A SUGGESTION by L. M. Gates

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 2, 1868

A SUGGESTION.

By L. M. Gates

DEAR BRETHREN AND SISTERS: I have for sometime thought of making a suggestion to you through the Review, but a feeling of diffidence arising from a fear that I might appear desirous of introducing myself into notice, has hitherto deterred me. While visiting among my husband's relatives in different States last summer, I found numbers who knew little or nothing of the reasons of the faith and hope of Seventh-day Adventists. Many seemed devoid of prejudice, and some expressed a desire to hear our ministers.

As I had not the means to subscribe for the Review for each of these friends, the idea presented itself that I might occasionally send them some of my papers after I had read them; and although I would have liked to preserve the several volumes entire, still I concluded to send to a few, praying that the blessing of the Lord might make them instrumental in guiding some soul into the truth. I found I could enclose two numbers of the Review in a wrapper and send them for a two-cent stamp, or one number each of the Review, Reformer, and Instructor. So I commenced sending in this way (though in some instances not without secret misgivings as to how they might be received.)

I soon received acknowledgments of their reception, and requests for more. This encouraged me to send to others, and I am now sending our periodicals from New Jersey to Minnesota, and have frequently obtained papers from my Advent friends in this vicinity to supply the calls of friends, my own being insufficient.

Most of us are reading the Bible through this year, according to Bro. Canright's proposition. This, with our numerous publications, leaves but few of us time to give our periodicals a second reading.

I would therefore propose, that, instead of letting these papers lie idly on the shelf, we direct them to our numerous relatives and acquaintances. Let the schoolmate of former days be remembered; and if one soul shall be saved as the result of our efforts to thus sow light in darkness, shall we not feel a thousand times repaid? Near ten years ago the Review was sent to me by a relative. At that time I knew far less of Seventh-day Adventists than of the Greeks, though so strongly prejudiced that I would not read their paper. One day I sat down to get my child to sleep, and as a number of the Review chanced to lie open near me, my eye casually rested upon an article entitled, “Synopsis of Present Truth,” and as I was obliged to sit for a few moments, I read it, which awakened curiosity sufficient to hunt up the preceding numbers of the series, and by the time those articles were all published—in spite of myself—I was interested in present truth. May I not then be excused while I ask you to scatter the papers? “In the morning sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold not thine hand” L. M. GATES.