NEXT week's issue of this paper will be what is known as our Harvest Ingathering special. It will be a thirty-two page double number. It will be packed full of interesting accounts of what our pioneers are doing in all the lands of our globe. The mighty evidences of the soon coming of Christ are leading young men and women, as well as older ones, to seek to reach every individual in every continent and island of our planet. They are desirous of telling the glorious news, and of acquainting the people of earth with the strong prophetic evidences upon which the message is based.
Each year since 1907, our people, sometime during the fall, have prepared such a special number of one of our papers. Some years it has been the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, and other years it has been our other leading weekly paper in the United States, the Review and Herald, published at Takoma Park, Washington, D. C.
Our rapidly developing work causes us to say that each succeeding year, this Harvest Ingathering special is more interesting and valuable than that of any preceding year.
The interest manifested by our friends, in the circulation of this special number, is shown by the fact that at this writing, we have received orders for 360,843 papers. On September 18 of last year—two days later than the writing of this note—orders had been received for but 243,146, or an increase this year of 117,697 over the corresponding time in 1914, with the orders for the next two days still to enlarge these figures. This increase is as it should be, and it shows the increased interest that our devoted people everywhere are taking in the advancement of this great message. And why should they not do so? If the thrilling events of this time which betoken the dissolution of our old planet, could not stir hearts to the most intense action, what would be required to arouse them?
Eight of our conferences,—the Northern New England, the Newfoundland, the Indiana, the South Idaho, the Western Washington, the Central California, the South Carolina, and the Tennessee River,—have each ordered more papers at the present writing than they ordered during the entire Harvest Ingathering season of last year; and the East Michigan Conference lacks only five papers of having ordered as many as it ordered during the entire campaign last year.
We have already printed five hundred thousand copies of this special number, and have preparations made to print at least three hundred and fifty thousand more; and the way orders are coming in, it looks as if we might have to provide for even more than that.
On the left, the artist shows Elder W. C. White taking the first edition of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES in a wheelbarrow to the post office in Oakland in 1874. The next scene shows the rear of our present factory in Mountain View, with a Southern Pacific engine on the switch, pulling out a carload of mail to couple into the train standing on the main track. This carload, however, is only one of the twelve required to handle the big Harvest Ingathering special edition, which will be mailed to our subscribers next week. These pictures are more expressive than words in showing the vigorous progress that our work is enjoying.
