wife from half to two thirds of the time. In all those years we have crossed the ocean together once. In planning for this present long absence abroad we felt that she ought to accompany me, provided it could be done at our own expense. I make these brief statements that our people may know that we are not spending our time traveling about the world on pleasure trips at conference expense. We should be glad if all traveling expenses could be avoided, but for the present it seems to be my duty to spend a large part of my time with the workers in the widely separated parts of the world, and it does not seem right to us that our family life should be so continuously broken.
But no matter what the expense and sacrifice may be, we all rejoice in the growth and development of the Lord’s cause throughout the world. For this we have prayed, and given, and toiled these years, and we praise God for what he has wrought. A. G. DANIELLS.

Statement of Twenty-Cent-a-Week Fund for Six Months Ending June 30, 1914

CONFERENCES Membership Amt. at $5.20 per member Amount Received Amount Short Amount Over Net Amount Short Net Amount Over
ATLANTIC UNION
Central New England 1267 $6588.40 $2994.49 $3593.91
Greater New York 1101 5725.20 3826.95 1898.25
Maine 449 2334.80 703.51 1631.29
New York 815 4238.00 1609.74 2628.26
Northern New England 540 2808.00 1337.40 1470.60
Southern New England 496 2579.20 933.33 1645.87
Western New York 840 4368.00 2513.79 1854.21
Totals 5508 28641.60 13919.21 14722.39 14722.39
CANADIAN UNION
Maritime 239 1242.80 655.84 586.96
Ontario 501 2605.20 986.93 1618.27
Quebec 136 707.20 603.97 103.23
Newfoundland 57 296.40 306.56 10.16
Totals 933 4851.60 2553.30 2308.46 10.16 2298.30
CENTRAL UNION
Colorado 1703 8855.60 3466.74 5388.86
East Kansas 1182 6146.40 2800.30 3346.10
Nebraska 2073 10779.60 7841.30 2938.30
North Missouri 697 3624.40 1239.72 2384.68
Southern Missouri 680 3536.00 2135.60 1400.40
Western Colorado 465 2418.00 672.76 1745.24
West Kansas 868 4513.60 2244.86 2268.74
Wyoming 517 2688.40 2041.86 646.54
Totals 8185 42562.00 22443.14 20118.86 20118.86
COLUMBIA UNION
Chesapeake 605 3146.00 1823.74 1322.26
District of Columbia 771 4009.20 2180.85 1828.35
Eastern Pennsylvania 1150 5980.00 3047.75 2932.25
New Jersey 726 3775.20 2007.57 1767.63
Ohio 2000 10400.00 5566.24 4833.76
Virginia 514 2672.80 925.54 1747.26
West Pennsylvania 790 4108.00 2581.51 1526.49
West Virginia 172 894.40 494.15 400.25
Totals 6728 34985.60 18627.35 16358.25 16358.25
LAKE UNION
