July, 1940
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S Los Angeles—
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Without Excuse! Biola 9s Responsibility to Over*a Million Souls
where the elderly couple were sit ting, all poring over the tracts he had left, all reading a simple gospel message based clearly on the Word of God. That idea of putting colored cel lophane around the package made people jump for the tracts! Prayer— Revealing a Need and a Way to Meet It A few weeks before this incident, Samuel H. Sutherland, Director
during this school term ? Would the students be willing to undertake the task? Many of the young people al ready were pressed for time, as they worked to earn their room and board. Who would finance the project? The magnitude of the task was staggering, but was not God speaking? The two men—Mr. Sutherland and Mr. Null—left the Institute auditorium together, the one revealing to the other the yearning which was in his heart. But the tract rolls necessary for the fulfillment of this plan would cost four dollars a thousand. At that price, to obtain a sufficient number to cover Los Angeles was unthinkable. It would take thousands upon thousands! Interested at once, Mr. Null offered to provide, free, all the tracts that the students could use of a certain kind, written by Tom Olson—a series of unusually at tractive leaflets, strikingly illustrated, with a tactful approach and well- pointed personal appeal. Furthermore, through Mr. Null, cellophane wrappings and reply cards for 100,000 rolls could be obtained for a hundred dollars. The offer was manifestly of God. Mr. Sutherland lost no time in meeting with the president of the Student Council and then, with his hearty cooperation, he laid the matter before the Institute’s student body of 415 members. He pic tured a great city in so-called Christian America, in a state of unrecognized spir itual calamity—a sad majority of her 1,400,000 people facing eternity with out Christ. Most of them were not the kind to darken church doors. Eagerly he pointed to the present opportunity. “Wnat are we going to do about it? ” he flung the closing challenge. Immediately a young man was on his feet. “We ought to take up an offer ing .right now!” he said. The fire had caught in the hearts
of Practical Work at the Bible Institute of Los Angeles, had become deeply con- eraed over the Insti tute’s responsibility toward the work of evangelism
O NE APRIL afternoon, an elder ly couple sat chatting on the porch of their home in Los An geles, as a young student came up the walk, his hands full of bright-colored little rolls that looked like sticks of candy. He handed out one of the rolls with a friendly smile, spoke a word of recommendation for its contents, and was off to the house next door, where, finding no one in sight, he tied another , neat roll on the doorknob—and so on down the street. The couple w a t c h e d him as they opened the object he had given them. Somehow he was different frofn the usual boy who went about littering porches with advertising material—and this “advertising” was different, too! Three gospel tracts and a decision card came out of the attractive cellophane wrapping. As the student reached the comer, he looked back—and to his surprise, there were perhaps ten people on the porch,
in Los Angeles. He began to pray that something distinctive in the way of gos pel witnessing would be undertaken by Biola students. Almost immediately the answer came, through the instru mentality of Carieton Null, who visited the Institute and told the students of God’s blessing upon the unique ministry of scattering along California highways tracts rolled up in cellophane. “Why could not Biola students cover Los Angeles with , cellophane-wrapped tracts?” thought Mr. Sutherland as he listened. Why could not the students go systematically from door to door, until every house should have received the good news of how a sinner may be saved? Metropolitan Los Angeles, with its population of 1,400,000 people, spread over 450 square milds, constituted a tre mendous summons to the cause of Christ. Might not the new plan for tract distribution be God’s way to render a great city without excuse before Him? Could 100,000 tract rolls be distributed
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