HARD TIMES by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 27, 1876

HARD TIMES.

By James White

Nobody feels the hard times more keenly than publishers, and managers of missions and charitable institutions. For as the hard times begin to close in, the people begin to economize in reading matter, and withhold their liberalities more or less. Retrenchment of expenses is almost sure to commence here, however wrong it may be, and is seldom carried out in all the expenses of life in proper proportions.

But what seems to be a very great wrong is to indulge in the extravagances of life more or less, and let our publishing houses be embarrassed for want of patronage, and the prompt payment of dues, and our missions and charitable institutions suffer for the want of that very means which becoming economy and industry, and liberality on the part of those who have more than a competency, can furnish without the least embarrassment.

We suggest that the cause of God and of humanity has high claims upon those Christians who are governed by the principles of supreme love to God, and love to their fellows such as they would bestow upon themselves. God has the highest claims upon our efforts and liberality, and the true Christian will guard the heart with jealous care against self-indulgence to the neglect of the good of others.

And as financial matters become depressed, it is the duty of all Christian workers to guard well against commencing the retrenchment of expenses at the wrong place. Let extravagances be lopped off first. Then let little indulgencies, which in good times are quite easily construed into necessities, come next. And then let the battle of economy and industry be pressed hard, before yielding to the temptation to withhold needed support from the cause of God.

Our Publishing Association is embarrassed for the want of the very means which justice demands. Let it be borne in mind that the S. D. A. Publishing Association, located at Battle Creek, Mich., is a strong institution, doing a great work, and asks no donations. It asks only for prompt payment of bills, and cheerful co-operation of our ministers and people. And, that the parties concerned may have a clear understanding of what these lines mean, bills of indebtedness will be sent to them as soon as they can be made out.

1. There are from five to ten thousand dollars due the Association for books which should be paid immediately. Those who have asked publications of the Association on trust, and have received them in this way by the kindness of the managers, and through their anxiety to spread the truth abroad, and now withhold the pay, are taking upon themselves a responsibility which they are invited to view in the light of the Judgment. God calls no man to engage in his cause in a manner to render it impossible or impracticable for him to meet just claims against him. While it is a virtue to be liberal with one's own means, it is a sin to be liberal, or to take undue license, with the means of others. We urge that each and every bill of indebtedness may be met with a prompt response of some kind. Payment in whole or in part at least will be the most acceptable.

2. The Publishing Association let the Educational Society have $10,000 and took the unpaid pledges to the College, amounting to $15,000, as security. Most of those pledges are still unpaid, leaving the Publishing Association embarrassed to nearly the amount first borrowed. Instead of the proposed Supplement this week, bills of indebtedness will be issued to delinquents, stating the sums of their delinquencies on their pledges. We ask an immediate response to the bills. Those who cannot pay the amount of their pledges at once, are asked to state their circumstances, and say when they will pay.

And those who have not taken stock in our College are urged to take shares, from one to one hundred. Mrs. W. and the writer take one hundred each. These stock shares are only $10, and almost every brother and sister can take one or more. We shall go through the camp, and make a grand rally at all our camp-meetings.

Because Mrs. W. and the writer objected to unqualified calls, and means from the poor, some of the more wealthy are withholding. What astonishing blindness comes over the minds of some men and women! Be it understood that we have objected to only those general, unqualified calls which greatly move the poor, and slide off from the wealthy as water from an oiled goose's back. Most of our more wealthy people can stand almost any amount of these general calls, while the poor wilt under them at once, and from their small purses begin to cash over without delay. Our plan is to go right into the camp with personal labor, and keep back the willing poor from doing too much, and carefully and faithfully see that the more wealthy do not do too little. Less than $50,000 has been paid in for our College. We have not the slightest idea of letting this matter rest short of $100,000.

