p. 12 | RECOGNITION by E. E. Miles

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 28, 1902

RECOGNITION

By E. E. Miles

SPONTANEOUSLY, simultaneously, universally, the watchword among Seventh-day Adventists has come to be, “Everybody to do something with our publications;” and again, “The advent message to the world in this generation.”

The canvassing work is everywhere recognized as second to no other department of missionary effort. Conference officers, higher and lower, ministers,

people,—everybody, speak in praise of the canvasser and his work; all profess to believe in it, not alone for others, but for themselves. At our general gatherings, time is given to the consideration of tract work, book work, and work with our periodicals, almost lavishly, and the people listen with interest, and everybody says, Amen! These missionary meetings are really a power to draw, they are well attended, and they are by no means monotonous or tedious. We all enjoy them, and we say that we are going home to do something, but do we? Well, yes, we go home, but what then? Thank God some do go to work for him, but when we come to aggregate the results, and compare with sales for corresponding periods, in past years, we seem to be making no material gains. Wherein does the trouble lie?

The writer is decidedly of the opinion that what is needed is to heed the counsel of the true Witness. Rev. 3:14–18. “Neither cold nor hot.” Years ago men and women took hold of this work with zeal and earnestness; they were “hot.” Then they found opposition from those who were “cold,” and they were provoked to still greater activity and determination, and something had to move and did move, and favor was won from the opposition by demonstrated success,—real success! I will not say that the book work now has too many friends, but really, there are too many who, like the man in the parable, say, “I go, sir,” but do not go.

The invulnerable and irrepressible Paul said, “Woe is me if I preach not the gospel;” and when threatened with persecution (bonds and afflictions), which, by the way, he had experienced many times already in great severity, he turned not aside, but pressed forward battling as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, saying, “None of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy [and he did, 2 Tim. 4:6–8], and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.” Acts 20:22–24.

“For if these things [the elements of good religion that form the rounds of Peter’s ladder, 2 Peter 1:5–8] be in you and abound, they make you [impel you] that ye shall neither be idle [margin] nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Where are the men and women, officers, preachers, laymen, who will come to the front with the woe upon them that the apostle Paul felt, with the burden of the ministry which actuated him, who will take the gold of faith and love, and who will add by rapid process, all necessary Christian virtues; in short, who will be “last-generation” Christians? These are the people who, under God, must and will raise the work out of the lethargy and the easy-going ways into which it seems to have fallen, and who will put new life and force into it, and who, by power of example, will awaken the denomination to service,—true, hardy, genuine, earnest, effective, service,—which will make us ourselves believe that the end is near, and which will convince the world that the coming of the Lord is right upon us. “Lukewarm!” “Lukewarm!” sickening to both God and man. A change is imperative. “I would that thou wert cold or hot.” “I counsel thee.” Shall we not heed the counsel?

God has recognized us as gospel workers, and we rank as such, in no uncertain terms in the Bible and in the Testimonies. And shall we not, on our part, give practical evidence that we appreciate something of the responsibility that goes with our sacred calling?

E. E. MILES, Pub. Agt. A. U. C.