A Personal Experience by J. F. Balzer

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 10, 1903

A Personal Experience

By J. F. Balzer

“CHRIST’S OBJECT LESSONS” is truly a wonderful book, and those who undertake to sell even their own quotas will reap a rich harvest of blessing. Feeling that to delay would be to lose a great opportunity and come short of the glory of God, I ordered my quota of “Christ’s Object Lessons.” That was before Christmas, and the next evening after I received the books, I took one to our postmaster. Not knowing much about the book, I could tell him but little concerning it, but I had some testimonials that I had clipped from the REVIEW; these I read to him. He examined the work, and said, “I will take the book, and give it to my wife.” Although he is quite skeptical, a few days afterward he remarked that the book he had bought of me was all right.

Soon after this I gave a canvass to a young lady who is keeping house for her brother, and before I was half through with my canvass, she said that it was an excellent book, and that she wished she could show it to her Sunday-school classmates, as they wanted to get their teacher a present, and she thought this would be the best thing they could get. The evening before Christmas I called on her at the church, where she and several others were at work. Her face lighted up for joy as she said, “I have been so afraid you would not get here on time with those books. I have been reading the one you left with me, and I don’t see how I can get along without it. I want one for myself, and another for our Sunday-school teacher.”

At another place while I was giving a canvass to a lady, the hired man came in. When I finished, the lady said that it was a good book, but that they were hard up, and she could not take one. The hired man followed me to the buggy, and asked me to bring him two of those books. When I called on him with the books, he was rather sad; for he had not yet received his wages. I said that if he could get the money within a few days, I would let him have the books, and thus he need not be disappointed in his plans for

Christmas.

At another place where three sisters and a brother (their parents being dead) are keeping house, the Lord gave me an order for “Home Hand-book” and “Prophecies of Jesus.” As a result, the brother has discarded tobacco and tea and coffee.

These are only a few of the encouraging experiences with which the Lord blesses the canvasser. Though I have made but feeble efforts in the way of canvassing, and many golden opportunities have passed, which, if properly used, might have resulted in a rich harvest for the Lord, yet he has most wonderfully blessed me. To him be all the praise. May the Lord grant that all, especially the young people, may fully awake from their slumber, and improve the few opportunities that are still left. Let us arise and finish the work with zeal and devotion, that when Jesus shall come to deliver his people, he may say to us each, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.” J. F. BALZER.