Evidences of Advancement

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 16, 1908

Evidences of Advancement

THOSE who are reading the reports from the different parts of the field as they appear from week to week in the REVIEW, will find reason for encouragement concerning the progress of the work and a basis of hopefulness for the future. There has probably never been a time in the history of this movement when every department of the work presented so many encouraging features.

As to the educational work: in almost every instance our institutions have reported a very full attendance, with a large number of conversions among the students, and an intelligent and growing interest in mission work. Some of the largest and most successful canvassers’ institutes ever held have been at our colleges and academies the present season, and there are now many student canvassers in the field, meeting with excellent success in the sale of books and periodicals.

As to the canvassing work: some of the best records ever made in the sale of our books are now being reported. Although the country has not fully recovered from the recent financial panic, and in some localities, cyclones and floods have wrought great damage, yet the faithful canvassers are being blessed in their work, and are placing the literature of this message in thousands upon thousands of homes throughout the country.

As to the medical work: in spite of the embarrassments under which this branch of the work has labored, on account of the defection of some who were prominently connected with it, yet the number of medical missionary workers is steadily increasing, and the success which has marked the history of some of our medical institutions has been most cheering. A reaction, which was almost inevitable under the circumstances, has been experienced to a greater or less degree, and there is need of earnest effort lest this phase of the truth should not be sufficiently emphasized in the hearts and homes of our people. But taking all things into consideration, there is no reason for discouragement concerning our medical work.

As to the publishing work: at the present time neither of our large publishing houses is doing commercial work, and the wide-spread revival of the canvassing interest is making such demands upon our printing facilities as to preclude the idea of taking in any other class of work. Not only so, but the last financial statements of our publishing houses were most satisfactory, showing in almost every instance a very substantial balance on the right side.

As to the religious liberty work: parallel with the increasing demand for religious legislation and for more vigorous enforcement of existing Sunday laws, has been an increasing interest on the part of our own people in this phase of work. The issue of Liberty for the first quarter of 1908 had a circulation of seventy thousand copies, the largest edition of any regular number of such a publication in the history of the denomination. The religious liberty work is now better organized, and being carried forward more efficiently, than at any previous time, and the attention of many thousands of people is being drawn to this second advent movement through the efforts to preserve for all the people freedom to worship or not to worship, in harmony with the spirit of the national Constitution.

As to missions: the willingness to sacrifice in order to send this message to other lands is a reasonably accurate indication of the interest which the people have in the message itself. Our reports show that larger donations are now being made to the mission treasury than at any previous time since we began to send workers to foreign fields. If the camp-meetings already held are a fair index of what may be expected from the whole field, all past records will be broken, and the funds much needed for strengthening the work already opened, and for entering new fields, will be supplied. The people are responding nobly to the program of the Mission Board, and to the action taken by the representative brethren in the recent Council of the General Conference Committee. Of more value even than the money is the experience which attends this consecration of means. The extract from Elder G. B. Thompson’s letter, printed in our last issue, and a report recently received from Elder R. A. Underwood, show that God is not slack in fulfilling his promise of special spiritual blessings upon those who are faithful in tithes and offerings. In last week’s REVIEW, the writers of two reports, from places far apart, mentioned that they were experiencing evidences of the latter rain; and the large number of conversions to the truth reported show that the labors of the ministers in the field are being blessed to the salvation of souls.

There is certainly “the sound of a going in the tops of the mulberry-trees,” and the Lord is going out before his people. Let every one bestir himself.