p. 100 | PREACHING BY STEAM by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 30, 1876

PREACHING BY STEAM.

By James White

When men shut their eyes to the apostasies, disorders in society, and the villainies of the present, and look only upon the advancement in the arts and sciences, they feel flattered that they live in an age of unparalleled progression. Not stopping to discuss the question whether advancing blessings equal progressing evils, we wish here to call attention to the approximate perfection in the art of printing, and the rapidity with which the religious press may do preaching by steam.

Probably no religious people have done as much preaching in this way, when numbers and time are taken into the account, as the Seventh-day Adventists. We established a paper which taught the views of this people in 1849, when we could number only a few scores of souls. This small beginning has grown in a quarter of a century, steadily and surely, to a legally incorporated Publishing Association, at Battle Creek, Michigan, with a capital of $100,000, a reliable patronage of fifteen thousand souls, and through our Tract and Missionary Societies, to almost unlimited demand of printed matter on religious and reformatory subjects.

April, 1875, the Pacific S. D. A. Publishing Association was incorporated according to the laws of California, at Oakland. In about ten months, buildings have been erected at a cost of $12,000. A car-load of presses and other machinery has been purchased and brought across the continent from New York, type and other material sufficient to do the present business of the Association have also been purchased, the entire cost of which is $8,000. This sum has been donated by the Eastern friends of our cause. And this young Association is paying neither interest nor rents.

THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES has a paying circulation of nearly 4,000, and its lists of subscribers are rapidly increasing. Thank God that we can give so good and cheering a report of the California Publishing Association as it enters on the eleventh month of its existence. Judging from the past, we can safely predict for it a very prosperous future.

Besides the issue of the SIGNS, our California steam press has printed, during the past four months, more than three tons of tracts and pamphlets, containing the most valuable matter for our people at this time. Already the item of postage paid on this kind of matter which has been sent out from the Office of the SIGNS, during the past three months, amounts to between two and three hundred dollars. The idea is truly grand, that an unpopular message of Bible truth, which was first held by a few humble persons on the shores of the Atlantic a few years since, has passed across the continent, gathering strong and devoted friends at every step, and now is being preached by steam on the Pacific. Best judges say, when speaking of our large cylinder printing machine, that it is the best press on the Pacific Coast.

And right here, just as the Pacific Press is completely established, the advancing cause in Europe demands that there should be an Office of publication in Switzerland, as suggested in a recent report from our worthy missionary, Eld. J. N. Andrews. We highly approve the measure, and venture the statement that there is no time to be lost. But little has been accomplished for the cause in our own country without the press. The cause moved very slowly on this continent until we began publishing in good earnest. The work in Europe will amount to but little until our brethren there commence preaching by steam.

Periodicals in both the French and German languages will soon be issued from the S. D. Adventist Office in Europe. There, too, our tracts, already published at Battle Creek in both these languages, can be reproduced, and others of equal or superior value can be at once printed. The time has come. We have three men of ability in Europe who are devoted to the cause of God, and we expect more will be raised up there to stand in defense of the truth.

Mrs. W. joins us in the pledge to give $1,000 for the mission and press in Europe before the close of 1876, and we shall expect that those of our brethren who have more than a humble competency will join us with a liberal hand in this important work. By the grace of God we will have a Publishing House in Basel, the central point for Switzerland, Germany and France, before the close of the current year, where work may be done on our own presses. But for the present Eld. Andrews must hire others to do his printing; and in order to do this he must have immediate help. We shall therefore send him $100 each month, beginning with April, and close up the amount of our pledge with $200 in December.

Eld. Andrews is in need of immediate help. We shall forward to him not less than $2,000 at the time of the extra session of the General Conference, and shall expect that our wealthy brethren will join us liberally in the April installment for the European Press. Now is our time to act, and may God prosper our missionaries in Europe in all those preparations necessary for preaching by steam. J. W.