WHAT A TRACT DID | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Jun 18, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 24.

WHAT A TRACT DID.

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

A tract distributer passing through a sparsely settled country gave away many tracts; one of them, entitled “Repent or Perish,” was found floating in the Fraser River. Perhaps some careless hand had tossed it there. A man saw it, took it out, dried it, and then read it, and by it was converted to God.

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

During the war a chaplain was passing through the 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 heaven above; Will you go?” and then threw it down again. Soon after he picked it up again and read it through, and then he thought, and finally wrote on it, “By the grace of God I will go,” and he signed his name. Some months later he was killed in battle in Virginia.

It is often the case when a man will not enter a church, and will not listen to the preaching of the Gospel, that when alone he will read a tract, and that tract may be more effectual for his salvation than a sermon.

There are many cases where the presentation of a tract has been the instrumentality which has prevented crime and suicide, and restored from despair an immortal soul.

Passing through Switzerland, a tract distributer presented a tract to a man in a town notorious for gaming; 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 the despairing one to Jesus. We never know, nor can we realize, the good we are doing in distributing tracts.—Advocate.