ADVANTAGES OF TRACT DISTRIBUTION.
By D. T. Bourdeau
To go from house to house in distributing even our small tracts, is a potent means of disseminating the light of present truth. This is a good way of searching out and finding the Lord’s precious ones, who are to prepare to pass through the perils of these last days, perfect Christian characters, and stand before the Son of man when he shall return to our earth in the glory of his Father, in his own glory, and accompanied by all the heavenly host. The work of distributing our tracts and papers is especially needed in cities to prepare the way for public efforts. In country places and in small villages, where there is comparatively little excitement, and where there are not, as a general rule, many public gatherings, it is not very difficult, in a tent or in a hall, to awaken public interest. Indeed, for country people and villagers to see a tent pitched among them, and hear subjects of thrilling interest announced, is something so out of the usual order that they are drawn to the meetings where the soul-stirring and soul-reviving themes of present truth are presented. But the circumstances are very different in cities, where there is much excitement and much of a nature to arrest the attention and take up the minds of the masses. In these great centers it is an essential prerequisite to success in making special public efforts, that laborers, whether lecturers, canvassers, or ordinary believers, make it a point to find out, as far as possible, who would take an interest in the things of God for these times. When much of this preliminary work is done, interested persons can be persuaded to attend public lectures; and by this means an interest can be started at the very opening of a public effort. And what better method can be brought into requisition to become acquainted with those upon whose hearts the Spirit of God and good angels are making impressions favorable to the truth, than that of going from house to house with our literature? This work we have been doing in Montreal; and though we meet with difficulties, we occasionally come in contact with persons whose minds have already been impressed in favor of the truth. Last week Brother Oswald Bourbeau, our special tract worker for the French, offered a French New Testament to a Roman Catholic. As he opened it, his eyes rested on these words: “But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day.” Matt. 24: 20. He said, among other things, “This means Saturday, and I have for some time believed that that is the day we ought to keep.” At another place our tract worker entered a store and handed out our French tract on “The Prophecies and the Proximity of Christ’s Return.” A Catholic priest hastened to see what he was doing, took the tract out of the hand of one who had received it, and, tearing it in pieces and committing it to the flames, said, before several, “I am not afraid to meet in the Judgment what I have done.” Our young worker replied, “Be careful that in the day of Judgment what you have done may not be put down as an insult against Jesus Christ; for the words of Jesus Christ with regard to his soon coming in judgment are in that tract.” The priest tried in vain to frighten the young man. The latter showed he was in his rights, and had been insulted by the priest, even before he had said a word to him. Having been a Catholic, he met the priest on his own ground, and defended the truth in his presence and before others for more than half an hour, even until his accuser had nothing further to say. Being accused of fanaticism, he replied, “Is it not rather fanaticism to take a tract and hastily tear it without even knowing whether it is not good Catholic doctrine?” Not long ago I had a pleasant interview with an Armenian Catholic priest, who left Armenia a few years ago when so many Armenian Christians were slaughtered by the Turks. I called his attention to the Sabbath, having previously handed him tracts on that subject. He said, “From the days of my tender youth I have known that there is no evidence in the Bible of a change of the Sabbath by divine authority; and I have often told this to Protestants.” There are four hundred Armenian families in Montreal alone. They need publications in their own tongue. A letter just received from Elder John Vuilleumier, of Buenos Ayres, South America, shows the beneficial effects of tracts. He says: “Some to whom I handed tracts when in Italy, about sixteen years ago, and who then left Italy, are now in South America, sacredly keeping the works handed them in their native land, and rejoicing in the truth.” Of course, Elder Vuilleumier and others helped them on in the good way. Elder Vuilleumier had previously informed me that one person in South America had recently been converted to the Sabbath by a French tract, “Dialogue on the Lord’s Day,” sent from America. God does not wish all this work of distributing literature to rest on ministers, or even on canvassers. For instance, it would take two persons two years to properly go once over Montreal alone, with our tracts, and then this work would not be finished. Many hands make heavy burdens light. Will all our people everywhere improve the little time that remains in which to work for souls in scattering our tracts and other publications preparatory to ministers making public efforts? How can discerning ministers, viewing fields from the standpoint of believers scattered in them, refrain from showing preference to those fields where this work has been done? Some may be tried because ministers do not go where they are, to give public lectures. But I would ask such, Have you done your duty in drawing near to your neighbors and in communicating to them the truth by visiting them and by means of our literature? If you depend on your ministers to do the work you ought to do to prepare the way for them, they will not go to you, unless it be to show you what you ought to do. Should a minister go to your locality and lead some to receive the truth, who would take care of them? Would a minister have to remain with them and with you, and do work you are unprepared to do as fathers and mothers in Israel, because you have not previously drawn near to your neighbors, and, consequently, do not know where they stand spiritually? And how would you, under such circumstances, know what souls cost to the real laborer? Not knowing this by personal experience, how could you be expected to look after them when the minister has gone to other fields? D. T. BOURDEAU.