Circulating Our Literature in China
By F. A. Allum
We are energetically pushing the colporter work in this field. Over four hundred yearly subscriptions have been taken, 2,250 single copies of the paper have been sold, 3,000 Sabbath calendars have been sold, and over 7,500 tracts. Besides these, some 2,000 papers have been posted or given away. Thus we are sowing the seed, and some day we will reap the harvest, for we cannot reap till we have sown. The above literature has been disposed of mainly by our two evangelists. We now have one colporter, who is a native of Szechuan. FIRST CONTACT WITH TIBETANS
We recently had an interesting interview with three Tibetan priests who had come to Chungking on a pilgrimage. We were pleased to know that we could converse with them freely in the Mandarin language, which they readily understood. They told us that there are many Tibetans who understand the Mandarin, and so we gave them a generous supply of our literature, which they promised to give to their friends on their return to Tibet. What the result of this literature will be we cannot say. It is interesting, however, to note that this, so far as the writer knows, is the first real contact of this people with the message. Brother Warren and I and the two evangelists are working the outlying villages in a systematic way. Brother Warren takes one evangelist on Mondays and Wednesdays, and visits two villages each week. I take the other evangelist on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and visit two other villages. We preach, sell calendars and papers, and finally leave a tract in each home. The following week we repeat the process. We intend to keep this up till we have been to these places twelve or thirteen times, and believe that we will see some results from this method of working. In this way we are actively training our evangelists in real missionary work. The first time the evangelist went out with me he sold only four calendars. I sold sixteen. The second time he sold thirty-two, and I sold sixty-six. The third time he went out with Brother Warren. This time he sold fifty, Brother Warren selling an equal amount. This man while in Ichang did not sell a thing scarcely in the three or four months that he was there, but you can see from this experience how he has climbed up each time he has gone out. Each one of our workers, both foreign and native, has his heart on fire to do all he can to sell this literature and thus spread the message. I am very much encouraged as I see the earnest spirit that is taking hold of them.