Study the Summary by W. W. E.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 16, 1913

Study the Summary

By W. W. E.

FIGURES are dry things if not studied, but with a little thought they become very interesting. Let us study the summary each month. This month the number of workers in the North American Division Conference is nearly the same as those in foreign fields; and while our sales are larger in this country, yet the following figures show that we have something to learn from our fellow workers in other lands on the point of putting in good time:—

Our foreign workers to the number of 711 averaged 27 hours per week, 108 hours per month, with an average sale of $59.34, or an average of $.55 per hour. In the North American Division we have 704 workers. These averaged 20 hours per week, 81 hours per month, with sales averaging $96.67 per month, or $1.21 per hour.

What We Lost, or What We Might Have Done That We Did Not Do

Our workers in the North American Division put in 19,445 hours less than the workers outside of this country; and inasmuch as the hours they did put in averaged them $1.21 an hour, the total loss to the colporteurs in the North American Division was $23,528.45. This amount, divided among the 704 colporteurs, means a loss in sales to each one of over $33.88 a month, more than $8 a week. Changing the figures from dollars and cents to number of books, and using the three-dollar book as a basis, we have a loss to each colporteur for the month of 11 books, or 7,700 pages the size of “Great Controversy;” or a total loss of 7,744 books, with a total of over 5,410,000 pages.

Let us think of the much larger number of persons that might have been reached had we put in as faithful time as our brethren across the seas, and determine that no soul shall be lost because of unfaithfulness on our part to put in full time. “It is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful.”

W. W. E.