Missionary Letters by W. N. Glenn

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 11, 1883

Missionary Letters.

By W. N. Glenn

NEXT to the circulation of the SIGNS, there is perhaps no more important feature of our missionary work than the letter-writing. In fact the beneficial results of the missionary paper, after it has been carefully prepared and mailed, depends largely upon the promptness with which it is followed up by letters, and the character of the letters. The letter-writing, crude as it has generally been in the past, has been a means of securing the attention of many otherwise uninterested readers to the important contents of the paper, and leading them to a closer examination of the truths therein contained. And with the measure of improvement that nearly all missionary workers may make in this respect, their letters will no doubt yet become a power second to none in "sending home" the facts and warnings of the message to the hearts of the readers of our publications.

Our workers in the various societies, when they shall have become thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the message, will all seek to improve their talents in whatever capacity they are permitted to labor. With a true spirit of progress and effort toward improvement, the matter of letter-writing may be made a most valuable auxiliary to the circulation of our publications. If writers will learn to avoid all guess-work attempts at exposition of the Scriptures or our peculiar denominational views—to be silent rather than to give uncertain sounds—and confine themselves to the ordinary courtesies of friendly correspondence, with assurances of Christian interest in the welfare of the person addressed, and especially manifestations of consecrated zeal for the cause of the Lord, his commandments, and coming kingdom, they will do well. Nearly all doctrinal questions can be best answered by reference to the Scriptures, or the use of expositions by our ripe thinkers and experienced writers, and published by the counsel of those whom the Spirit of the Lord has evidently placed at the head of this work. These works and the Bible should be at least closely consulted before writing replies to doctrinal queries. Justice to the message itself, as well as to those who have borne the burden in the heat of the day, demands care on the part of amateurs lest the work so nobly and laboriously begun be marred at this important crisis.

Our publications have been produced at the expense of much labor and thought, and the sacrifice of hard-earned means by many poor people, and the Lord has signally stamped them with his approval; and those who realize their importance and value, and appreciate the privilege of being co-laborers, will be very cautious in the matter of following them up with written epistles to newly-found readers.

Careless letter-writing may do much to blight the fruit of zealous, devoted toil. While we rejoice at the good results that have followed judicious missionary letters in many instances, we have no means of knowing, and therefore cannot tell the evil that has been wrought by carelessness, lack of judgment, and self-sufficiency in the past. The bad effect of injudicious letter-writing occasionally comes to light, but the Judgment alone will reveal it all.

But the thousands of careful, prayerfully-indicted missionary letters will be a grand source of joy in the kingdom of heaven. They go silently on their mission of love, wending their way in the leathern mail-bags hither and thither, by ship and rail, by stage and pack-horse and footman, from city to city, from village to hamlet, from State to State, and from continent to continent, cementing in Christian affection the honest in heart, and binding together the chosen of the Lord—a people for his name—from every nation, and kindred, and tongue. How many humble, prayerful, weeping correspondents, who will never see each other face to face in this world, will joyfully recognize each other in the earth made new.

O who would not be a missionary worker, and study to be a humble though approved letter-writer, silently gathering sheaves for the Master, and laying up treasures of joy in the eternal kingdom.

W. N. GLENN.