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Something Unusual

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Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 15, 1908

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 85, No. 42.

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Something Unusual

By E. K. SLADE

E. K. SLADE
DURING the past few years many efforts have been made, with excellent success, to secure a large circulation of certain special numbers of our periodicals. We have come to look upon the issuing of specials as a very common practise, and the frequency of such efforts may in some measure detract from the effectiveness of these efforts.
This plan to make the Thanksgiving number of the REVIEW a special is not to be considered an ordinary thing. It is not an effort to secure a large circulation for one of our periodicals, but to secure a large contribution of means for the spread of the message. The proposition to make this a strong effort to secure contributions from our neighbors and friends is an unusual one in our practise, yet one that we believe is in perfect harmony with the plans and purposes of God.
The demands of the foreign field for means have far exceeded what we as a people have supplied. While this plan is not designed to excuse the people of God from their financial obligations to this work, it does use his people as an agency by which the way may be opened for “the wealth of the Gentiles” to be brought in. Our people in the churches have responded more or less in efforts that have been made to use the various specials of the past. This effort, we believe, should call for a more general co-operation than has ever been seen in the efforts that have been made before.If the ingathering week passes with but just a few in each church having a part in it, it will come far short of the desired object.
Our church elders may do much to have this effort properly understood, and to secure a full co-operation, by entering into the work at once. By a wise effort, in which the young and the old take part, and in which true faith is exercised, great things may be accomplished by this admirable plan for ingathering week. Shall we not take the proper steps sufficiently early to have this become the most unusual effort and the most successful move that we have ever made in the gathering of funds, as well as in bringing a knowledge of our message and our missionary operations to the attention of the public?
Holly, Mich.