Earlier text: THE WORKTHE message God gave to Adam looked forward to a time when the end of human existence would come; when mortality would give place to immortality; when the record of sin would be written up and finished; when Satan and all his followers would be destroyed, never to be any more; when Christ's work in the earth would reach its full fruition; and when the earth, purged from every taint and stain of sin, would be again under the dominion of man. Every move which God inspired his faithful representatives to undertake had that ultimate consideration in view. The whole Book of God is an unfoldment of that purpose; and it is no accident that the last book in the Bible is a plain revelation of that long-purposed consummation. Type in the old dispensation has met antitype in the new. The figures and shadows of Israel's sanctuary and the patriarchal services were wonderful object lessons of God's purpose and his plans that were to run through all time and carry the results of their workings into eternity. Then came He in whom types met antitype, in whom shadows met substance, who translated even the law of God into living characters, and gave a living meaning to ceremonies that were stiff with age and cumbered with tradition. In his teachings we have frequent reference to the harvest, and there is no veiled meaning in his words. We hear him declaring to his immediate followers, and to us through them: "The harvest is the end of the world." His healing of disease was but a foretaste or a harbinger of the day when all the redeemed of earth, loosed from all their infirmities, healed of all their sicknesses, comforted for all their sorrows, would step into the kingdom of eternal joy, to go no more out forever. His raising of the dead to life was but a demonstration of what he will do for his faithful followers when he shall descend, and, "with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God" (1 Thess. 4:16), wake the sleeping saints from the sleep of death to the glorious sunrise of God's everlasting day. He tells of the sowing, but he never forgets the harvest; for in that harvest "he shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied." At one time we find him sitting in a boat on the sea, teaching a "very great multitude" the parable of the sower. His own interpretation of the parable is that "the sower soweth the word." Mark 4:14. It is a parable of the work that he himself was doing, and that he was to commission his followers to do after him. Again he says, "So is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed upon the earth. . . . But when the fruit is ripe, straightway he putteth forth the sickle, because the harvest is come." Verses 26-29. All Christ's true followers have been sowers; they have been sowing the word of God. But no man sows without thinking of the harvest. Every sowing has its harvest. Wherever Christ's followers have gone with the gospel message, that parable has been working out. Souls have been gathered into the fold of Christ's visible body on earth; but that is not the reaping to which Christ refers; for he says, "The harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels." Matt. 13:39. So this parable of the sower looks through and works through to that consummation — the end of the world. And the Saviour teaches the same thing without a parable. He says: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come." Matt. 24:14. This is a declaration, in the plainest of language, of the same truth that runs through the parable of the sower. It comprehends all the work done from the days of Christ to our day, and from our day on to that day when Christ himself shall come to reward both saint and sinner. It looks down through the centuries of time to the end of time. We have the same thought in the Revelation, in the inspired declaration concerning the work of the three messages. That other angel that was to fly through the midst of heaven with the "everlasting gospel" (Rev. 14:6) was to carry his message to "every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." Two angels follow, each with its specific message to proclaim. The completeness with which that work was to be done shows beyond doubt that it is the fulfillment of the Saviour's words quoted from Matt. 24:14. When that work was done, the Saviour declared the end would come. So immediately following the proclamation of these three messages (Rev. 14:6-10) the heavens reveal that spectacle toward which men and angels have looked since the days of Adam's expulsion from Eden. It is the coming of the King. "And I looked, and behold a white cloud, and upon the cloud one sat like unto the Son of man, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. . . . And he that sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped." Verses 14-16. While the language is figurative, the event of which it speaks is a literal and a tremendous event. The sickle in the hand of the Son of God when he comes upon that cloud is, undoubtedly, the angels of God. They are under his control, carrying out his will. We read: "They shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other." Matt. 24:30, 31. This is in perfect harmony with that text already quoted which declares that "the reapers are the angels." This world has seen nearly two thousand years of the sowing and planting of the gospel. If our Saviour's words mean anything at all, they mean that the sowing will one day cease and the day of harvest arrive, and that day is "the end of the world." Beyond that there is no sowing; that closes all gospel effort. What we have not done before that time, we can never do. Sorrow for neglected opportunities will accomplish nothing. Now is the day of sowing; but how many of us are sowing? How many of us know that we have actually won some soul or souls to Christ? Some do, but many do not. Can God say to us, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant," if the records show no single soul saved through our instrumentality? It should be the chief question of our lives; for our eternal destiny depends upon what God is able to say of us in that day. None of us want our names among those of the unprofitable servants. But that matter no one can settle for us. Our own course determines it. Have you decided yet to join the number who are determined to win at least one soul for Christ during the year 1914? Can we do less and still be counted faithful? Let every soul among us swing into the full stride of this message during this year, and have the satisfaction of knowing we have won some one for Christ and his truth. When each member has done his part, the year's close will mark a long step toward the completion of the work. An Individual Experience
By F. M. Wilcox
THERE will be wrought out in each Christian character an individual experience. To every overcomer there will be given a "white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." Rev. 2: 17. The new name stands for the experience of the overcomer, and no one else, not having had that experience, can understand the meaning and significance of the name. God deals with us as individual units, and not as a great family. Like a wise and discerning physician, he treats every soul as may be demanded by the peculiar temperament, conditions, environment, heredity, and characteristics of each case. Let us not, then, mourn because our experience does not measure up in our judgment with the experience of another. Let us not grieve because there has not come to us some blessing which has descended upon our brethren. There may have come to us even a greater blessing, but in our blindness we fail to recognize it. We hear of some great revival which has come to some of the people of God. We earnestly pray for the same refreshing to descend upon us, and perhaps we have our minds settled as to just how the blessing will come, and in what way God will reveal himself to our souls. The Lord hears our cry for help, but he recognizes that we need a different experience. In place of seasons of melting, holy joy, perhaps we need to learn trust in the darkness. Instead of being carried along on a wave of feeling, perhaps God sees that we need to come to the place where we shall serve him from principle and conviction, without the feeling. Possibly we look for the blessing to come through human agency. We feel that God must work through certain channels, whereas the Lord wants us to realize that we must reach out by living personal faith, and take hold of him just where we are, independent of human aid. We may be deprived of the revival service, we may be without the ministry of the living preacher, but nothing can shut us out from the presence of the blessed Master. We may find him wherever we are. He will enter today by his blessed Spirit the humble abode of the poor; he will stand by the bedside of the afflicted; he will fill the open, outstretched hands and satisfy the longing heart as readily as he did two thousand years ago. Dear reader, wherever you are, recognize this blessed fact. The REVIEW family takes in believers in every part of the earth, persons living under all manner of conditions. Some are connected with our large churches and enjoy exceptional advantages. Others are associated with little country churches, and still others are isolated and alone, off on the wide prairies, back among the hills and mountains, living oftentimes in the midst of opposition and unbelief. God sees every one just where he is. He takes note of your daily walk, of your desires, of your heart longings. In your loneliness and solitude it is your blessed privilege to reach out and place your hand in the strong and mighty grasp of the blessed Master. He desires to enter into your life, to make up the lack of human Christian fellowship. His blessed promise is, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." Lean hard upon him; make him your staff and stay, and believe that if you commit to him your ways, he will work out in your character building that individual experience which will entitle you to the new name which he will bestow at his coming. Asiatic Colonies and Protectorates and Other Regions Beyond
By W. A. S.
