p. 13 | Publishing Work in India

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 12, 1912

Publishing Work in India

A RECENT mail brings from India one copy each of the five magazines published in that mission field. Accompanying the journals comes a letter from Elder J. L. Shaw, in which he tells something of the work being done by our literature in that field:—

“The Oriental Watchman is a monthly missionary magazine which we have been publishing for the past fourteen years. The Herald of Health was started three years ago in English. Juga Lakhyan is a monthly missionary magazine published in Bengali, and started nearly three years ago. The Burmese Watchman was started this year, and the Tamil Present Truth also. They are both quarterlies, and are meeting with a ready sale.

“In a country like India, having so many languages, the problem of circulating our literature is much greater than where the diversity of the tongues is not so great. Climatic conditions and other hindrances also present many difficulties, but progress is being made.

“We are finding that as our canvassing force is developing, the sales of our journals are increasing. The combined issue of the magazines for the present month will be about twenty-three thousand. Our canvassing work is becoming organized, and canvassers are having better success. We feel very confident, therefore, that the circulation of these journals will be largely increased during the coming year.

“We expect to start two more journals with the beginning of the new year,—one in Hindi, and the other in Urdu. There is a great work to be done in publishing the message in the many different tongues of this land. There are tongues in India spoken by more than twenty million people in whose language no sentence of present truth has ever yet been printed. But God is able, the message is going, and erelong we believe it will be proclaimed in many tongues thus far unknown to us.”