What a Tract Did

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 6, 1903

In 1785 Dr. Coke gave a tract to a family in Virginia. The family numbered fourteen, and that tract was the instrumentality used in the conversion of the whole family.

A tract distributor, passing through a sparsely settled country district in Canada, gave away many tracts. One of them, entitled “Repent or Perish,” was found floating in the Frazer River. A man saw it, took it out, dried it, read it, and by it was converted to God.

A preacher invited a man to attend meeting. The man refused, but he consented to take a tract. A few weeks afterward that same man stood up in meeting and confessed that that tract had led him to Jesus.

During the American Rebellion a chaplain was passing through a hospital, and he left in an empty bed a tract which was a copy of the hymn, “Will You Go?” The soldier came to his bed, picked it up, read the title, and dropped it. A second time he picked it up and read,—

“We are traveling home to the heaven above; Will you go?”

He then threw it down again. Soon afterward he picked it up, and read it through. Then, after deliberating over the matter in his quiet hours, he finally wrote on it, “By the grace of God I will go,” and signed his name. Some months later he was killed in battle in Virginia, but he was saved by the tract.

It is often the case that a man who will not enter a church or listen to the preaching of the gospel, will read, when alone, a tract or a paper, which may be more effectual for his salvation than a sermon.

There are many cases where a tract has been the instrumentality which has restored from despair a precious soul. Passing through Switzerland, a tract distributor presented a tract to a man in a town notorious for gambling. On his return some days later, he met the man, who exclaimed, “I thank you for saving my soul and body.” He then explained that on that day when he received the tract, he had lost heavily in gambling, and was contemplating suicide, but the tract arrested his attention, and led him to Christ.

Instances of this sort could be multiplied, for these little printed missives have been known to prevent crimes, to save lives, to heal the broken-hearted, and to bring discouraged, disheartened, and despairing ones to Jesus. We never know, nor can we realize, the good we are doing in distributing tracts.