East Michigan 1532 7966.40 4216.51 3749.89
Indiana 1732 9006.40 5684.64 3321.76
Northern Illinois 1403 7295.60 5103.17 2192.43
North Michigan 784 4076.80 1401.38 2675.42
Southern Illinois 614 3192.80 1813.15 1379.65
West Michigan 2444 12708.80 5524.06 7184.74
Wisconsin 2594 13488.80 4656.58 8832.22
Totals 11103 57735.60 28399.49 29336.11 29336.11
NORTHERN UNION
Iowa 2343 12183.60 7842.88 4340.72
Minnesota 1715 8918.00 9339.75 421.75
North Dakota 1303 6775.60 2960.74 3814.86
South Dakota 948 4929.60 3346.73 1582.87
Totals 6309 32806.80 23490.10 9738.45 421.75 9316.70
NORTH PACIFIC UNION
Montana 452 2350.40 1360.57 989.83
Southern Idaho 647 3364.40 1882.71 1481.69
Southern Oregon 573 2979.60 1508.11 1471.49
Upper Columbia 1900 9880.00 4975.16 4904.84
Western Oregon 1831 9521.20 4060.78 5460.42
Western Washington 1592 8278.40 2795.98 5482.42
Alaska 4 20.80 9.30 11.50
Totals 6999 36394.80 16592.61 19802.19 19802.19
PACIFIC UNION
Arizona 234 1216.80 5709.19 4492.39
California 2698 14029.60 7403.62 6625.98
Central California 1138 5917.60 2808.55 3109.05
Northern California 1139 5922.80 3875.66 2047.14
Southern California 3397 17664.40 13554.89 4109.51
Utah 173 899.60 402.98 496.62
Nevada Mission 92 478.40 340.03 138.37
Totals 8871 46129.20 34094.92 16526.67 4492.39 12034.28
CONFERENCES Membership Amt. at $5.20 per member Amount Received Amount Short Amount Over Net Amount Short Net Amount Over
SOUTHEASTERN UNION
Cumberland 586 $3047.20 $1152.18 $1895.02
Florida 685 3562.00 3738.66 176.66
Georgia 571 2969.20 1231.67 1737.53
North Carolina 441 2293.20 1220.33 1072.87
South Carolina 308 1601.60 598.50 1003.10
Totals 2591 13473.20 7941.34 5708.52 176.66 5531.86
SOUTHERN UNION
Alabama 200 1040.00 848.35 191.65
Kentucky 275 1430.00 602.40 827.60
Louisiana 262 1362.40 910.23 452.17
Mississippi 132 686.40 914.04 227.64
Tennessee River 617 3208.40 1240.32 1968.08
Southern Union Mission 580 3016.00 731.44 2284.56
Totals 2066 10743.20 5246.78 5724.06 227.64 5496.42
SOUTHWESTERN UNION
Arkansas 295 1534.00 822.17 711.83
New Mexico 291 1513.20 575.05 938.15
North Texas 1409 7326.80 2354.36 4972.44
Oklahoma 1875 9750.00 3087.20 6662.80
South Texas 230 1106.00 1307.92 111.92
West Texas 316 1643.20 313.79 1329.41
Totals 4416 22963.20 8460.49 14614.63 111.92 14502.71
WESTERN CANADIAN UNION
Alberta 475 2470.00 1903.28 566.72
British Columbia 364 1892.80 1519.48 373.32
Manitoba 213 1107.60 525.64 581.96
Saskatchewan 252 1310.40 2619.34 1308.94
Totals 1304 6780.80 6567.74 1522.00 1308.94 213.06

