Preaching by Steam by Editor

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Mar 16, 1876

Preaching by Steam.

By Editor

WHEN men shut their eyes to the apostasies, disorders in society, and the villainies of the present, and look only upon the advancements in the arts and sciences, they feel flattered that they live in an age of unparalleled progression. Not stopping to discuss the matter 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.

And 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 as early as 1849, when we could number only a few scores of souls. This small beginning grew 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 15,000 souls, and through our Tract and Missionary Societies to almost unlimited demand of printing matter on religious and reformatory subjects.

April, 1875, the Pacific S. D. A. Publishing Association was incorporated at Oakland, according to the laws of California. 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, types and other material, sufficient to do the present business of the Association, have been purchased, the entire cost of which is $8,000. This sum has been donated by the eastern friends of our cause. This young Association is paying neither interests nor rents.

The Signs of the Times has a paying circulation of nearly 4,000, and its list of subscribers is rapidly increasing. Thank God that we can give so good and cheering 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 more than three tons of Tracts and Pamphlets during the past four months, 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 of the Times 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, that 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 the 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 commenced 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 re-produced, and others of equal or superior value can at once be 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 to stand in defense of the truth there. We pledge $1,000 for the Press and Mission in Europe, during the year 1876, from our own purse, in installments of $100 a month, beginning with April, and closing up in December with $200, and shall expect to be joined by those friends of the cause who have more of this world's goods than a humble competency.

We hope that others will be ready with donations, so that we can forward $1000, from Battle Creek, Michigan, the first of April, and the same amount the first of each month during the year. Now is our time to act, and may God prosper our missionaries in Europe in all those preparations necessary for preaching by steam.