The Sale of Periodicals
By Editor
We invite our readers to give careful study to the reports and suggestions given this week with regard to the circulation of our good papers. The Lord has placed in our hands a wide variety of papers and journals which are second to none in general appearance, and which are infinitely more valuable than many others; for they contain a great message to the world. What are you doing, dear readers, to help extend the influence of our papers? and what will you do from this week on? Study this page carefully, and with the Lord's blessing, you may receive some suggestion which will be helpful to you. IN Great Britain there are about 1,000 Sabbath keepers, and 120 of these are giving all, or nearly all, their time to the sale of Present Truth and Good Health. In another column we have given in full their monthly report, which will show for itself how earnestly our brethren and sisters in England are laboring to get the truth before their neighbors. This is not a spasmodic effort. The circulation of The Present Truth has been steadily increasing for several years, until now it has an average circulation of 20,000 copies a week. Their Good Health journal has a circulation of 50,000 copies a month. They have very few annual subscribers. Nearly all these papers are taken to the doors of the people and sold week after week. FROM these figures it is easy to compute the average work of our brethren and sisters in Great Britain. There are 1,000 Sabbath keepers, and they distribute about 80,000 copies of The Present Truth and 50,000 of Good Health each month, or a total of 130,000 copies a month. This makes an average of 130 periodicals distributed by each member. This is really good, is it not? In the United States there are 60,000 Sabbath keepers. Suppose the same ratio of work were done by each in behalf of Good Health and The Signs of the Times; these journals would be given a monthly circulation of 7,800,00021copies. And if the proportion sold of each paper were the same here as in Great Britain, our Good Health journal would have a monthly circulation of 3,000,000 copies, and The Signs of the Times would have a weekly circulation of 1,200,000 copies. COMPARE these figures with our actual circulation, which is about the one-hundredth part of this number, and our neglect becomes very apparent. It is easy to see that the Lord has been impressing a great truth upon us when he has repeatedly told us that we are not doing one-hundredth part of what ought to be done, and what might be done, to get these printed truths before the world. Would it not be well for us to ask ourselves some pointed, personal questions as to what we are doing in this work? Instead of looking at the whole United States, or our own State, or even our own church, should we not settle what we ought to do? Then our example may help others. IN the German Union Conference there are nearly 4,000 Sabbath keepers, or about the same number as in the State of Iowa; yet they sell 50,000 copies of their German evangelical paper, besides giving a large circulation to their health journal. In Australasia their papers are sold from door to door, the same as in England. There are 2,000 Sabbath keepers, and they give the Bible Echo and the Australasian Good Health a circulation of 40,000 copies a month, or an average of twenty copies a number. Besides this paper work, about seventy-five people in Australasia are devoting their whole time to the sale of large books, and their sales amount to between $80,000 and $100,000 a year. THE activity of these Sabbath keepers in our foreign fields indicates the earnestness and devotion of a people during the days of their first love. There was a time when we were a small people here in the United States, but our activities were great. Every paper that came to our houses was loaned and reloaned, and then posted away to some distant friend or relative. Clubs of from one hundred to one thousand copies of The Signs of the Times were taken, and either sold or given away. A few are still doing something; but where is the old-time faithfulness and earnestness, the first love, which led us to exert every energy possible for our friends and neighbors? Have we lost it? We call for a revival of the old-time missionary spirit. Who will be the first to start it in his own home, and then kindle the fire in the church? The church needs a fire kindled in it, and all our hearts, which are growing cold, need something to warm them up. Work for the lost will do it.