Reports of Labor for Review.
By George I. Butler
Perhaps there is no more encouraging reading to those interested in the cause of present truth than reports of successful labor from our ministers. We should reasonably expect, if this cause is what we think it is, viz., a warning message to the world of its coming doom, that there would be those who would regard it with some degree of interest. We should suppose it would stir the people where it is proclaimed. When we see good evidence to believe that these results are found, it of course justifies the hope and faith we have had in it, and all true friends of the cause rejoice. Encouragement from the success of this great truth to the readers of the REVIEW is the principal reason for making reports at all. If there is nothing of an encouraging nature in a report, of what use is it to anybody? To be sure, this is a world of great perplexity, trial, darkness, and every kind of evil thing. It is inevitable that we shall meet many of these things. Their tendency is to discourage the hearts of the people, and may cause them to slack their efforts so that they will not gain eternal life. It is a law of the human mind that by beholding we are changed into the same image. We can constantly look on the dark, discouraging side of things, till we become moody and melancholy, and lose all courage out of our hearts. This is not a desirable result. There never was a good cause but what there were discouragements connected with it of a weighty nature. And if those engaged in it were willing to dwell upon them all the time, they would likely never accomplish very much. But we may better look on the bright side. We are taught, when the signs of Christ’s coming are given, to look up and rejoice, knowing that our redemption draweth nigh. We want to gather all the courage we can. We are in no danger of having too much of this much-needed article. So we say, Let our brethren who have such encouraging items which they might communicate, send them in. Where good, encouraging meetings are held, and the Lord blesses his people, and one, two, five, a dozen, twenty, or fifty, embrace the truth, it is most encouraging to have this communicated. We all rejoice at this. I learn from my private correspondence, oftentimes, of most interesting things, which would make glad the hearts of many a lover of the truth, hundreds, or perhaps thousands, of readers who would rejoice at the news as much as I, but the writers seem never to think of communicating it to those readers. This is a wrong. It is the duty of our laborers to encourage the hearts of the people by all the truthful statements they can make of this nature; and it is a wrong to withhold them. Such are not doing their whole duty. For instance, I received a letter from the president of one of our State Conferences a short time since, stating that under the labors of one or two of our young licensed preachers sixty-five, in one locality, had embraced the truth within two or three months past; and in another place in the same Conference twenty more, by the holding of one meeting; and still another minister in another language was laboring where the people were very much stirred, with a strong prospect of some forty more, which I have since learned have come out; and yet no adequate idea of this was given to the readers of the REVIEW. This is not as it should be. This instance of course is an extreme one; but there are many meetings of great encouragement which are never reported. We want to see the Progress Department of our paper full of rich items showing just what its name indicates, Progress. There are a plenty of facts with which to fill this department and justify that title. These statements should give a simple, plain narration of these facts, and then stop. And this leads me to notice some abuses of this department. It is not designed to give a lengthy sermon in, or expatiate on the causes and reasons why certain writers did this, that, or the other, and what they thought they could accomplish, and all the particulars why they did not succeed, &c., &c. Neither is it designed to be the medium through which one may announce his plans for future operations. Nor is it designed to be the place where the particulars of one’s private affairs shall be exhibited, where they think of living, and the places to which they design to move, and such like items. These matters may be of surpassing interest to the persons themselves, but we fail to see wherein they will interest the great mass of the readers of the REVIEW, or in what sense they give evidence of the “Progress” of the cause. And further still, we are not prepared to see in what respect a minute chronicle of church trials and difficulties, in which the wrongs or wickedness of fallen humanity figure largely, benefits any one. These things will come. “It must needs be that offenses come,” we are told, and these things are sure to follow till human nature is much improved and the devil loses his hold on frail human nature. But it is not evident to my mind why these things should be sent in to fill the Progress Department. A little common sense, enlightened by the Spirit of the Lord, is an excellent thing, and we all wish to act in harmony with it. Let us do so. But let all our friends who have encouraging facts that show “progress” in the good work of God be sure to communicate them, and thus encourage the hearts of all. This is our duty. We want all to hear where the truth is going; and if friends who write to me encouraging facts don’t communicate them for the readers of the REVIEW, I shall be tempted to publish some of their private letters for the encouragement of others as well as myself. Battle Creek, Mich., March 29, 1874.