Summary

UNIONS Membership Amt. at $5.20 per member Amount Received Amount Short Amount Over Net Amount Short Net Amount Over
Atlantic 5508 28641.60 13919.21 14722.39 14722.39
Canadian 933 4851.60 2553.30 2308.46 10.16 2298.30
Central 8185 42562.00 22443.14 20118.86 20118.86
Columbia 6728 34985.60 18627.35 16358.25 16358.25
Lake 11103 57735.60 28399.49 29336.11 29336.11
Northern 6309 32806.80 23490.10 9738.45 421.75 9316.70
North Pacific 6999 36394.80 16592.61 19802.19 19802.19
Pacific 8871 46129.20 34094.92 16526.67 4492.39 12034.28
Southeastern 2591 13473.20 7941.34 5708.52 176.66 5531.86
Southern 2066 10743.20 5246.78 5724.06 227.64 5496.42
Southwestern 4416 22963.20 8460.49 14614.63 111.92 14502.71
Western Canadian 1304 6780.80 6567.74 1522.00 1308.94 213.06
Miscellaneous 194.28 194.28 194.28
Totals 65013 $338067.60 $188530.75 $156480.59 $6943.74 $149731.13 $194.28
Less total amount over 194.28
Net amount short $149536.85

Mission Funds

By W. T. Knox

HEREWITH is submitted the report of all mission funds received in the General Conference treasury for the first six months of the year. We have passed the halfway mark for 1914. It would be well for every Seventh-day Adventist at this time to give careful consideration to the progress made by him in his service to God during this first half of the year. What advancement has been made in the development of Christian character? What has been accomplished by his individual effort in the upbuilding of the kingdom of God? What degree of faithfulness has characterized his efforts to meet the obligations resting upon him to give the message to the world in this generation?
With these queries in mind, the accompanying report should cause serious reflection. We have, through the guidance of God, undertaken a great work, but surely the thought will not be entertained by any that in our work in foreign fields we have proceeded more rapidly than the needs of the cause or the open ing providences of the Lord have indicated.
The Twenty-cent-a-week Fund for the period under consideration, calls for $338,067.60, of which amount only $188,530.75 has been received, with a resulting shortage of $149,536.85. An examination of the report will reveal that with the exception of six conferences and one mission field, every conference in North America has contributed to this heavy deficit. That the condition shown in the report, with the accompanying endangerment of our foreign mission work, will be permitted by us to continue, is not believable. The only right way to correct it, however, will be for each individual believer to ascertain what the Lord will have him do to relieve the situation, and endeavor to bring to the mission treasury speedy relief. W. T. Knox.

No Light Beyond the Tomb

By VERA CHILTON

VERA CHILTON
It seemed only a heap of bedding, away in a dark corner.
I came out of the bright sunshine into the dark, close, inner veranda, and began to give my lesson. My pupil (the wife of a nawab) was not bright, owing to continued ill health, and the lesson had to be made simple. It finished, as my lessons so often do, with an account of the blessed hope of a soon-coming Saviour.
Then it was that I noticed a movement under the bedding in that dark corner, and a feeble but eager voice cried out, “Miss Sahib, tell me, will he come soon?”
I gave a reason for this hope that is within us, and he said, “O Miss Sahib! shall I see her again? shall I see my wife?” I can only give you the words, it is impossible to depict the deep agony of tone; eagerness and despair were blended.
It is in circumstances like this that the heart of the worker for Mohammedans is pierced with unutterable anguish; for what answer can be given? He was an old, old man. He had loved his wife dearly, and now she had just died, and he was lying on the earth mourning for her, and could find no comfort. He was a Mohammedan, and had no beautiful hope of a blessed reunion where there shall be no more parting, for Mohammedans do not believe there will even be recognition.
This woman had evidently lived a Mohammedan and died a Mohammedan, and all I could do for the poor, stricken mourner was to point him to a living, personal Saviour who loved him and died for him and was longing to save him. But this, alas! was not what that hungering human heart craved; in its weakness it yearned for that which to it, perhaps, was the only love it had ever known. The eye that had momentarily brightened, grew dull again, and with a long, quivering, gasping groan of, “O wife! wife!” the trembling form grew still with the silence of a terrible despair.
O you whom God has made to be one flesh and bound together with tenderest cords of a holy union, you who, even in the mysterious hour of death-parting, can look hopefully forward to an eternal union where parting is unknown, can you realize that hundreds of these “hopeless” separations through death are taking place every week? O, would that this cry of despairing anguish might rend your hearts as it did mine for many nights after, and stir you up to untold effort before it is too late, that many of these souls that sit in darkness and the “shadow of death” might be brought to the light, and saved the agony of sorrowing “as others which have no hope.”
Lucknow, India.

