Our Duty to the Missionary Work
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would be no disposition to cherish the evils, which, if indulged, are
the curse of the churches. The jealousy and fault-finding, the heart-
burnings, the envy and dissension, the strife for the supremacy, would
cease. The attention given to the work of saving souls would stimulate
the workers themselves to greater piety and purity. There would be
with them a unity of purpose, and the salvation of the soul would be
felt to be of so great importance that all little differences would be lost
sight of.
Brethren and sisters in the faith, does the question arise in your
hearts, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” If you claim to be children of God,
you are your brother’s keeper. The Lord holds the church responsible
for the souls of those whom they might be the means of saving. He
has intrusted you with sacred truth; Christ abiding in the individual
members of the church is a well of water springing up into everlasting
life. You are guilty before God if you do not make every effort possible
to dispense this living water to others. Men are perishing close by
your own doors, while they hew out to themselves broken cisterns that
hold no water. Heaven is indignant at the ease of men and women in
Zion, while souls are going down to ruin in their ignorance and their
sins. If the members of the church were to see themselves as God sees
them, they would be overwhelmed with self-reproach. They could not
endure to look their responsibilities and delinquencies in the face.
If we indeed have the truth for these last days, it must be carried to
every nation, kindred, tongue, and people. Ere long the living and the
dead are to be judged according to the deeds done in the body, and the
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law of God is the standard by which they are to be tested. Then they
must now be warned; God’s holy law must be vindicated, and held up
before them as a mirror. To accomplish this work, means is needed. I
know that times are hard, money is not plenty; but the truth must be
spread, and money to spread it must be placed in the treasury.
Many are trembling with fear because the work moves faster than
their slow faith, and because means is expended more rapidly than it
comes into the treasury; and yet we have taken only the first few steps
in advance. Our message is world-wide; yet many are doing literally
nothing; many more so very little, with so great a want of faith, that it
is next to nothing. Shall we abandon the fields we have already opened
in foreign countries? Shall we drop part of the work in our home
missions? Shall we grow pale at a debt of a few thousand dollars?