Benefits Received in Faithfully Doing Periodical Work
By D. T. BOURDEAU
WITH true consecration, and the Spirit of God to counsel, comfort, and strengthen, and to open the way before us, to prepare hearts, to remove obstacles, we shall not only succeed in disseminating present truth, but new faith and courage will spring up in our hearts, and we become a blessing to others. Opportunities will be opened to us that could come to us in no other work. We shall be drawn out in love for God and love for our fellow beings, and our appreciation of our papers and our other literature will be increased. Reading the reports of the progress of the cause in the papers, we shall not be as inclined to be narrowly shut up to ourselves and to a small locality in our views of the work, but shall have enlarged views, and shall be in a better condition to pray more intelligently for the laborers in the work in other lands. We will naturally be led to put our tracts and other works into circulation, which will open new fields for the living preacher and hasten the loud cry of the third angel’s message. Are not these results sufficient to lead us to enter heartily into this work? As one who has derived incalculable benefits from reading the REVIEW for nearly a half century, who has known it to be a great blessing to many others, who possesses the conviction that with the co-operation of its present readers it can be made a blessing to those who are not favored with its weekly visits, my heart palpitates with joy in view of the present movement for extending the circulation of our periodicals and other literature. God forbid that my attitude toward this movement be that of one who assents, but does not have his course in harmony with what he says. The writer has recently put forth special efforts to obtain subscribers for the REVIEW, and has enjoyed more than an ordinary measure of the Spirit of God. The great object of all of our periodicals is the heralding of the second advent of Jesus Christ, and the needful preparation to meet that most important event. Each of these periodicals has its special mission to fill, yet the grand and all-absorbing object of all of them is the same. How inconsistent it would be on the one hand, to divorce the REVIEW from our other papers, and give all our attention to it! As well might we think of divorcing the good mother from her offspring who bear her noble character. The REVIEW inculcates love and respect for our other papers, and let us do the same. Good soldiers who stand at the front, bearing the brunt of war and doing important pioneer work, are honored; and so let us honor and support The Signs of the Times, for a similar reason, from a spiritual standpoint; also doing the same for The Southern Watchman, for the same reason, and for the weighty additional reason that it is struggling in a vast, important, and long-neglected field, to rise to that sphere of usefulness for which it was intended by Providence. The REVIEW is emphatically our church paper. It deals more largely in matters pertaining to our interested believers than any of our other periodicals. It reports the progress of the cause more fully than our other papers, and should make its weekly visits to every family of believers in present truth, and every isolated, English-speaking Seventh-day Adventist should read it. It is all the preaching many of our people have, and it will not be improper to extend its circulation to persons not of our faith. It has been the means of leading many persons to God and present truth.10 There is infinitely more at stake in pushing this campaign with our papers and other literature than there is in the present struggle between Russia and Japan; yet how much more enthusiasm is put forth to carry on and publish the latter than to carry on and publish the former! How many take secular papers in order to see what is going on in the far East, but do not take the REVIEW and our other papers and literature that tells us what the present Eastern struggle means when considered in the light of prophecy. The world’s literature treats the present struggle in the East from a purely worldly standpoint, as if the present state of things was to continue indefinitely, and the Eastern war was merely a struggle between two powers for the supremacy. Let us learn lessons of wisdom from the enthusiastic sacrifice manifested in the war in the East, and be more than earnest in our campaign with regard to the coming of our adorable Saviour and glorious King, the Prince of Peace. Eternal issues and consequences are involved in our attitude with regard to this campaign. We need power from on high,—the power of Endless Life to push that work assigned to us to a certain and final victory. But let us remember that this power and the latter rain will never come to those who fold their hands in idleness, and do little or nothing to publish the impending second advent, and warn others of the struggle that is coming upon the world. The power from on high and the special communion of the Holy Spirit are coming only to those who do something to labor for perishing men, as did early Christians on the day of Pentecost, and thereafter. May God add his blessing to this important movement, until the voice of the message shall swell into a cry that shall be heard by all nations and all lands, and the work assigned to us shall close in glorious triumph. May it then be seen that we have well acted our part in carrying forward the work. Then may we find a shelter from the plagues of God’s just wrath, and finally receive from the Saviour the “Well done, . . . enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.”