p. 170 | The Pacific Mission by James White

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Dec 2, 1875

The Pacific Mission.

By James White

THE FUTURE.

By the request, and the unanimous vote, of the Board of Trustees of the Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association, we have consented to take charge of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES, and act as business agent of the Association. We are to make full reports to the Board at the close of each three months of all the business transactions of the Office. But it is at great sacrifice that we consent to take the responsibilities of the Office, to meet the difficulties, and endure the privations and hardships unavoidable in building up a new institution, among comparative strangers, which institution must for a time be mainly supported by the charities of our people. We have passed through this struggle once, by the help of God, in bringing into existence and nourishing the Publishing Association located at Battle Creek, Mich., until its capital stock amounts to $100,000.

And we are still willing to be a servant of the church, if we can have the confidence of those for whom we labor. We are willing to sacrifice means, deprive ourselves of pleasures, and carry a double burden of cares, if we may live in the sympathies and love of those for whom we labor. During the last twenty-five years we have passed over Suspension Bridge more than fifty times, and have never had four hours to spare to stop over one train to go to see the grand Niagara. We are spending our fourth winter in California, and have not found time to visit the Geysers, Petrified Forests, Big Trees, or the Yosemite. We do not expect ever to enjoy the sight of them. We cannot spare time to see them in this world, and we are quite sure they will not exist in the next.

We now enter cheerfully upon the work of building up the publishing interests of the cause on the Pacific Coast; and we shall greatly prize the hearty co-operation of all its friends. Neither we nor those associated with us in the Office are in the least dependent upon the Pacific Printing Association for a position that will give support. This must be evident to all from the fact that while common laborers and common carpenters of our brethren in California have received from twenty to thirty-five cents an hour for their labor on and about the building, our friends, competent to edit the SIGNS, and keep the books of the Association, have labored for half of one year for the mere sums of from seven to eleven cents an hour.

We solemnly believe the time is not far distant when we shall be called to establish the press on the Atlantic. Then it will doubtless be the choice of those associated with us in the work here to be with us there. Both we and they will hail with joy the day when we can be released from our present post of duty by competent and devoted helpers taking our places, who will as cheerfully sacrifice to keep the Office up in good condition as we have done in bringing it into existence. While we shall remain, may it ever be our highest ambition to labor in the fear of God, with the true spirit of sacrifice, to build up the publishing branch of the cause on the Pacific Coast.

There should be more of that true spirit of devotion to the work, and real enterprise to improve and excel, at the REVIEW Office which is already manifesting itself at the SIGNS Office. Our print, or “press-work” as the printers term it, is excellent, while that done at the REVIEW Office is decidedly bad. With equal advantages in other respects, the more experienced men at the Office in Battle Creek should excel our pressman, who had no knowledge whatever of press-work three months since. The want of a good pressman was our greatest anxiety in establishing the press in California. But to prepare for the emergency, a few weeks before the new press came, our pressman took his heavy forms of type across the bay to San Francisco, and begged the chance to work them himself on the press of another, paying the usual rates for press-work, and doing the work himself for nothing. Thus he gathered up the art in a few weeks, and now excels as a pressman. We have more interest in the REVIEW than we can possibly have in the SIGNS. And while we thank Eld. Smith for his compliment to the SIGNS, we sympathize with him in deploring the state of things at the REVIEW Office, which, without decided improvement, must result in a change of hands very soon. We are both grieved that men with every facility for printing of first quality under the heavens should not do first-class work.

There is no want of devotion to the work, and of the spirit of true enterprise in the line of real improvements, on the part of our wide-awake associates at the SIGNS Office. They are bound to excel and make the enterprise a glorious success, pay or no pay. They will prove very hard to starve out. And we do not wish to conceal the fact that we covet that spirit of competition which will improve both papers. “Competition is the life of business,” is a maxim which may apply, in a restricted sense, to religious printing as well as to other branches of business. God save us from a dull, stupid monopoly, especially in printing at a time like this. We expect that our helpers, in their inexperience, will make some mistakes, but that will afford them a fresh opportunity for improvement.

The ADVENT REVIEW AND HERALD OF THE SABBATH is our church paper. That is the proper medium through which to give appointments of Tract and Missionary meetings, and explanations and directions, and the reports of the workings of the Society. As such we urgently recommend that paper to our people on the Pacific Coast, as well as in all other parts of the field. That paper carries the idea in the very title that it is denominational, which makes it objectionable on first sight to those who cherish feelings of prejudice against our faith. While, therefore, the REVIEW is adapted to fill its place as a church paper, it is not the best for the missionary field.

