Labors in Great Britain and Scandinavia
245
“Colporteurs are meeting with encouraging success in the sale
of our books. The light is thus brought to the people, while the
colporteur—who in many cases has been thrown out of employment
by accepting the truth—is enabled to support himself, and the sales are
a financial help to the office. In the days of the Reformation, monks
who had left their convents, and who had no other means of support,
traversed the country, selling Luther’s works, which were thus rapidly
circulated throughout Europe. Colportage work was one of the most
efficient means of spreading the light then, and so it will prove now....
“There will be obstacles to retard.... These we have had to meet
wherever missions have been established. Lack of experience, imper-
fections, mistakes, unconsecrated influences, have had to be overcome.
How often have these hindered the advancement of the cause in Amer-
[306]
ica! We do not expect to meet fewer difficulties in Europe. Some
connected with the work in these foreign fields, as in America, become
disheartened, and, following the course of the unworthy spies, bring a
discouraging report. Like the discontented weaver, they are looking at
the wrong side of the web. They cannot trace the plan of the Designer;
to them all is confusion, and instead of waiting till they can discern
the purpose of God, they hastily communicate to others their spirit of
doubt and darkness.
“But we have no such report to bring. After a two years’ stay in
Europe we see no more reason for discouragement in the state of the
cause there than at its rise in the different fields in America. There
we saw the Lord testing the material to be used. Some would not bear
the proving of God. They would not be hewed and squared. Every
stroke of the chisel, every blow of the hammer, aroused their anger and
resistance. They were laid aside, and other material was brought in, to
be tested in like manner. All this occasioned delay. Every fragment
broken away was regretted and mourned over. Some thought that these
losses would ruin the building; but, on the contrary, it was rendered
stronger by the removal of these elements of weakness. The work went
steadily forward. Every day made it plainer that the Lord’s hand was
guiding all, and that a grand purpose ran through the work from first
to last. So we see the cause being established in Europe.
“One of the great difficulties there is the poverty that meets us at
every turn. This retards the progress of the truth, which, as in earlier
ages, usually finds its first converts among the humbler classes. Yet