Who Is Having a Hard Time?

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 4, 1908

Who Is Having a Hard Time?

1. THE man who is not working.

2. The man who is working half time or less.

3. The man who is “waiting for something to turn up.”

4. The man who is building his hopes on some indefinite future, when he fancies that he can accomplish more with less hard work than he can just at the present time.

5. The man who reads the newspapers instead of the Word of God.

6. The man who trusts in local conditions in this world instead of trusting God who created all things, and who owns all the money, and all the cattle, and who holds the “times” in his own hands.

7. The conference which is failing to organize for the efficient and active distribution of our message-filled literature, just now, in the all-important present.

One of the active leaders in the distribution of our literature said recently that in all the correspondence he had received this year, he had heard “hard times” mentioned just three times. First, by a man who said they were having quite a struggle this year on account of hard times; and yet, he confessed they were prospering better than last year. Hard times in this case was, evidently, purely a mental condition; and, indeed, hard times on the mind are the hardest times we have anywhere.

The second instance was from the president of a conference who thought they could not afford to support a State agent during the hard times.

And the third was from another section of the territory, where it is reported the times are hard, and that the present is hardly an opportune time for efficient organization.

So it appears that the men who are working, the conferences which are organizing and pushing the work with all their ability, and the publishing houses which are enterprising, and forging ahead,—indeed, it appears that all who are trusting in God and working with all their might, are prospering, and know very little about hard times. But the men who are idle, the men who are leaning upon Egypt for help, and the conferences that are waiting for the times to improve before organizing and pushing their work, and, indeed, all who are thinking of hard times, and talking hard times, and opening the citadel of their lives to the entrance of hard times, are having a hard time.