A Side Issue by E. R. Allen

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Oct 24, 1912

“A Side Issue”

By E. R. Allen

A RECENT letter from a friend refers to the canvassing work as a “side issue.” I fell to pondering whether this work rightly occupies this position relative to the other branches of our work. The colporteur work occupied an important position in the Reformation of the sixteenth century, of which Reformation our work is but a continuation. A very large percentage of the people who now embrace the truth do so through reading. Certainly such a work is not a side issue, but one of the main issues.

Again I recall the statement of the servant of the Lord that “if there is one work more important than another, it is that of getting our publications before the people, thus leading them to search the Scriptures.” This doesn’t look as if that work were a side issue, does it? Away with these selfish comparisons! May God give us grace and breadth of mind to comprehend in its fulness the work of the third angel in the earth.

It would be well for conference officers and workers to consider what position the canvassing work has occupied in their thoughts and plans. Perhaps we shall thus discover some side issues. Have we given it the place it deserves? What have been our plans for the promotion of this work at camp-meetings? The spirit of prophecy tells us that this work is of more importance than preaching to our people. Do we so regard it? We are much concerned to have good preaching at camp-meetings, but do we make equally careful preparation for

promoting the interests of the canvassing work? Here there is danger of making the canvassing work a side issue.

It is easy to tell what interest a conference has in the canvassing work by reading a few issues of its local paper. In some of these it is manifest from the first page to the last that this work occupies the position it deserves. Every worker and officer sees in it a means of advancing the cause he loves, and thus helping finish the work in this generation. In such papers we always find a long list of successful canvassers.

On the other hand, we find occasionally a conference paper which grudgingly mentions the canvassing work,—a side issue indeed. It is a sort of necessary evil; and were it not for an occasional word from the field agent (if the conference has such a worker at all), we should never see a mention of the canvassing work. In such a paper we usually find somewhere on a back page the names of a few faithful canvassers. They, too, feel the spell of neglect and disapproval (intentional or otherwise, the effect is the same) of this branch of the work. It will be noted that the names in this list keep changing, and it keeps the poor field agent hustling to make any report at all. He knows full well that if he does not make some showing, he will be regarded as an unprofitable servant, not worth his ‘traveling expenses,’ and be told to move on.

Now we are not discussing imaginary conditions. Would it not be well for us to consider our ways, and repent of our temerity in regarding and treating as a side issue a branch of the work of which it is said, “The canvassing work, properly conducted, is missionary work of the highest order, and it is as good and successful a method as can be employed for placing before the people the important truths for this time”?

E. R. ALLEN.