Our Aim a Completed Work
By W. T. Knox
There is an old proverb that “Well begun is half done.” If the opposite of this is true, the writer fears that the denomination has not made a very good beginning with the “Ministry of Healing” campaign. This work was definitely planned for at the General Conference Council at College View in October of 1909. The plan then adopted involved the sale, by each member of the denomination in the United States, of at least two copies of the book “Ministry of Healing,” and five copies of the journal Life and Health, each year for the next succeeding three years; the net proceeds from the sale of these books and journals, after paying for their production, to be devoted to the relief of our sanitariums. Some of the results accruing from this work, if it is fully carried out, will be the placing of at least one hundred eighty thousand copies of an excellent and greatly needed book in the homes of our neighbors and friends, and the distribution of about nine hundred thousand copies of Life and Health, thereby accomplishing the very work to which the Lord has called us,—the giving to the people of a message of salvation. While accomplishing this wide circulation of our literature, we shall, without any loss to ourselves, gather almost five hundred thousand dollars above the cost of producing the books and journals, this half-million dollars to be turned to the relief of our sanitariums. When we think what this would mean to these institutions; the relief it would bring to many of them; the better work they would be able to do, the question will present itself, Why has not more been accomplished in this work during the past year? The truth is, there has been comparatively little accomplished. During the past summer, some of the conferences did a preliminary work in securing some orders for books, and made some sales to our people at camp-meetings, but few have carried forward the work aggressively. Without doubt, the answer to the foregoing question is that the work was not “well begun.” While the campaign plan is simplicity itself, yet to realize success, there must be, from the very first, thorough and careful planning and organization. The objects sought and made possible by this plan merit the most thorough co-operation and support of all union and local conference officers and laborers. While the actual time consumed in the campaign need not be great, the results that can be obtained by thorough work justify the outlay of the painstaking effort required for proper organization of forces, districting of the field, and suitable leadership. Without the hearty leadership of conference workers, much need not be expected from church-members. If left to themselves by union conference men, not all local conference officers may rally to the work as they would if led by the union conference president. The most favorable season of the year for this work is fast passing. Just now the work can be accomplished, in most sections, with less inconvenience and loss than at any other season of the year. It is greatly to be feared that if winter and early spring are allowed to pass without having accomplished definite results in this campaign, another year will have been lost. The Columbia Union is making a good beginning. Its officers have thrown themselves heartily into the work. Arrangements have been made with the publishing-house for a good supply of books. Every available worker has been pressed into the campaign to assist in organizing the local conferences for a strong and persistent effort to complete the work. For the campaign a good portion of February and March has been allotted. If this carefully planned campaign is responded to as it is hoped it will be, it will mean much in relieving the very embarrassing situation in the Eastern Pennsylvania Conference in regard to the Philadelphia Sanitarium. What comfort and satisfaction are found in15viewing a task accomplished—in being able to say, “I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do.” Why not let us all, if we have not done so before, arise to our opportunities, and make a good beginning at this work, with the determination to see it through, and disposed of? Why not do this now?