Review of Our Unentered Countries—No. 3
Asiatic Colonies and Protectorates and Other Regions Beyond
WHILE half the world lives in Asia, and it was the last continent entered by our work, it does not supply so large and populous a list of unentered fields as Africa. This is because China and India are classified as entered. So they are, indeed, and we thank God for the foothold gained; but in our review of entered and unentered fields we must not forget that we are but fairly getting into these two vast empires,—over half the provinces beyond us in China, and many languages as yet unreached in India. Of European protectorates and colonies in Asia, we still have to put down the following as lands where not a Seventh-day Adventist missionary is found:— Baluchistan ............................ 834,000
Sikhim (Himalayas) .................... 87,000
Bhutan (Himalayas) .................... 250,000
Ceylon ................................ 3,592,000
Federated Malay States .............. 1,036,000
Other Malay states .................... 720,000
French Indo-China ..................... 16,300,000
German New Guinea ..................... 531,000
Dutch New Guinea ...................... 200,000
Celebes, Moluccas, and Timor Archipelago (Dutch East Indies) ........................ 2,080,000
Total population ...................... 25,630,000 While Ceylon is here listed as unentered, some work was done in that populous island years ago, and we doubtless have some believers there; and the same can be said of the Federated Malay States; but we know of no permanent work going forward in these fields. Aside from Ceylon, which is an old mission field, there has been little missionary effort by any of the societies among the peoples in this list. In the island world of the South Seas, the following principal groups are, we think, untouched:— Bismarck (German) ..................... 188,000
Solomon (British) ..................... 150,000
Caroline, Ladrone, and Marshall (German) .............................. 70,000
Ellice (British) ...................... 3,000
Gilbert (British) ..................... 26,000 Besides these are numerous other scattered collections of islets in Polynesia and Melanesia, which we must leave unnamed. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands (26,000), in the Indian Ocean; the Bahrein Islands (90,000), in the Persian Gulf; and Cyprus (274,000), in the Mediterranean, all under British administration, should not be omitted, as they scarcely belong geographically with any of our entered territories. The French island of Reunion (in the Indian Ocean) has 173,000 souls. Martinique (182,000), in the West Indies, has never been visited by our workers, as far as we know. That is the island where thirty thousand people lost their lives within the space of a few moments by the eruption of Mt. Pelee. Still it lies beyond our effort, though the West Indian Union is working among these French islands of the Eastern Caribbean. French Guiana (27,000), and Dutch Guiana, or Surinam (86,000), have no workers, as also the Dutch island of Curacao, off the Venezuela coast (54,000). A million and a half souls are numbered among these miscellaneous fields and islands that still are waiting. Last of all, we put down Greenland (13,000) in our list of unentered territory; for with the commission to go into all the world with the definite advent message of Revelation 14, we must recognize the call of every land, "from Greenland's icy mountains" to every shore of the southernmost seas. Altogether, in the countries named in these three articles as regions beyond our farthest bounds, we have a population of 146,666,000 souls. Putting these countries and islands with the untouched provinces in lands where a beginning has been made, the unentered field stretching before us seems indeed vast and the harvest great. Looking only at our own resources and the shortness of time, we might say, How is the task to be quickly accomplished? But looking at God's resources and his almighty power, pledged to work with the human agencies, every heart must be filled with courage. He is able. He will lead the way. His command to enlarge our borders and to redouble our efforts has with it assurance that the task set us is not too great:— 9> "Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations: spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities to be inhabited. Fear not; for thou shalt not be ashamed: neither be thou confounded; for thou shalt not be put to shame." Isa. 54: 2-4. It is God's work, and his eyes are upon all the desolate places of the earth. Every unentered land is a challenge to prayer, and a call to press the missionary cause forward in the name of the Lord.
W. A. S. The Federal Council of the Churches
By F. M. W.
WHAT constitutes the real object of the Federal Council of the Churches? Is its aim the spiritual regeneration of humanity, or is it seeking merely the social uplift of mankind? Is it seeking the betterment of men and women in Christ's way, or purely by modern methods of social service? These are some of the questions discussed by Rev. A. W. Pitzer, D. D., LL. D., in the Presbyterian of the South for January 14. Reviewing the official document of the council, "A Statement of Principles," Dr. Pitzer declares:— The most remarkable thing in this official statement is that the name of our Lord Jesus Christ is not mentioned even once. Any philanthropist or humanitarian, no matter what religion he professed, could accept and "stand with" the council for these "sixteen principles." Of these principles, I note, "Equal Rights," "Uniform Divorce Laws," "Abolition of Child Labor," "Prevention of Poverty," "Conservation of Health," "Old Age Pension," "Reduction of Hours of Labor," "A Living Wage," and the "Equitable Division of the Product of Industry." The statement of these principles does not differ materially from the statement of the principles of some of the great political parties now in the field. Dr. Pitzer justly observes:— With this schedule of work