The Missionary by John Nevins Andrews

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 22, 1880

The Missionary.

By John Nevins Andrews

MISSIONARY WORK IN SWITZERLAND.

The blessing of God still attends our effort to send out our paper. We send out each week as many as we can find time to wrap and address. This is usually from 1400 to 1700 copies. This is in addition to our regular work of getting out each month a new number and sending it to our subscribers. We have now been actively engaged during seven months in the work of sending out our journal in a systematic manner to new readers. The result leaves no room to doubt that this work has been in the order of God. We send four papers to each new address. Then we discontinue if no favorable response is received. A letter of introduction goes with the first number, and a letter asking the receiver to subscribe goes with the fourth. The letters are very simple, but they have seemed to take with the people. We have besought God to bless the effort, and to his blessing we ascribe all our success. But so far as our action is concerned, our success is due to the letters.

We tried during the earlier part of our publishing work to send out our paper to new readers gratuitously without sending each person a letter. We gave this experiment a thorough trial during the period of many months. We met with no success worthy of mention while acting on this plan. We are therefore prepared to judge, so far as our work is concerned, which of the two plans should be followed.

We have also pretty thoroughly tried the plan of sending out our tracts through the mail as the first act by which to introduce the truth to new readers. In many cases we have sent letters with the tracts, either on the first occasion of sending, or in sending to the same persons the second or third time. But our best success with tracts has been on a different plan. It has been to divide up a village among several persons, each taking a certain number of families to visit. The visitor in each case leaves a tract with the family he visits and invites them to read it. He also promises to call again in a week and take back the tract and to give another in exchange. We have seen more accomplished in this manner than by sending out tracts through the mail.

The tracts have an important place to fill, but it is evident that in our work they should follow rather than precede the sending out of the paper. The difficulty in sending the tracts first is that generally they will not be read. A person who has no previous interest in the subject presented in the tract will not read it. He expects to find it dry and uninteresting, and he therefore gives it no attention. But it is not so with the paper; for here there is a variety of articles, and every one will examine it, expecting to find something of interest. When they have read one article, they will pretty certainly try another, and thus the paper will secure attention. When they have become interested to read the paper, they will write to ask questions and state objections, and then the tracts are found just adapted to their wants. In some cases, the first thing a person does after he has become interested to read the paper, is to send and order all the tracts in our catalogue.

We have still a large stock of papers on hand, and it will require some time to send them all out, if we put forth our best efforts for that purpose. As every fourth number is a late paper, we are not suffering any of these to become old on our hands. But the old papers are apparently read with as much interest as the late one.

We have a missionary meeting every first-day evening, in which the labors of the past week are reported, and the missionary letters received are read. These meetings are very interesting. Some of our friends have doubted whether it was wise to send out our paper as we have been doing. But the letters read in the missionary meetings have fully satisfied them on this point. The first number of our paper sent into France contained an electrotype of the chart. We received an immediate request from a man who received that number, asking us to send him the original chart even if we had to send to America for it. We obtained the chart and sent it to him, and he has just responded, sending the price of the chart, and with it the name of a new subscriber, with the pay. There are now five persons in that French village who have sent for our paper. We give a letter dated Paris, June 4, 1880:—

"To the Editors of Les Signes des Temps, Bale, Suisse.

"Messieurs: Having received with pleasure some numbers of your good journal which have deeply interested me (an a vivement interesse) I send you five francs for a year's subscription. I hope in a little time to furnish proofs of my interest in promoting to the utmost extent the reading of this excellent journal, which is more than ever appropriate to the situation of the moment which indicates the end at hand. Will you receive, Messieurs, with my thanks, mes salutations les plus distinguees."

This letter evidently comes from a business man.

Next we give the letter of a servant girl from a village in Canton Vaud. It is written in good French, and in a very modest, becoming manner.

