It will be readily seen that the reporting system is important, and that no Tract Society can prosper without it. It is at those meetings where reports are made that we become acquainted with the best methods of carrying forward the work. At meetings of this kind, extremes will be discovered, if they exist, and it is easy here to correct them. On the other hand, meetings of this kind will stimulate many to put forth greater effort in this department of labor. It was the injunction of the apostle that we should “consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.” There is no more successful way to do this than by quietly performing worthy deeds in a manner that others may see our good works. The reporting system brings before the church the very things especially adapted to move others to action, and though it reveals noble deeds, and important results, it does not necessarily designate the persons by whom these things were done.
Even when but little has been performed, that little should be reported in the meetings of the Society. There should be no false delicacy in this matter. All should earnestly and cheerfully strive to accomplish something in the work of God, and at the Tract meetings should have their reports come in to form a part of the sum total of the work accomplished.
But in giving the report of these general quarterly meetings for publication, the particular items, though of interest in the Tract meetings, need not be given. Many particulars which have been given in the past because necessary in order to show the working of the system and its utility, should now be omitted. But items of general interest should only be mentioned. I frequently become acquainted with the fact that an entire family has been converted to the truth by reading, and sometimes that which they first received was only a piece of a REVIEW. Companies of from five to twelve have been led to enter upon the observance of the Sabbath simply from reading, without ever having heard a discourse upon the subject.
In this very manner, an interest has been awakened in distant lands, as Norway, Denmark, and New Zealand. Such items, though of the deepest interest, seldom appear in the REVIEW, while local matters, and accounts of money received and paid out for this, that, and the other, swell the report to a very tedious length. We want reports from the general quarterly meetings in all parts of the country, but we want them filled with matters of general interest, and dry details omitted.
The True Missionary must be made the very best paper of the kind in the world. This can be done, and shall we not all put forth our best efforts to make it what it should be? Some Conferences have long felt the need of it, and now it seems to be earnestly demanded by the wants of the cause in all parts of the country. We expect 5000 subscribers by Dec. 25, 1873. We expect the officers of the Tract Societies and individual members of the same, to take a special interest in its circulation. It will be a medium through which explanations can be given to help in the work of the society, which for want of space, and for other reasons, cannot consistently be given in the REVIEW. It should reach every member of the Tract and Missionary Society, for it is designed to fill a most important place in our work.