Circulation of Tracts in the Early Days of the Message
By Washington Morse
Forty-seven years ago the tenth of next June I went to Minnesota with my family. The first day of July I began work at my trade in Faribault. I sent one dollar to the Review for tracts. On receiving them I started out after my day’s work and sold them all the first night. I then sent one dollar for more tracts, which were soon received, and were sold at once. For twenty weeks I continued to send the dollar as often as the mail could go with it and return with the tracts. All these tracts I sold without consuming time in my working hours, and now I could tell of many Sabbath-keepers, some of whom are filling responsible places in church capacity, in Minnesota and Dakota, who date their conversion to the Sabbath truth from reading those tracts. At that date there were only six families besides mine in Minnesota who kept the Sabbath. Just forty-four years ago Wisconsin and Illinois donated an old tent to us; and Elder William Ingraham, of Wisconsin, and I held three tent meetings, resulting in bringing out sixty-four adult Sabbath-keepers. We had plenty of tracts and pamphlets, which we circulated freely. But I do not think we had one bound book. In 1860 Elder J. N. Andrews came to Minnesota and held three tent meetings; and seventy-four Sabbath-keepers were added to our number. We used tracts and pamphlets freely. Just forty-one years ago next May I was present at the first General Conference held in Battle Creek, Mich., and I filled my trunk with tracts and pamphlets, and took them home to Minnesota. Last March I received four hundred copies of the new tracts, and immediately sold nearly all of them. I sent again, and have just received four hundred more. I am very happy in this blessed work. I shall need to double my orders in a short time. Surely God led my dear brethren to write and publish those blessed tracts; it is the best move ever made by Seventh-day Adventists to remove prejudice and spread these glorious truths. O my brethren and sisters, how can you be idle one hour? Take these and other tracts and work with them. Read them, and let your words be well seasoned with grace. Every day I find some who are in trouble, and I am greatly blessed in having a season of prayer with them. One year ago I sent one dollar to the Review Office for tracts, and they were soon gone. One old gentleman, a superannuated M. E. minister, was urged to buy three of those tracts, but he would not. I reluctantly let him have them without pay. Last week I called on him with the new tracts. His wife took the tracts, and paid for them, saying that they had been much interested in reading a tract given them by some one, and that her husband had taken it to the editor of21the county paper, and he had published the entire tract. She began to read the tract in the paper. I soon stopped her, and said, “I gave you that tract one year ago.” It was the tract entitled “Is Man Immortal?” written by Elder George I. Butler. I meet those who have read the tract in the paper who esteem it very highly. Here is an instance where God overruled to bring this blessed truth before thousands of people. O my brethren and sisters, how quickly the world could be warned if all of his remnant people would consecrate themselves wholly to the Lord. My brethren, get your hearts in order; for the trumpet of the archangel will soon be heard. WASHINGTON MORSE.