To Delinquents by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 9, 1869

To Delinquents.

By James White

Dear friends, what reason have you for neglecting so plain and important a duty, as paying for the REVIEW AND HERALD, the Youth’s Instructor, and the Health Reformer, according to the stated terms “in advance.” “In advance,” friends, does not mean at the close of the year, or at the end of two or three years. It simply means “in advance;” that is, at the very commencement of the year. The Association has not the capital to furnish you these papers a whole year before receiving pay for them. If you wait till the close of the year before paying for these papers, you cripple the Association in its effort to spread abroad the truth of God. It is necessary, dear friends, that you should comply with the terms of these papers, and fulfill the contract on your part, and pay for them “in advance.” Here are sufficient reasons why you should promptly pay for these papers “in advance.”

Again we ask, What reasons have you for neglecting to pay for these worthy papers in advance? Are you too poor to raise these small sums? Then do report yourselves, and be put on the free lists. If you are able to pay, then your negligence in this matter is wrong. God holds you accountable in this matter; and you will be called to answer respecting it.

Great efforts are now being made by those who have charge of the publishing department, to push the work forward. Ten thousand dollars are wanted to publish the new hymn book, the second edition of the History of the Sabbath, the several volumes of Spiritual Gifts, an edition of the Apocrypha, second edition of Second Advent Keepsake, and a half million of pages of our smaller works and tracts. But unless you delinquents pay up, this work must be crippled.

Now let us hear from you immediately. Extreme forbearance has been exercised toward you; and you have taken advantage of even this, and grown still more negligent. Please turn to your name printed on this very paper you are reading, and see how your account stands. And if you are behind in point of pay, do not rest till you have paid up the past, and, if possible, pay as far in the future as this number finds you in arrears. Do the same with the Reformer and Instructor.

There is no want of effort to make these papers what they should be. You who are benefited with these valuable periodicals, do think of the toiling printer and editor, anxiously laboring to meet your intellectual and spiritual wants. We are toiling with our might to make the publishing department more efficient, and claim the co-operation of every patron. Friends, simply pay up. This is the plain English of your duty to the Association. Pay up. Pay in advance.

We send you in connection with your name on the REVIEW each week, a statement in figures how your account stands. Do look at it, and pay up. Be in earnest. Redeem the past. Pay in advance. Pay up for these three valuable periodicals. Pay up, and have a clear conscience, and help us push the good work forward. May this ring in your ears till you have done your duty: Pay up. JAMES WHITE.