Meeting at Healdsburg by William Ings

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 25, 1883

Meeting at Healdsburg.

By William Ings

The district quarterly meeting just held at Healdsburg, was a source of encouragement to all in attendance. Sr. White gave three discourses during the two days' meeting. The subjects were just what was needed for the occasion, and were presented with power, and I trust left a lasting impression on the minds of all that had the privilege of listening. Her counsel added much to the interest of the business session. Plans were devised, that if carried out will accomplish much good in the missionary work. The members of this district are awakening to the importance of immediate action, and we hope to see good work done the coming quarter.

There have been some evils existing in the past, which I hope will not exist hereafter; and perhaps it may be well to mention for the benefit of those not present at the meeting:

1. Some whose subscription on the SIGNS had expired, had concluded not to subscribe further, but depended on the club SIGNS for their reading matter, and thus deprive the office of their support. Perhaps all are not aware that the SIGNS is not a paying paper at the club price, but merely covers the expense of publishing. Every member should take the SIGNS at the regular subscription price, $2 per year, and thus be a support to the office of publication. Please read the resolution on that point which will appear in this number.

2. Many of the members in the district are sending the club SIGNS to their relatives, and have continued them for years. This is a wrong practice, and lessens the amount of good that might be accomplished by the papers. The world must be warned, and with our limited means we must spread the truth as widely as we possibly can. It is all right to send a few numbers of the paper to our friends to test the interest they have in them, but to send them the paper for years because they are our relatives seems to me to be entirely wrong. Would it not be better to subscribe for the paper for them, or get them to subscribe for themselves, and thus leave the society free to send the club papers to different individuals? Let us work to the very best advantage, and make our limited means count in the spread of the third angel's message.

I wish to call special attention to the importance of visiting, and loaning our publications. It is much better to loan them than to give them away; they will be appreciated much more, and then more territory can be worked up with the same amount of reading matter. The packages now introduced will assist much in the work. Above all we must have the help of God. Let us go forth in the power and spirit of Elijah, and be faithful in our duty, and we will see souls saved in the kingdom of God as the result.

Jan. 17, 1883. WM. INGS.