p. 19 | Notes of Progress by Editor

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 5, 1909

Notes of Progress

By Editor

FROM the beginning of this year, our record every month has kept well above the record for 1908, as will be seen from the comparative summary.

This summary for the month of June reaches the high-water mark for 1909. Last year July was made a five weeks’ month, and showed the highest record for that year.

Such a fine, well-balanced report as the one from the Northern Union Conference makes us wish we might have a summary like this each month in the year.

We rejoice to see the summary from Mexico gradually creeping up a little higher every month. The canvassers there are now averaging a value in sales equal per hour to our agents in the United States.

Two or three unions show a decline in their totals as compared with last year, but a careful comparison of the work by conferences shows a better balanced, and more normal condition, and a better foundation upon which to build for next year.

We should not let these very large reports during the summer months from our union conferences in the United States eclipse the reports which come in steadily all the year, with little variation, from Germany, Scandinavia, England, and Australasia.

The Portland Branch of the Pacific Press reports sales for the month of June, 1909, amounting to $6,621.99, as compared with $3,009.50 for the month of June last year, an increase of considerably over one hundred per cent. For the six months ending June 30, 1909, their sales were $14,765.79, a gain of $6,484.67 over the corresponding period last year.

One of our young lady agents in Missouri tells how she secured a yearly subscription for the Protestant Magazine from an Episcopalian minister. She says: “We boarded the same train, and by his dress I judged him to be a Catholic priest. Nevertheless I felt that I ought to show him the magazine. So I passed it to him, and asked him to look it over. After looking at each article carefully he turned and asked me to take his card for a subscription, handing it to me with thirty-five cents, to pay for the subscription [25 cents] and the single copy he examined. He then told me that he was an Episcopalian minister.”

This is a grand record for the South-western Union Conference, isn’t it? This result did not come from chance, or from remarkably fine conditions. At the very beginning of the year, the leaders put forth strenuous efforts for a large corps of permanent canvassers. Those who have studied the summaries monthly have observed that the field work was well built up before the schools closed. Then when the students added their strength to the strong work already in the field, the magnificent result shown in the summary was attained. This is a great demonstration of what may be done if all will work earnestly for permanent workers twelve months in the year, and then what records we might make when upward of five hundred students swell the ranks during the summer months.

As we study the report of the three hundred thirty-three canvassers in the German and Russian union conferences, and realize that their total sales for the month amount to only twenty-five dollars an agent, what a contrast appears between the patient, hard work of this little army in Europe compared with the easier field and better success of our agents in America. If our agents in America would manifest that perseverance and devotion to the work twelve months in the year, and regardless of external conditions, that we see in some of these other lands, we would make far greater strides in our canvassing work. We should not fail to recognize, however, that our canvassing force in the United States is manifesting more sterling qualities every year. They put in better time, are more economical, sell more books, and work more perseveringly. We notice from all parts of the field an increasing determination to persevere regardless of the weather or seasons, and we look forward to the coming winter, confidently believing that the records in the United States will be better than in the past.