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Tract Campaign Notes

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Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 3, 1903

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 80, No. 9.

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Tract Campaign Notes

By Editor

The Review and Herald has recently received an order from the Illinois Tract Society for 10,000 copies of the tract entitled “We Would See Jesus.”
The tract campaign is now well under way. It is gratifying indeed to see the earnest enthusiasm with which this good work is being carried all over the United States.
Watch for notices of a fifth tract. We have now sent to the printers the copy for a new tract, entitled “The Perpetuity of the Law,” by C. H. Spurgeon. It is one of the most simple, clear, and powerful tracts we have ever issued on the subject of the law.
According to the latest information received from the Review and Herald and Pacific Press Publishing Companies790,000 copies of the new tracts have already been printed, and yet at times, it is difficult to fill promptly the orders received.
Brother A. J. Bourdeau, secretary of the California Tract Society, writes: “Since January 1, six weeks’ time, we have sold over 450,000 pages of tracts alone. The Lord is helping us to revive the old-time tract and missionary spirit.”
A letter from Brother Curtiss, manager of the New York Branch of the Pacific Press Publishing Company, informs us that the tract work has started off encouragingly in several of the conferences in the East. He mentions particularly the State of Maine, where they have already handled over 20,000 copies.
Inquiries have been received from several sources as to the kind of work which should follow the tract campaign. We feel like saying in reply, what we have often felt, that this campaign should be followed by the personal appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ. Dear brethren, should we not enter upon this work with a definite determination that our efforts shall not cease until the Lord shall come? Such a purpose and definite belief in the church is the only thing that can bring that glorious event.
A good sister writes as follows: “I received the tract, ‘We Would See Jesus.’ Words are too feeble to express the joy which filled my soul as I looked upon the illustration on the first page of the tract. It seemed so full of meaning. I shall do what I can to place the message before the people. Thousands of poor souls are yet to be warned. None who are awake can fail to see that our time for warning the world is almost closed. We can not work too swiftly.”
Several conference presidents have sent to us copies of letters which they have mailed to their churches and isolated members, setting before them the importance of organizing for thorough work in distributing the new tracts. Nearly all the State papers, also, are agitating this good work. This general rally in behalf of the old-fashioned tract and missionary work is full of meaning. May the Lord greatly bless his people, and enable them to think and do great things.
A brother from the South writes the following interesting account of his efforts in behalf of the new tracts in one little church: “At the close of our meeting we organized ourselves into a missionary society to distribute the new tracts. Little children from four years old and upward took tracts; and before Sunday night nearly all our supply was exhausted. We believe that it is the mind of God that these new tracts should be scattered as the leaves of autumn. One sister who had never sold any books or tracts thought that she could not sell them; but she tried it, and sold nineteen in a few minutes. A little girl six years old sold two before breakfast; another twelve years old sold about thirty. The older people are as much interested as the children.”
Elder W. J. Stone, president of the Tennessee River Conference, writes the following encouraging words to The Southern Watchman: “The Missionary Department of our conference has on hand a supply of the first tract, ‘We Would See Jesus.’ I have read this tract, and consider it in its make-up and the matter it contains one of the best tracts ever published by our denomination. In getting out these tracts, it has seemed to be the mind of the writers to boil down and put into each tract what several tracts have contained in the past. Our people should scatter these tracts by the thousand. Why not revive the old-time missionary spirit, and carry literature in our pockets, and hand out a tract whenever we find a person who will read? If the world is warned, and the Lord comes in this generation, it will be because our people arise and let the clear rays of light that the Lord has given them shine forth to the world. Is it not apparent, brethren and sisters, that we ought to be doing much more missionary work than we are doing? and shall we not, without urging, send an order for these tracts, and begin to distribute them among our neighbors?”