for the Federal Council, it is obvious that there was no room at the Baltimore meeting for the Lord Christ, and hence no mention of his name. In the leaflet issued by the council, entitled "Social Service Catechism," the following question and answer are given: "What is meant by social salvation?" Answer, "The deliverance of society from disease, poverty, crime, and misery." Of this, Dr. Pitzer says:— This statement is at variance with the uniform teaching of the Bible touching "man's estate of sin and misery;" and if we expect "deliverance" to come through the Federal Council, no child of Adam's race will live to see it; the deliverance must come not from man, but by the direct act and interposition of God himself. For the Presbyterian Church of the South, Dr. Pitzer seriously questions the benefits of this council. He declares:— For members of the council I have esteem, and many of them are my dear friends; but when the council undertakes to reconstruct human society, to eliminate all the evils of man's sinful estate, to prepare this present world for man's eternal home, then I am forced to withstand them to their face, and tell them that God declared plainly that this world and all its works shall be burned up, that tares will abound and grow with the wheat until the end of the age, and that the Lord himself will come down to this earth for the salvation of his people and the destruction of his enemies. The church will not give him the kingdom, but he in person will set up a kingdom and give it to the "little flock" here on this earth, when he shall make all things not better, but new. Modern methods will not improve upon the plans followed by Christ and his apostles in bringing the world to God. With many of the principles of the council we are in hearty accord. We believe in equal rights, in uniform divorce laws, in the conservation of health, in a living wage, and in some of the other measures recommended by the council; but when the church of Christ leaves off the preaching of the gospel, or sidetracks it in an effort to better the human family by the advocacy of these reforms, it surely has departed in a large measure from the teaching and practice of the Lord Jesus. These conditions of society doubtless appealed to the heart of the Lord when he was on earth, but over and above the need of the "reduction of hours of labor," of "a living wage," of "the equal division of the products of industry," etc., stands the needs of the human soul. Christ taught that the life is more than the meat, and that though men may destroy the body, the destiny of the soul rests with God. He sought the conversion of the individuals,—not the masses,—and he recognized that this transformation must be wrought by a power from above, and not through humanitarian efforts. Recognizing the grand truth that true religious reforms spring from a union of the human with the divine, and that with the souls of men converted to God, these other conditions would be largely adjusted, we believe that the right way for the church of Christ in the twentieth century to accomplish the regeneration of society is to strike at the fountainhead of all social evils, as found in the unregenerate heart of mankind. The same money and the same effort expended in reaching individual sinners would accomplish far more in the eternal salvation of souls, and far more, we believe, in the adjustment of social and industrial conditions, than will be accomplished by the program of the Federal Council of the Churches with the gospel sidetracked or entirely ignored. Well does Dr. Pitzer conclude his review of the principles of this council by declaring: "Regeneration is better than reform; conversion is better than culture; salvation from sin is better than social service." So say we. Mission and Relief Funds
By W. T. Knox
Herewith are submitted reports of receipts of the mission and relief funds by the General Conference treasury. The first report is for the six months ended Dec. 31, 1913, and is based on twenty cents a week per member, and shows that seven union conferences have met the requirement of the plan, and have paid in excess $26,069.94; that thirty-nine of the seventy-nine local conferences of North America made satisfactory records. The five unions that failed in attaining the standard, show a combined shortage of $27,632.90, the total receipts from all conferences being $330,077.44, leaving a shortage for the six months of $1,562.96. The second table gives the result for the entire year, the first six months having been upon the basis of fifteen cents a week per member, the last six months on a twenty-cent basis, making the average requirement per member for the year, $9.10, which, if fully realized, would have yielded $580,370.70. Only four unions, however, reached the standard,—the Eastern and the Western Canadian, the Southeastern, and the Northern. These four paid into the treasury $13,271.78 in excess of the required amount. The other unions fell short to the extent of $92,287.17, the total result being, receipts, $500,824.46, leaving a net shortage for the year of $79,015.39. Inasmuch as this shortage is within $1,500 of the amount of the shortage for the first six months of the year, it shows very plainly the necessity of our putting forth greater effort in the first of the year. Our extra efforts during the closing part of the year have been entirely consumed in the loss that had been created in the earlier part. Taking it altogether, however, the reports contain much to encourage us. This is especially so in the excellent records of some of the Western conferences that have suffered so severely from drought, but we cannot but greatly regret that all the conferences were not able to make a favorable report. The combined shortage of those thus failing, amounting to $104,000, would have meant much to our training schools and sanitariums. What has been accomplished should, however, be an encouragement to us to take up our task for 1914 with a determination to succeed this year.
W. T. Knox.