Our Publications by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 1, 1870

Our Publications.

By James White

At the Kansas camp-meeting we were deeply impressed with the importance of making greater efforts to supply the people with our publications. The people are perishing for want of knowledge. Even many of our brethren in the West are almost destitute of our books. Some cannot purchase them for want of means, and those who have means to purchase a scanty supply, lend them till they are worn out, or send them to their friends, until some are completely destitute themselves.

We gave, at the Kansas camp-meeting, not less than two hundred dollars' worth of our publications, and we have left in Kansas as many more, to be distributed at their next camp-meeting, should they not be called for before that time.

Our preachers of the Missouri and Kansas Conferences, will, at present, receive as many books free to give away as they purchase to sell. This will enable them to circulate gratuitously as many as they sell. Besides this, we design at all of our camp-meetings in such new fields, to give hundreds of dollars' worth of our publications to those of our friends who are not able to purchase them, to lend and to give to those around them who wish to read. What is true of Missouri and Kansas, is also true of all the West, and in a degree, more or less, of the entire wide field now opening before us as never before.

We have resolved to publish books, pamphlets, and tracts, on a scale very much larger than ever before. Ten months since, we published ten thousand copies of Bro. Littlejohn's tract on the “Seventh-Part-of-Time” theory of the Sabbath. When we left for Kansas we took all that were left, excepting two copies for the printers to set the type for another edition. We ordered fifteen thousand printed, but it should have been at least twenty thousand.

After we had circulated sixty thousand each of the two tracts entitled, The Law and the Gospel, and God's Memorial, we have revised and put the two into a thirty-two page tract, and have just printed twenty-five thousand copies.

But our pamphlets, as well as our tracts, must be printed in larger editions, and the people must have them. God would have us engage in this good work as we have not dreamed of.

Much more can be done in selling books than has been done. Our agents, whether they be ministers, or the rank and file of the Lord's vigilant army, should press the sale of our books, with the feeling that they are worthy of the close study of the most intelligent, and worthy of the reasonable prices asked for them.

But there are thousands of honest men and women who lack the ready means to purchase, or lack the present interest in present truth to purchase, who should receive them gratuitously. The time is hastening on when our people will fully arouse to the duty of calling the attention of relatives and friends to the present truth. They will do this by letter writing, by personal visits, and by sending to them, or personally putting our valuable publications into their hands.

We look forward with great pleasure to the time when Bro. Andrews' History of the Sabbath shall be revised and enlarged, and an edition of ten thousand copies shall be printed, for our people to put into the hands of candid men and women everywhere. There are hundreds of our people who date their conversion to the Sabbath from reading that able work. There are thousands more, just as honest as they were, who can be brought to the Sabbath by the same means. May God help Bro. Andrews in the preparation of this important work.

Our first work, when rested from the labors of the camp-meeting season, will be to complete a volume of between four and five hundred pages, entitled, Bible Adventism. It is designed to contain, quite fully, the reasons of our faith and hope. The pamphlet, entitled, Our Faith and Hope, No. 1, embraces part, and another not yet printed, to be entitled, Our Faith and Hope, No. 2, will embrace still another part, of the large work. We print ten thousand five hundred copies of these two pamphlets, and six thousand copies of the volume. May God help in the completion of them.

And then we know of no means so efficient in the increase of faith in the perpetuity and the manifestation of the gift of prophecy among us, as the reading of Mrs. W.'s works. Her four volumes entitled, Spiritual Gifts, could no longer be furnished in full sets. Probably two hundred orders have been received, that could not be filled. And still she had subject matter which at one time she designed for volume five. But to reprint the four small volumes, and to add volume five the same size, would cost much more to furnish her writings in this form, than to put all in two large volumes of four or five hundred pages each, the size of the History of the Sabbath. One of these volumes, entitled, The Spirit of Prophecy, is printed and neatly bound. It contains new matter once designed for volume five of Spiritual Gifts, and a reprint of that portion of the Great Controversy between Christ and his angels, and Satan and his angels, found in Spiritual Gifts, volumes one, three, and four, reaching down to the first advent of Christ. The other volume will contain much new matter upon the life, the sufferings, and the death, of Christ, that portion of the Great Controversy which reaches on down through the Christian age, much practical instruction relative to the closing work of the third message, and then resume the chain, reaching down to the close of the great controversy, at the end of the one thousand years of the twentieth chapter of Revelation.

We have printed five thousand and two hundred copies of volume one, and hope to have the same of volume two completed before next new-year's. These volumes will be furnished at one dollar each, one-third discount, or $1.34 for both when given, chargeable to the book fund. Then we have other works of different sizes that we determine to push through the press in large editions, as fast as possible.

And what we most want of that which can be furnished beneath the sun, is money to carry on the work. We need five thousand dollars to be invested in stock, before the first of January, 1871, and then we shall want five thousand dollars more within six months of that time, to pay for printing and binding.

“But the fearful and unbelieving” will start back, and feel stingy over this matter, while faith says the money must and will come. There are one hundred persons among us, who would find a blessing in giving each one hundred dollars to make up the sums named above. And there are several, who, if they pay their vows to God, made under most solemn circumstances, would find that here is a good opportunity to invest hundreds, if not thousands, which a bountiful Providence has given them. We have put one hundred dollars into the book fund, and with pleasure will be one of a hundred to raise ten thousand dollars. We now raise the inquiries—

Who will be one of one hundred to raise this sum, and each give $100?
Who will be one of two hundred, and each give $50?
Who will be one of four hundred, and each give $25?
Who will be one of one thousand, and each give $10?

And, lastly, who will be one of two thousand, to each give $5?

Those not able to give five dollars each, had better save their smaller sums for other purposes, equally important.

Said Paul to Timothy, “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate; laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.”

Mark this: Timothy was to charge them to be ready to distribute. Some say they are willing, but they are not ready. They have just purchased a piece of land, or built a house, and are in debt, or, at least, out of ready means. Well, they should be ready, and in order for this, they should get ready. They should keep ready, and not pay out all their ready means, and run in debt for real estate, for which they have no real need. God is in earnest with his people, and the safest course is to deal honestly with him, his cause, and our own souls.

JAMES WHITE.

Hamilton, Mo., Oct. 25, 1870.