The Missionary by Stephen Nelson Haskell

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 29, 1885

The Missionary.

By Stephen Nelson Haskell

The Cause Is Onward.

It is now fourteen years since our State Tract Societies were organized. The great benefit to be derived from organization is concentration of effort. No people on earth will be more closely united than the people of God. To this end the Saviour prayed for his disciples when upon the earth: "That they may be one, even as we are one; I in them, and Thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that Thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved me."

We have one common foe to meet, and that foe is Satan. The most successful way in which he can hinder the work of God is to alienate the hearts of God's people; but if there is among them a oneness of purpose and sympathy, a thousand avenues by which Satan would enter the heart are closed. God is leading his people, and in proportion as there is union there will be strength. From time to time enterprises have been entered upon by our tract societies, by which much good has been accomplished. Over ten thousand dollars was raised by them in a brief period of time while in their infancy, to remove indebtedness at the office, on our periodicals. Over ten thousand non-paying subscribers were also taken in a few months on the paper called the Voice of Truth. But nothing has shown the strength of our tract society system, and the union of sentiment among our people, more than the recent movement in connection with the "Sunshine at Home" and the SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

At the time of the General Conference, about the first of November, after many of our leading brethren had gone to their respective fields of labor, arrangements were made to combine the SIGNS OF THE TIMES with the "Sunshine at Home," by furnishing the SIGNS three months to those who should purchase "Sunshine." Our brethren went home and began to organize their forces, expecting to at least sell ten thousand "Sunshine," and thus increase the circulation of the SIGNS ten thousand for three months.

The canvass commenced in all parts of the country, from Maine to California. The result was that in less than thirty days from the time the agreement was entered into with the Publishing Association, ten thousand books were not only made and shipped to different parts of the country, but ten thousand subscribers had been taken, and if the books had not been delivered, they were in the hands of those who were to deliver them. This was but the beginning of the work.

We have received encouraging letters from all parts of the field respecting this work, especially in the cities where it has been difficult to canvass. In our leading cities it has seemed that the angels of God have prepared the way for a grand success. In Indianapolis, the great railroad center of Indiana, one brother canvassed on some of the most aristocratic streets, and within twenty days had placed one hundred "Sunshine at Home" in as many families, among the wealthiest in that city. This brother was in the employ of the Conference, and he not only earned sufficient to pay his own wages, but the expenses of the mission while he was canvassing.

This may be an exceptional case, but I know of many who average from six to eight per day. When we work, ourselves, God goes before us, and we can truly say that God is leading in the work. Souls have embraced the truth; many have become interested, and if the work continues as it has commenced, more than one hundred thousand families will have the light of present truth in their dwellings by this enterprise alone, before the close of 1885.

S. N. HASKELL.