But what is especially urged just now is the payment of pledges by all who can raise the money easier than the Association can do without it, and that all those interested, who have no unpaid pledges, shall take stock in the school according to their ability and that, too, without further delay. Our friends have a double inducement to cash over just now, in that while they are doing their duty to our School, they are also greatly relieving our Publishing Association.

3. Our periodicals greatly suffer for want of liberal patronage. As stated last week, we have been greatly disappointed that our liberal offers of discount should fail to awaken corresponding liberality on the part of our people. The full-paying lists of all our periodicals have become greatly reduced in our efforts to send out as many copies in addition at half price. It is astonishing that many who have professed to work for God in his great cause have seemed to act as if what they got out of the publishing department was clear gain. In the case of our periodicals it came to this, that at a certain point we were sending out at half price of the Voice of Truth, and of the Review, about 11,000 copies, and of the Review at full price, about 4,000 copies. After adding to this the payment of postage, the financial strain upon the Office was very great.

At the same time we were sending out 7,000 copies of the Health Reformer at fifty cents a year, and paying postage, and a little more than 3,000 copies at one dollar a year, postage paid. We had put $1,200 into the hands of a young man to complete his medical education, which he has done with honors, and he has paid it back to us in editing the Reformer three years.

In this case the strain has not come upon the Publishing Association, but upon the writer, who being ignorant of the real facts in the case, how the lists of full-pay subscribers were being undermined, appropriated $600 the last winter from his own purse to meet the expenses of three of our young men as medical students at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the delusive expectation of profits on the Reformer. But it turned out nearly $300 loss on the Reformer alone for less than one year.

Now, with these facts before us, the reader will please imagine our feelings of disgust at the course of the professed friends of health reform who seek to obtain the Reformer one year, post-paid, for fifty cents; or the person who has been benefited greatly healthwise by the teachings of the Reformer, and now graduates, and stops the Reformer to save one dollar a year; or those ministers, and other persons, who can act as agents for the Reformer without additional expenses, but ask premium of one-half. These persons are fully uninformed as to the efforts and sacrifices we have made for the Health Reformer, the Health Institute, and the Health Reformation, and of their importance; this is the only excuse we can frame for their stingy course. And now that the editing and publishing of the Reformer are off our hands we feel free to state the facts in the case in plain English.

All who know anything of the Instructor, in its present size, excellent matter, able manner in which it is edited, and beauty of stock and typographical execution, will unhesitatingly pronounce it the very best youth's paper in existence. And yet for want of proper co-operation it has a circulation of only 6,000 copies, a large share at half price, and cheaper even than this to Sabbath-schools, postage-paid.

There should be 5,000 subscribers each paying fifty cents. Then it could be offered to Sabbath-schools, and to Tract Societies, and to individuals to send to their friends at half-price. We recommend

1. That our ministers preach one discourse on the subject of patronizing our periodicals at full price in all our churches, showing the importance of this in order that our papers can be sent out to the unbelieving world at one-half price.

2. That these ministers to a man act as agents for our periodicals, pressing them in everywhere possible at full price, under a full sense that our periodicals and publications add to their labors in building up the cause nine-tenths; and that the more full-paying subscribers they forward, the more help the tract and missionary workers can have, from our Offices of Publication.

3. That our ministers set a good example of free labor, and care, and deep interest, in pressing our publications upon all our people at full price, to our Tract and Missionary workers who labor in the missionary field, to the expense of time, and often traveling expenses, without any pay.

What if the times are hard? Then we must all, in sympathy with all branches of the work, press the battle with more energy. Hard times indeed are coming when we shall be ashamed of our present excuses for withholding our means, and of our lack of energetic action in behalf of the suffering cause of truth.

And it should be borne in mind by all those connected with our institutions, and by all laborers in the gospel field, that hard times for money make cheap times for board and clothing. The existence of the hard times alone demands of them economy, and putting up with reduced wages; but when cheap times be added, the case is very clear that justice demands reduction of pay. More about this next week.

J. W.