Both Parties Pleased by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, Cal. · May 18, 1882

Both Parties Pleased.

By Editor

THE following we copy from the Review and Herald :—

“A correspondent sending an article for the Review, puts the editor at ease in regard to its publication, in the following handsome style:—

‘Inclosed I send you an article for the Review. If you think there is anything in it worthy of a place in the paper, I shall consider any corrections, alterations, or abridgements, a favor. If you think there is nothing in it worthy to be read by others, or if the chaff outweighs the wheat, and it would be more work to winnow out the wheat than it would to raise it from another field, you can do me no greater favor than to consign it to the inevitable waste basket, and I will try again. I know that all this is your prerogative anyway, and that you would most certainly exercise it, but perhaps it is no unpleasant thought to you, to know that your contributor “loves to have it so,” and will look upon it with no offense.’

“If all felt as our correspondent expresses himself in the foregoing, we should have no fears that unpleasant feeling would arise on their part, and they need have no fears that any less number of their contributions would be published.”

We regret that some of our correspondents have taken offense because we have done our duty as an editor, either to reject or correct their MSS. In some cases we have taken pains to write to them and kindly state our objections to certain things in their articles, but they have mostly taken it unkindly and written no more to us. In our anxiety to accommodate correspondents we sometimes entirely rewrite articles, to put them in suitable shape. We owe a duty to our readers, and we are fully determined not to neglect it. Wherein we fail the failure is unavoidable. We shall give them the best matter at our command, and if that is not original it must be selected. We very frequently correct our selections, especially the poetry. We have a few correspondents who write acceptable poetry, and we notice that they whose lines are the most worthy are thankful to have them edited if need be, and so it will ever be.