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The Needs of a Mission Field
For many years the Lord has been keeping before His people the
needs of the work among the colored people in the Southern States
of America. The moral darkness of this field is, in itself, a powerful
plea for the exercise of liberality. In the past some have done what
they could to support this branch of our work, and their beneficence
has borne fruit in the conversion of many souls.
Although much remains to be done for the colored people, we
have cause for rejoicing over the good beginning that has been
made. In a recent number of
The Gospel Herald
[1907] it is reported
that “fifteen years ago there were not over twenty colored Seventh-
day Adventists south of Mason and Dixon’s line; but today there
are seven hundred. Twelve years ago there was only one colored
Seventh-day Adventists church; today there are fifty, not counting
those in Africa and the West Indies.... The tithe of the colored
people last year in the United States amounted to five thousand
dollars; fifteen years ago it was not over fifty dollars.”
Let us thank God, dear brethren and sisters, and take courage!
God is laying bare His arm to do a mighty work in this mission field
within the borders of our own land. He is now giving His people
unusual opportunities to extend the message rapidly in the South.
Especially should we reveal a spirit of beneficence at the time the
yearly offering for the support of the colored work is taken up. God
has reposed confidence in us by making us stewards of means and of
His rich grace; and He now points us to the poor and suffering and
oppressed, to souls bound in chains of superstition and error, and
assures us that if we do good to these, He will accept the deed as
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though done to Himself. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of
the least of these My brethren,” He declares, “ye have done it unto
Me.”
Matthew 25:40
.
Thousands of colored people in the South may now be uplifted,
and become human agents to help their own race, if they can receive
the help God is calling upon us to give them. Multitudes of men
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