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Testimonies for the Church Volume 8
If you work with self-denial, doing what you can to further the ad-
vancement of the cause in new fields, the Lord will help and strengthen
and bless you. Trust in the assurance of His presence, which sus-
tains you, and which is light and life. Do all for love of Jesus and
the precious souls for whom He has died. Work with a pure, divinely
inwrought purpose to glorify God. The Lord sees and understands,
and He will use you, despite your weakness, if you offer your talent
as a consecrated gift to His service; for in active, disinterested service
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the weak become strong and enjoy His precious commendation. The
joy of the Lord is an element of strength. If you are faithful, the peace
that passeth all understanding will be your reward in this life, and in
the future life you will enter into the joy of your Lord.
* * * * *
January 23, 1903.
I must write something in regard to the way in which our cities in
America have been passed by and neglected, cities in which the truth
has not been proclaimed. The message must be given to the thousands
of foreigners living in these cities in the home field.
I cannot understand why our people have so little burden to take
up the work that the Lord has for years been keeping before me, the
work of giving the message of present truth in the Southern States.
Few have felt that upon them rested the responsibility of taking hold
of this work. Our people have failed to enter new territory and to work
the cities in the South. Over and over again the Lord has presented the
needs of this field, without any special results. I have sometimes felt
as if I could no longer bear the burden of this work. I thought that, if
men should continue to neglect this work, I would let matters drift and
pray that the Lord would have mercy upon the ignorant and those who
are out of the way.
But the Lord has a controversy with our ministers and people, and I
must speak, placing upon them the burden of the Southern work and of
the cities of our land. Who feels heavily burdened to see the message
proclaimed in Greater New York and in the many other cities as yet
unworked? Not all the means that can be gathered up is to be sent
from America to distant lands, while in the home field there exist such
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providential opportunities to present the truth to millions who have