A Fourfold Blessing by E. M. Graham

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Aug 14, 1913

A Fourfold Blessing

By E. M. Graham

SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS who live in the United States and Canada have many privileges. Times are good, and wages high; so that while living is high, too, there is still enough to provide for all the comforts of life. Above all, there are abundant opportunities to do missionary work, to have a part in giving the truth to others. We can give of our money; and we have many about us well able to buy our literature, so no one who wishes to work for the Lord is prevented from doing so from lack of means.

In some other countries it is not so. Our people are extremely poor, living on the border line of starvation much of the time. They have no money with which to buy literature to give away, nor can they sell, for their neighbors are as poor as they are. Yet they long to be able to have a part in giving this truth to others, because they love the Lord and his cause as we do.

Should not the strong help the weak? We would suggest a plan whereby this could be done, with very little trouble to our people in this country.

Let every Sabbath-keeper in the United States and Canada sell one ten-cent magazine during the month of September, and give the five cents' profit to a fund for providing our brethren in China, Japan, Korea, and India with literature for free distribution. We have 68,000 Sabbath-keepers in the United States and Canada. Five cents from each of them would give $3,400. This would buy a large quantity of reading-matter in countries where it can be produced very inexpensively.

Some may say that if it is only five cents that is needed from them, they will give that rather than be to the trouble of selling the magazine. Brethren and sisters, do not do that. If you have five cents to spare, give it to the regular mission offerings, for they are in great need of every cent that can be obtained. Secure this fund from the public. The Lord says that “the forces [“wealth,” margin] of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.” Isa. 60:5. By every Sabbath-keeper's selling one magazine, we may obtain $3,400 of the wealth of the Gentiles. Is it not worth this small effort?

Let all who decide to unite in this effort—and we hope every one will—order through their church missionary secretary, who will order the magazines in clubs, in order to get the fifty-per-cent discount. If some desire to sell more than one magazine to benefit this fund, so much the better. The larger the fund, the more missionary work our people in China, Japan, Korea, and India will be able to do with it.

There is in this plan a fourfold blessing,—the Sabbath-keepers in this country will receive a blessing as they sell the magazine, the people who buy the magazines will be helped by them, our people in those heathen lands will be blessed as they use the fund to help their friends and neighbors, and the people who receive the literature will have the opportunity of receiving the light of the gospel.

We must also remember that the big end of the warning work yet to be done is in the foreign fields, and everything we can do to hasten the giving of the message in them brings the end of our work nearer. This plan will be especially helpful in China, with its 450,000,000 people. To reach all these in the short time left by living preachers alone would be a hopeless task. Literature must be scattered from one end of the country to the other, in order to warn these vast numbers of people. That this is a successful method of working has been proved, for whole companies have accepted the truth in China from reading alone.

Who will sell one magazine on behalf of India, China, Japan, and Korea?

E. M. GRAHAM, Secretary Home Missionary Dept.