"Messieurs: My greatest desire is to be able to read your excellent (bon et bienfaisant) journal; but God has not given me the means. I am only a poor domestic, obliged to send all my savings to my parents, which prevents me from paying for your paper. Would it be possible for you to send me occasionally a copy? I have already those for the months of January and February of this year, which a kind lady has given me. They have rendered me very happy, and I thank you for your words of encouragement and of warning, to prepare to meet our divine Saviour. Excuse my request, which is a little bold, but I should be so glad to profit by your instructions and to share your counsels with my parents. It is this that encourages me to ask this favor."

This young lady has received our paper from some one to whom we have sent it on trial. We have sent her the numbers printed since February, and she writes again to express her gratitude and sends us other addresses.

A gentleman at Chaux-de-Fonds, who had received four numbers of our journal without responding to either of our letters, has, after the lapse of three months, just written, sending us the money for one year's subscription.

A lady in the department of Lot-et-Garonne, France, who had only received two old numbers of Les Signes, sends to subscribe for it.

We might give quite a large number of very interesting letters, but time and space forbid. When we have sent out all the old numbers which we now have on hand, we must print larger editions. If we could print five thousand or ten thousand, we could use them all to excellent advantage. I am fully persuaded that it is in our power to get the truth before the French people and to have them give attention to it, and that we can open many doors for the preaching of the truth where it has hitherto seemed impossible to obtain a hearing. My greatest suffering of mind in Europe has been in view of the apparent impossibility of gaining the attention of the French people. We could not to any extent gain their attention by our publications, though the publications were prepared with the utmost care, and it has seemed equally difficult for the living preacher to gain access to them. It has never satisfied me to say I have done the best I could. I have felt anguish of spirit that has almost consumed me in view of the apparent impossibility of gaining the attention of the public. I thank God that this distress is past. I am sure that we can reach the French people, and that we can move them to action.

My sickness during the past winter has been a great trial of my faith, but I now believe that God has overruled it to the advancement of his work. I hope to join Bro. Loughborough next week. I should have left here the present week, but have not been strong enough to undertake the journey. Though it is very difficult for me to leave Switzerland, I go cheerfully to labor in England, because I feel an interest in whatever concerns the work of God.

I have no sectional interest. The burden upon my heart with reference to things here has been very heavy, but it has been because the difficulties have seemed to be insurmountable. I have invited the co-operation of our French brethren in America in the work of sustaining our paper, but I have never sought to detach them from co-operating with the American brethren in every enterprise. I have always felt that the American brethren have exercised great patience toward us in sustaining us with their means while our progress in the work has been so slow.

I hope we shall not need to draw anything from the missionary treasury at Battle Creek for some time to come, and I am encouraged to believe that the time is at hand when we can sustain our paper without other assistance than the active co-operation of its friends. Our next purchase of white paper will be wholly by Swiss funds, and I hope we shall never again need to use any money from America for that part of our expense.

We do not wish in any way to place burdens on the tract societies in America, or to divert them from their proper work of circulating publications in the English language; yet if in any place where our brethren have fully done their duty in this respect, they see fit to become responsible for a number of French papers, we will furnish all the addresses and do the work in a systematic manner. This will obviate the difficulty which some tract societies have found who have desired to help the French work, but have lacked the names, and it will be a source of strength to us in our effort to sustain our paper without drawing means from the missionary treasury. We are greatly indebted to Bro. Whitney for what he has done for us in this way.

The next number of our paper will be the first number of our fifth volume. We think to change its form, so that it will contain sixteen pages instead of eight, while the pages will be reduced about one-half in size. We are constrained to do this because of the unanimous request of our European readers. But while reducing the paper so far as the size of the page is concerned, we shall not diminish the amount of matter which it contains, but slightly increase it. By this plan of action we are able to meet the wishes of our friends in Europe with regard to the form of our paper, and at the same time to follow the counsel of our brethren in America not to diminish its size. We have bestowed much thought and care upon this change, and hope that our journal in its new form will not only please our friends in Europe, but also those in America.

J. N. A. Bale, June 15, 1880.