How Can Conferences Best Encourage the Canvassing Work?
By C. McREYNOLDS
IN order most effectively to encourage the canvassing work, we must begin the work in making up the conference committee. If we place men on the committee who have a real, active faith in the canvassing work, who show this by turning the minds of many of their converts toward that work, by setting an example in their ministry in carrying a good supply of different books with them to the people where they are holding meetings and by working diligently to secure subscriptions to our papers, we have an excellent foundation laid for building up the canvassing work. While it may not be possible to secure such men for the whole committee, it will be very important not to place on the committee even one man who has once been a canvasser and has lost his interest in that work, and left it for that reason, unless he has become converted on this question; for in this, as in other things, often “a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” An ideal condition is to have all the officers, ministers, and Bible workers alive to this work and in hearty sympathy with it. The best results can never come to the canvassing work until such is the case. As our workers go among our people and pray in their homes, let them pray for the canvassing work and the workers in that branch, that God, who has told us to sow “beside all waters,” may bless them richly. Pray earnestly, not because you believe it is your duty to pray for them, but because you long for his blessing to come upon them; because you are in heart-touch with the work they are doing. Then talk of it in public and in private,—not of the duty to go into this work, but of the good that has been done and is being done by it. Then when an interest is manifested on the part of any one, do all you can, by the aid of the Spirit of God, to lead him to take up the work. Let every man who works among the churches, or has charge over a district in a conference, do this, and our canvassing forces will be strengthened. Let all the ministers return to the methods of former days, of carrying with them into new fields, in tent work, etc., a good supply of tracts, pamphlets, and books, and sell them to the people with whom they labor. Let the Bible workers never cease to be canvassers, especially in selling books to the people with whom they are studying the Bible. This will prove a great blessing to the worker, and will produce more permanent results. Thus a book-selling sentiment will become general. Let the conference president and the State agent be on hand a little prior to the close of the school year in our colleges and academies to secure workers in the canvassing field. And I would advise that they begin, not with the students, but with the professors. Make good terms with them, and the same to the students, in the matter of railroad fares, etc., and get many of them into the field. A great blessing would come from this, as its influence would be felt in their next year's teaching. In many ways it would be a great advantage. Carry this same plan to the church-school teachers, and let every one of them who does not absolutely need to attend a summer normal, go out and sell books, and then in their work with the children they can much more effectively teach them to be missionaries, by starting them out with The Life Boat and some of our small books, thus educating them to be canvassing evangelists. In this way a general sentiment will permeate the entire conference, by being created first in every home and every church. When these plans are carried out, we shall no longer hear the cry from timid church-school teachers and Bible workers and college teachers, “I can not canvass.” Our canvassers are to be missionaries for God in the message for to-day, and all classes of workers among us should be booksellers, from the conference president to the little ones in the church-school. Still another necessary and effectual way in which the conference can encourage the canvassing work is by holding good canvassers' institutes once, twice, or three times each year for the training of canvassers. Let it be, for the time it is held, the most important thing in the conference. Let it have the benefit of the best help that can be secured to give instruction in the books to be used, and in the methods of canvassing. Also make it a season of Bible study and spiritual refreshing. Provide the best talent in the conference to lead in Bible study, both in the line of the doctrines peculiar to our message and in the basic principles of the gospel, which will lead every soul to know Jesus as his own personal Saviour. Let it have the benefit of the labors of the president of the conference in some one or more of these lines of study. Hold it where the truth has not been preached, and have night services for those not of our faith. And finally, get the people to attend the institute who should attend. After several years of trial, we have found that the best way to do this is to be careful in selecting those who should come, and render them the assistance necessary to get them there. It pays to invest five or ten dollars in railroad fare to get a good, intelligent young man or young woman to attend the institute and go out into the field,—one who will devote from four to five months, or perhaps from nine to ten months in the year to the sale of our books. And it pays thrice over, considering the good the books will do the people, and the development of a worker for the Lord. The spirit of prophecy has said, “If there is one work more important than another, it is getting our publications into the hands of the people.” Then why are we so slow to invest even a few dollars in fitting people to do that work?