First Few Months in Kiangsu Province, China

By K. H. WOOD

K. H. WOOD
THE first annual meeting of the Kiangsu mission has just closed; and thinking that perhaps the brethren and sisters in the homeland would enjoy hearing how the Lord has prospered the work here, we shall review some of his blessings of the past few months.
KIANGSU MISSION HEADQUARTERS, WITH WORKERS ASSEMBLED FOR GENERAL MEETING.
KIANGSU MISSION HEADQUARTERS, WITH WORKERS ASSEMBLED FOR GENERAL MEETING.
When we last reported, we were in the midst of an evangelistic effort in Shanghai. It is a well-known fact that work of this kind in the port cities is comparatively difficult; but the Lord gave us a goodly number of new believers, several of whom will make efficient workers for him, and thus our force of laborers will soon be materially strengthened.
Soon after the opening of the new year, we began work at Ying Ziang Gaung. The weather was anything but conducive to large audiences; but those who did come to the meetings are still doing so, and most of them are now Sabbath keepers and lights in that heathen village.
The experiences of some of the new believers are truly encouraging. One man, who has a medicine shop, immediately closed his place of business on the Sabbath, and asked our evangelist to come and preach to the people in front of his shop on Sabbath afternoon, telling them that he had not gone out of business, but was closing his shop in accordance with the Lord's commandment.
Another brother, whose father owns an indigo dyehouse, has been buffeted and persecuted because of his faithfulness in keeping the Sabbath. His father, when approached on the subject of the Sabbath, said: “Well, but I couldn't stop working one day in seven. It is all I can do to make a living now; besides, all my ancestors worked seven days every week, and I must do so, too.” The young man, however, continues to attend our services,—his hands as blue as the indigo in which they work during the week; but his heart is never blue, for he is rejoicing in the hope of a soon-coming Saviour.
Another shopkeeper has decided to make a change in his stock of merchandise, as his present goods consist principally of candles, incense, paper money, etc., all of which are used in worshiping the idols of the heathen.
These experiences bring to our minds the words of the Saviour concerning the work of the Holy Spirit, “And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin.” It is this power that works upon the heart of the heathen, and converts the captive of Satan into a willing follower of Christ.
Before the annual meeting was held, a number of our workers took a trip through the central part of this province in search of a location for a new outstation. For a week before our departure, it had rained almost continuously, and the weather was cloudy and threatening until our boat left Shanghai. It certainly seemed that the Lord desired us to extend our work, and that to this end he was making conditions as favorable as possible for us; for during our entire trip the sky was cloudless both night and day, and the moon was full, making our journey a pleasant one and traveling at night comparatively safe. However, it began to rain again the night after our return, and continued to do so for several days.
All the cities at which we stopped received a liberal supply of our Chinese Signs of the Times, also tracts on the second coming of Christ and on kindred subjects.
Naziang, a city on the Shanghai-Nanking railway, was selected as the best opening for work at the present time. One of our native workers had previously spent several days there; and after our arrival, we rented a new store building on a busy thoroughfare for a chapel, and rooms for our workers during the meetings. We were also fortunate in finding a suitable plot of ground on which to erect a bamboo mat shed to be used in lieu of a tent in which to conduct the meetings. On securing the owner's consent to use this ground, we were greatly surprised to have him inform us that he did not desire any rent for it. It is an almost unheard-of thing in China for one to refuse to accept money when there is the least possibility of obtaining it.
COMPANY OF BELIEVERS AT YING ZIANG GAUNG, ONE OF THE KIANGSU MISSION OUTSTATIONS. EVANGELIST HYŪ IS AT EXTREME LEFT
COMPANY OF BELIEVERS AT YING ZIANG GAUNG, ONE OF THE KIANGSU MISSION OUTSTATIONS. EVANGELIST HYŪ IS AT EXTREME LEFT
Immediately following our annual meeting, at which time plans were laid for work during the coming year, a week's institute was conducted for the benefit of our native workers. Every afternoon, from three to four o'clock, a study was presented on some special feature of this message. Then, from four to five o'clock, Elder R. C. Porter gave some valuable instruction to the church, emphasizing the thought that brethren should be of one mind, even as Christ and the Father are one. The evening studies were on the progress of the work in other lands; and all received much encouragement as they saw how the Lord is opening ways and providing the means to carry this gospel of the kingdom to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people.
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