DEAR READER—Before you close this book and lay it down, the one who has written it would bring before you an earnest request. If you have been interested, and in any degree helped by this story, will you do something now, the best and greatest thing you can do, to help us in our work? As a member of the China Inland Mission I want to ask—your prayers. For nothing else do we ever make appeals. If we need material help of any kind, we ask God alone, who never has failed and never will fail to supply “all these things,” as long as He is pleased to make use of us in His service: “Ye also helping together by prayer.” It is for this help we plead.
In China we are now face to face with unprecedented opportunities. The Lord has opened to us, to all missionaries, the whole interior of that vast and populous land. The Stations of our own Mission are scattered throughout fifteen of its eighteen provinces. Sixty-eight Protestant societies are laboring in China, with about two thousand seven hundred missionaries (of whom nearly eight hundred are members of the Inland Mission), and year by year several thousand converts arc received into the Church of Christ.
But how small a number is this compared with the hundreds of thousands who come under our influence all over the country; compared with the many millions who every year are passing beyond our reach. The burden of these souls is laid upon our hearts. We deeply feel our weakness and shortcomings, and long to be so filled with the Spirit of God that through us may flow not fitful streams, but “rivers of living water.” We have had one Pastor Hsi given to us as a Mission: we long for scores of such Spirit-filled men and women. We believe that the Lord’s hand is not shortened that it cannot save; and that He has wonderful purposes of grace in store for China. We believe that the time has come when a mighty outpouring of the Spirit is needed and may be claimed, yea more obtained by prayer and faith for that great land. During the Boxer troubles, four years ago, of the one hundred and thirty-five missionaries martyred in China, fifty-eight belonged to the Inland Mission. We believe that these precious lives laid down, are pledges to plead before God; part of the buried seed that He has promised shall bring forth “much fruit.”
Our hearts go out in longing for a rich, an unparalleled, harvest of souls in China: that He who was for us all, the Man of Sorrows, may see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied. We feel we have not done all we could; we have not been as earnest in our work, as faithful in prayer, or as constantly and utterly filled with the Holy Spirit as we might have been. We long to be more used; more fit for this holy service. Will you help us? Will you join us in prayer that it might be so? We are not anxious about money, or more workers, or any of the needs that arise from day to day, though the Lord only knows how many and how great they are: but we are anxious, profoundly so, for a full outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon ourselves, and all our fellow-missionaries of other societies, and upon the land we love—that there may be in these days a mighty ingathering of souls all over China. One million every month die without Christ, in that great land. Can we be content with a few thousands only, saved in a year? Ought it to be so? Dare we look up to Him who is seated at the right hand of God, to whom all power is given in heaven and on earth, and who has therefore sent us to disciple all nations—dare we look up to Him from such facts, and not cry for a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit commensurate with the opportunity and the need before us today all over China. Never have we had such openings before; dyer has there been such willingness to hear on the part of the people. Never have there been so many missionaries on the field; or so many Scriptures and tracts in circulation. It is impossible, at the present moment, to keep up with the demand for Bibles, or to supply the preachers, native and foreign, that are asked for to explain its teachings.
We come to you, to the whole Church of God in Christian lands—will you help us? Will you lay hold on the mighty power of God, with us and for us, that all that He would do at this time in China may be done; that the blessing He is prepared to give, may be outpoured; that the souls He is able to save may every one be gathered in? Will you pray that He may open our eyes to see, our hearts to receive. Think of the vast, the unutterable need in China; think of His infinite, Divine resources; think of the longings of the Heart that broke for us, and still is waiting to be satisfied.
Dear Friend, if you will help us in definite, believing prayer, will you join the Prayer Union of our Mission, or of some other Society working in China, and make this a daily duty as unto the Lord? Vie deeply feel the need of regular, constant prayer, upon which we can depend. It is for this reason the Prayer Union exists. We earnestly desire that its membership of about three thousand may be doubled and multiplied many times over, that we may girdle the world with a chain of prayer—prayer that shall day and night ascend to God for a mighty outpouring of spiritual blessing in China.
This Union asks no pledge and imposes no conditions. The subjects suggested for prayer embrace the needs of all Missions and workers, both native and foreign, throughout that great Empire and its dependencies, as well as the conversion of Chinese in other lands, and the suppression of the opium traffic. Will you unite in frequent, if not daily, prayer for these objects? If so, the Secretary of the Prayer Union, at any of the following centers of the Mission, will thankfully enroll your name upon the list of the fellow-workers whose help we so unspeakably value, and send you a card of membership, and other information.
May the love of God so fill your own heart with blessing, that it ‘cannot but overflow in love and blessing to others. May His Holy Spirit work so mightily in you, and in us all, that we may be unable but to plead, and to believe, for the salvation of multitudes in China, in all heathen lands, in every dark and difficult place, as well as here at home.
Yours in Him Who has said—
“If ye shall ask anything in my name,
I will do it... Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.”
M. GERALDINE TAYLOR.