(Audio Book) The Urgency of Evangelism

Lottie Moon, The Urgency of Evangelism 1. But when the veteran missionaries of our Church shall fall at their posts after lives of unselfish devotion, where, we sadly ask, are their successors? Who shall take up the banner they have borne so bravely through weary years of gloom and discouragement? I think your idea is correct, that a young man should ask himself not if it is his duty to go to the heathen, but if he may dare stay at home. The command is so plain. Go. Letter to Dr. H. A. Tupper, Corresponding Secretary of the Southern Baptist Foreign Mission Board, November 1, 1873. 2. At our very doors is the work we crave. The heathen are literally all around us. I have already had the pleasure of going with my sister on some of her visits to the native women. Much tact is necessary in dealing with these, as the aversion to foreigners is still very strong. Some will not admit us at all. Others listen coldly and with evident restraint. Only a few hear the word gladly. Nevertheless, we must sow beside all waters. We know that God's word cannot return void. Letter to Tupper, November 1, 1873. 3. After mature consideration added to the experience of the present year now closing, I do not feel any inclination to resume the school. I cannot do both school and country work so as to satisfy my own conscience. If I have a school, I must devote to it my whole time and strength, or it seems to me inefficient. I don't mean to this as criticizing those who think and work differently, but we must all plan and judge for ourselves. As between school and evangelistic work, being free to choose, I elect to do the latter. Letter to Mrs. Sally Holmes, December 8, 1884. Moon later reopened her boarding school for girls as well as a school for boys, writing the necessity for education was great. 4. Years ago I disapproved of women coming to Tung Chau to work because of the conditions of life here were too hard and the work accessible too little and too difficult, it seemed to me to justify the sacrifice. Now the way is open and I urge that many women be sent and sent as promptly as possible. Letter to Tupper, November 6, 1888. 5. I am holding on after more than 11 years of work at considerable risk of permanent injury to health, yet I must not leave until others are here to take over the work. Please say to the new missionaries that they are coming to a life of hardship, responsibility, and constant self-denial. They must live the greater part of the time in Chinese houses in close contact with people. They will be alone in the interior and will need to be strong and courageous. If the joy of the Lord be their strength, the blessedness of the work will more than compensate for its hardships. Let them come rejoicing to suffer for the sake of that Lord and Master who freely gave his life for them. Letter to Annie Armstrong, January 9, 1889. 6. I wonder how many of us really believe that it is more blessed to give than to receive. A woman who accepts that statement of our Lord Jesus Christ as a fact and not as impracticable idealism will make giving a principle in her life. She will lay aside sacredly not less than one-tenth of her income or her earnings as the Lord's money, which she would no more dare to touch for personal use than she would steal. How many there are among our women, alas, who imagine that because Jesus paid it all, they need pay nothing, forgetting that the prime object of their salvation was that they should follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. Letter published in the December 1887 Foreign Mission Journal. 7. The famine has not extended to our part of China. It is mainly confined to central China. Missionaries are engaged in distributing food or money in the famine region. The risk they run from famine, fever, and smallpox is not slight, but no doubt they have counted the cost and are ready to lay down their lives as others have done in previous famines. Letter to Annie Armstrong, March 23, 1907.