Tract and Missionary Department by Stephen Nelson Haskell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 10, 1872

Tract and Missionary Department.

By Stephen Nelson Haskell

Tract and Missionary Labor.

There is no time more favorable for Tract and Missionary labor than the present. Long, winter evenings have come, and fall work is being closed up, so that people are having more time to read. These golden moments should be seized upon by the members of the Tract and Missionary Societies, and they see what, by the blessing of God, can be accomplished in enlisting the interests of our neighbors and friends in these truths that relate to the time in which we live. Special efforts should be made to extend the circulation of our periodicals. The Review and Herald we think the best religious paper in the land, and it can be had on a trial trip of six months for only fifty cents. Who is there among us but that has some friends who would become interested in it were they acquainted with its contents, and who would read the paper if their attention was properly called to it?

We do not propose to send it without giving any notice to the receiver; but should first converse with them about it, showing them the paper and suggesting that you propose to send it to them six months on trial, which will give them ample time to learn something of its character for themselves, and that then they can act their own pleasure about subscribing for it. Those sending it to friends should look after it, and if, at the expiration of the time for which it has been sent, they have no interest to subscribe for it, should see that it is stopped.

It is a mortification to those thus receiving a religious paper, six months or a year afterward, to receive a bill from the Tract Societies requesting pay for it when they never subscribed for it, and have no special interest in it; and it is not just the thing for the Tract Society to pay this sum; therefore, hereafter, in New England, we design in every such case to call on the one that sent the paper to pay arrearages. We think this is just and right. But those in New England,

who wish to act in harmony with the plan adopted at our annual meeting at New Ipswich, in November, the Society in that case will attend to it.

We expect that more of an effort will be put forth by our brethren and sisters this coming year than ever before, in obtaining subscribers for our periodicals, and judiciously distributing our publications. If we wait for an impelling power to come upon us and carry us through in this work, we shall, in the end, find ourselves fatally mistaken. The importance of the truth, and the interest we have in its advancement, should, while we see so much to be done, inspire us in the fear of God to put forth an effort to help forward this cause. Here is a field of labor, in which all can do something. Let the closet first be visited, and the heart become deeply imbued with the Spirit of God, then, with a tender heart, visit your neighbors and friends, ever remembering that while there are wayside hearers, and those represented as seed sown among thorns, and where there is no depth of earth, there is also good soil; and whenever the seed falls into it, it will bring forth fruit; not because there is virtue in us, but because the seed is the word of God, and the heart is in a condition to receive it.

We earnestly recommend systematic action in this matter, so that there may be no injudicious and extreme moves made. The benefit of each other's experience is much needed in this work, and to this end the quarterly meetings are peculiarly beneficial. We should become efficient and skillful workmen in these matters. There are none of us but what can improve so as to be more successful than we now are in Tract and Missionary labor. The work calls for consecrated hearts, sanctified judgments, that not only something may be done, but that which is done, be done in a manner that concerning it it may be said, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant.”

S. N. Haskell.