p. 18 | Audience Reaches Two Hundred and Sixty-five Miles

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 3, 1916

Audience Reaches Two Hundred and Sixty-five Miles

By Frank A. Coffin

A GREAT audience composed of 701,381 Californians heard about Seventh-day Adventists last month. Articles on the truths of the message, our work, and our institutions, appearing in California newspapers during June and the last week of May, reached that many persons. Probably the articles were read by many more, but this number is the actual combined circulation of the 76 papers that printed articles about us during the one month. These items ranged in length from an inch to two and one-half columns. Not counting the space used for headlines, the 200 articles which appeared would fill 74 columns, or about 10½ pages. If this matter were printed in book form, it would give us a book three fourths as large as “Testimonies for the Church,” Volume IX.

Many thousands were told that Sunday laws are wrong, and why. They were informed why religion ought not to be taught in the public schools, and why they ought to keep the seventh day as the Sabbath. Others were warned that the judgment hour has come, and that Jesus is about to appear. They were told that the dismemberment of Turkey is the sure forerunner of Jesus’ coming. During the last of May and the month of June four camp meetings were held in California, and two of our institutions had their commencement exercises. The newspapers gave considerable space to these events.

It is difficult for us to conceive of a throng of 701,381 men and women. If these were to pass before us, single file, one a second, just long enough for us to give each a handshake, we should be shaking hands for 195 hours, or about eight days. If all these people were standing in line, allowing two feet for each person, the line would extend 265 miles. This company is a little less than a third of the population of California, the 1910 census giving the population of the State as 2,377,549.

Our workers who have been holding tent meetings, and who have written up their sermons for the newspapers, have found this means of advertising very effective. One of our ministers learned that certain women of a large and popular church, although too timid to attend his meetings because of the influence of their pastor, were meeting at appointed times, and studying the Bible together, using the sermons published in the daily newspaper as a guide. The lady who told of this said the city never before had been stirred as it had been since our brother began holding meetings there.

Our efforts to reach the people through the public press are in harmony with the instruction given us by the Lord years ago. We ought to do much more of this work in a careful, judicious way. Newspaper publicity certainly occupies a large place in giving the truth to the public, and every one of our ministers ought to make use of this most profitable medium.

FRANK A. COFFIN.