p. 68 | Information Wanted by J. H. W.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Aug 15, 1871

Information Wanted.

By J. H. W.

EDITOR REVIEW: I want to know who “Sel.” is, I see a good many pieces signed Sel. Please inform through the REVIEW, and oblige. S. P. K.

ANSWER:—From the inquiries frequently made on this subject we have thought it might be spelled with a double l (Sell), but it is generally understood to be an abbreviation of the word selected. To this point we wish to speak.

Objections have sometimes been offered against putting selections in the REVIEW. It being the only paper advocating the truths of the third angel’s message, and comparatively small in size, it is urged that it should be entirely made up of original articles specially relating to our faith. This suggestion seems good, but a statement of the situation may help some.

Bro. Smith has been some time in the East; Bro. White has attended the Western Camp-meetings; and the faithful sisters who had charge of the editor’s room, who acted as editors or assistant editors of the REVIEW, Reformer, Instructor, as well as proof readers, &c., had far more on their hands than they could attend to. When I commenced labor in the editor’s room, I found the table literally loaded with papers, mostly manuscripts. These must be in some manner disposed of to get even writing room on the table. A small part was assigned a place for present use; another somewhat larger part was laid aside for future examination; but the greater part was thrown into the waste box. This has given me the opportunity of taking the range of the writings of our people, such as is seldom offered, and I find that a large part of the manuscripts sent into the Office is made up of rhyme (very little poetry) and moral and religious essays; and of this mass the smaller part can go in the REVIEW. We yield to the injunction so often advertised, “Get the best!” and if we must use religious essays, which have no reference to the present truth, we esteem it a duty to take the best we can find, whether original or selected. Our best writers and most earnest thinkers have little time for essaying. Important questions are always occupying their minds and pens. And aside from our doctrinal writings we have few, if any, among us who can produce religious articles equal to those of T. L. Cuyler, and others from whom we take selections.

We do not believe it is wrong to insert selections in the REVIEW. We want devotional and practical articles, as well as doctrinal, and sometimes we find excellent articles of this kind among our selections. We want also a variety.

We make no complaint against our correspondents, but urge them rather to persevere. We cannot publish all we receive, but would rather have a large variety from which to select, though it involves some labor, than to be shut up to the necessity of taking whatever comes to hand for want of variety. Many, no doubt, have been benefited by studying and writing out the result of their investigations, though it was never published. But we cannot recommend our brethren and sisters to make much outlay of time, in these days of haste, in writing poetry! There are a few whose efforts in that line we are glad to receive; but as a general thing we think it a waste of time. Poor poetry goes into the waste box with a more vigorous fling than anything else.

What we need, most of all to make a good paper, is more devotion breathed into and through our original articles. Many a manuscript, quite well written, but in the true pharisaic style, without a breath of spiritual emotion in it all, as hollow as a school-boy’s declamation, goes into the waste box; while the almost illegible scrawl of him or her who knows not how to finish their sentences well, nor to follow any rules of grammar is gladly used, if it breathes a spirit of true devotion, and gives evidence that its writer has a deep, living experience in the things of God’s Spirit, or is earnestly inquiring the way to Zion. J. H. W.