Untitled article by John Norton Loughborough

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 25, 1909

Experiences in the Publishing Work—No. 17

By John Norton Loughborough

AFTER THE REVIEW was made a weekly paper, two volumes of twenty-six numbers were published each year. So in 1854 Volumes V and VI carried us up to Number 19 of Volume VI. In the issue of that number, dated December 26, we read this statement from the editor:—

“We are cheered with the accounts from different parts of the field of the prosperity of the cause. There has never been such strong union as seems to exist with the remnant at the present time, and there seems to be a general waking up to the work of God.”

During 1854 several new pamphlets were added to the growing library of advent publications. The custom was followed in those days of publishing the new tracts and pamphlets in the columns of the REVIEW, and then making the same type up into pamphlet pages, thus saving the expense of typesetting. The pamphlets printed that year were: “The Law of God,” by Elder J. H. Waggoner, 132 pages, 6,000 copies; “The Atonement,” by J. M. Stevenson, 196 pages; “Man Not Immortal,” by D. P. Hall, 148 pages; “The Three Angels of Revelation Fourteen,” by J. N. Andrews, 148 pages; “The Four Monarchies of Daniel,” by Elder James White, 84 pages.

At the end of Volume VI, June 26, 1855, one could get one volume of the

REVIEW, the Instructor for one year, and a complete set of all the tracts, pamphlets, and a hymn-book, such as was then used—all for the sum of three dollars. The established price of the REVIEW weekly was one dollar a volume, and the Instructor, twenty-five cents a year.

In the month of April, 1855, Elder White and his wife again visited Michigan, and held meetings at several places. On the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth of the same month a general meeting was held at Battle Creek. During this council it was voted by the brethren in Michigan to invite Elder White to move the Review Office to Battle Creek. Dan Palmer, Cyrenius Smith, J. P. Kellogg, and Henry Lyon agreed to furnish three hundred dollars each with which, without interest, they would purchase a lot and erect a publishing office, investing twelve hundred dollars in all. Accordingly, they secured the lot on the southeast corner of West Main and Washington streets, and erected thereon a two-story wooden building, thirty by twenty feet in size, with twenty-foot posts. The same building now stands on the corner of Washington and Kalamazoo streets. During the same season the first Seventh-day Adventist meeting-house in Battle Creek, eighteen by twenty-four feet, was erected. The first number of the REVIEW published in Battle Creek, in an office owned by Seventh-day Adventists, was Vol. VII, No. 10, dated Dec. 4, 1855.

Up to March, 1857, all our printing of papers, etc., was done on a Washington hand-press. In the REVIEW, Vol. IX, No. 20, bearing date of March 19, 1857, the suggestion was first made that a power-press and an engine were needed and should be obtained for the printing of the paper, tracts, and books. As reported in Number 22, April 2, the decision was made to buy an Adams power-press, and seven men pledged one hundred dollars each toward its purchase. In the following issue a statement was made that the press and engine would cost twenty-five hundred dollars, and the pledges had already been raised to seventeen hundred dollars. In the closing number of Volume IX, April 30, 1857, we find these cheering words from the editor:—

“Our friends have done well the past year, in that they have, by their liberality, annihilated the debts which had accumulated upon the Office, and to a great degree have been prompt in renewing their subscriptions, so that the REVIEW now stands quite free from debt and embarrassment.”

Again we read, from the REVIEW of Aug. 13, 1857: “Our Office is free. There is a general book fund of $1,426, now invested in books. The new power-press is in operation, and works beautifully, and the prospect is fair that it will soon be running by steam-power,—and all paid for.”

At the close of Volume X, Oct. 20, 1857, it was reported that the book sales for the two previous years amounted to $1,287.91. So the Lord prospered the rising cause of present truth.

J. N. LOUGHBOROUGH.