Needs of the Southern Field
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Redeemer? How can they believe in Him of whom they have not
heard? How can they hear without a preacher? And how can one
preach except he be sent?
“We lay this matter before those who profess to believe the truth for
this time. What are you doing for the unenlightened colored race? Why
have you not a deeper sense of the necessities of the Southern field?
Does there not rest upon ministers of the gospel the responsibility of
setting in operation plans whereby this people can be educated? Does
not the commission of the Saviour teach this? Is it right for professing
Christians to hold themselves aloof from this work, allowing a few to
carry the burden? In all your plans for medical missionary work and
foreign missionary work, has God given you no message for us?”
Then He who has authority arose, and called upon all to give heed
to the instruction that the Lord has given in regard to the work in the
South. He said: “Much more evangelistic work should be done in the
South. There should be a hundred workers where now there is but one.
“Let the people of God awake. Think you that the Lord will bless
those who have felt no burden for this work, and who permit the way
of its advancement to be hedged up?”
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As these words were spoken, deep feeling was manifested. Some
offered themselves as missionaries, while others sat in silence, appar-
ently taking no interest in the subject.
Then the words were spoken: “The South is a most unpromising
field; but how changed would it be from what it is now if, after the
colored people had been released from slavery, men and women had
worked for them as Christians ought to work, teaching them how to
care for themselves!”
The condition of the colored people in the South is no more dis-
heartening than was the condition of the world when Christ left heaven
to come to its aid. He saw humanity sunken in wretchedness and sin-
fulness. He knew that men and women were depraved and degraded,
and that they cherished the most loathsome vices. Angels marveled
that Christ should undertake what seemed to them a hopeless task.
They marveled that God could tolerate a race so sinful. They could
see no room for love. But “God so loved the world, that He gave His
only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.”
John 3:16
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