Basic HTML Version
414
Counsels to Parents, Teachers, and Students
Hundreds of young men should have been preparing to act a part
in the work of scattering the seeds of truth beside all waters. We
want men who will push the triumphs of the cross; men who will
persevere under discouragements and privations; who will have the
zeal and resolution and faith that are indispensable in the missionary
field....
Foreign Languages
There are among us those who, without the toil and delay of
learning a foreign language, might qualify themselves to proclaim
the truth to other nations. In the primitive church, missionaries were
miraculously endowed with a knowledge of the languages in which
they were called to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. And if
God was willing thus to help His servants then, can we doubt that
His blessing will rest upon our efforts to qualify those who naturally
possess a knowledge of foreign tongues, and who, with proper en-
couragement, would bear to their own countrymen the knowledge
of truth? We might have had more laborers in foreign missionary
fields had those who entered these fields availed themselves of every
talent within their reach....
It may in some cases be necessary that young men learn foreign
languages. This they can do with most success by associating with
[516]
the people, at the same time devoting a portion of each day to
studying the language. This should be done, however, only as a
necessary step preparatory to educating such as are found in the
missionary fields themselves, and who, with proper training, can
become workers. It is essential that those be urged into the service
who can speak in their mother tongue to the people of different
nations. It is a great undertaking for a man of middle age to learn a
foreign language, and with all his efforts it will be next to impossible
for him to speak it so readily and correctly as to render him an
efficient laborer.
Young Men Wanted for Hard Places
We cannot afford to deprive our home missions of the influence
of middle-aged and aged ministers, to send them into distant fields