What Our Books Are Doing in India by Percy C. Poley

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 29, 1911

What Our Books Are Doing in India

By Percy C. Poley

PERCY C. POLEY

It is certain that the angels who hold commission from the court of heaven to direct the missionary operations of our people, are charged with weighty responsibilities in that department of missionary endeavor which we call the publishing and canvassing work; and that these faithful agents have not fully discharged their trust in directing only the movements of our canvassers, but that they have a special care over those seeds of truth which our canvassers drop.

Quite recently a young man, who at the time was a sergeant on the clerical staff of the British army in India, stationed at Poona, in the Bombay Presidency, became acquainted with our missionaries in that district. He was also an active member of the local Young Men's Christian Association, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church; but his intimacy with the Seventh-day Adventist workers at Poona had not, up to that time, led to any change in his religious convictions. In April, 1910, he went to Mussoorie for a vacation. On a shelf in the Soldiers' Furlough Home at which he stayed, he found an old book, bearing the title “Bible Readings for the Home Circle,” but did not know that it was a part of our denominational literature. When he lighted upon the reading called “The New Testament Sabbath” and similar studies, he imagined that he would find some facts which would refute the doctrinal positions of his Seventh-day Adventist friends at Poona. According to his own narration of the incident, he found the book was not against them, but in their favor, and he left Mussoorie with the conviction that the Adventists had the truth so far as he had studied. Then followed some Bible readings under Elder G. F. Enoch, of Poona, resulting in the complete establishment of our brother in the truths of this message.

To my mind, that journey of one thousand miles across country from Poona, in the west, to Mussoorie, in the Himalayas of the north, to find a book where he would have time and leisure to read it, was the result of a heaven-born plan. However, that is not all the story. Our brother decided to obtain his discharge from the army, in order that he might engage in the work of giving to others the truths he himself had received. He is now a regular canvasser for the India Union Mission, and is selling our English books with a good degree of success among both the English and the educated native populations of India.