The SIGNS OF THE TIMES is a title that well expresses the character of the paper, and yet is sufficiently general not to be objectionable at first sight. In fact, it is a heading that will strike the eye of the beholder favorably. We briefly state our plans as follows:—

1. The SIGNS will be free from those church matters of no special interest to new readers. These things, sometimes objectionable to those who cannot justly appreciate them, will find their proper place in the REVIEW.

2. The SIGNS will give the reasons of our faith and hope in a series of articles, one in each number, commencing Dec. 9, and extending at least one year. These articles will be written in a free style, easy to be understood, setting forth the Bible doctrines of S. D. Adventists. Those who wish to have our views and positions set before their friends in a connected, clear, and favorable manner will do well to avail themselves of the present opportunity of sending our paper to them one year at least. We shall expect very many subscribers through the influence, and by the persistent efforts, of individuals.

3. With the same issue we shall commence sketches of the life and experience of Mrs. W., and continue them in each number. These sketches will be presented in a style, and be sustained by such proofs, as will meet the demands of the inquiring public. For some time we have felt that it was due the public that the many remarkable incidents and facts in the Christian experience and labors of Mrs. W. be made known. In the providence of God she has been led to take a position before the world as a speaker and writer, and the people should know more of her life, Christian experience, and work. Her name is widely known, chiefly owing to the fact that almost every opponent of our faith, in preaching and writing against the Sabbath and other Bible sentiments our people hold, refers to Mrs. W. and her work in a scoffing style, in order to please the unholy rabble and prejudice honest people.

Many, from want of knowledge of the facts in the case, take unfavorable views of the work of God in the last message, with which Mrs. W. has held close connection from its earliest existence. It is therefore necessary for the good of the cause of Bible truth that her work be correctly represented, and properly defended before the people. These sketches may occupy a space in the SIGNS for one year or more, after which we may put them in a humble volume for very extensive circulation. Those who are anxious to learn the facts in the case, and do not wish to wait one year or more for the volume, should at once subscribe for our paper.

4. Besides gathering brief abstracts from the progress department of the REVIEW, and some other important reports of the progress of the cause in Europe and elsewhere, the SIGNS will not copy from the REVIEW to any great extent. It will contain live matter, new and old, carefully selected, and faithfully prepared for the new readers in the missionary field.

5. The SIGNS will also contain a Health Department, general Religious Miscellany, and matters of secular News and Miscellany. These will be very select and valuable, and will fill one page or more of the paper, making it quite an object, not only for our brethren to subscribe for the SIGNS, but for other candid, reading people within the range of missionary workers.

6. Finally, it shall be the highest object of the conductors of the SIGNS to make the paper interesting, useful, and in every way a paper that our people will wish to send to their friends, and such as the Tract and Missionary workers can offer to the people of the outside world for the small sum of $1.50 to those able to pay for it.

We believe there is no form of reading matter that will accomplish as much good for the amount of money as the regular weekly visits of a paper such as we design to issue for the especial benefit of the Tract and Missionary Societies. And we would say to individuals who furnish our paper to their friends, and also to missionary workers who furnish it to those who do not pay, that, if in doing your duty in seeing whether the paper is valued or not you wish to change it from a disinterested receiver to another, you can do so at any time; but we cannot consent to refund money paid for the SIGNS.

We now ask for 10,000 new subscribers before the first day of January, 1876. We shall issue the SIGNS only once in two weeks until December 9, then we shall commence with at least 13,000 copies, and wait until we have that number of subscribers, so that all the readers can have the matter in order, from first to last, without receiving bundles of back numbers. We notify our co-laborers that there is no time to be lost. The fact that money is scarce must not stand in the way of our work. Let more energy take the place of the want of cash, and let the work move on. This is no time to slack our hands, and fail to do our duty.

WE GO FORWARD BY FAITH.

By faith in God, in his holy word, in the doctrines and positions of Seventh-day Adventists, and faith in the providential dealings of the great Disposer of events, in opening the way before us, and helping us hitherto, we go forward. Faith, more faith, is needed as the very mainspring of all our efforts. As a people, we must come nearer to God by confession of our sins, and by those sacrifices which his cause demands of us to make at this time.

One will show in his life all the faith he has. Says the apostle James, “I will show thee my faith by my works.” Faith in the soon coming of Christ is wanted. Faith, brethren, a little more faith in the last message, and in the great work it is doing, and is destined to accomplish in the world, is very much needed to keep you from the spirit of this world. We must venture out by faith on the light God gives us. This has been necessary from the very commencement of this work.

Twenty-three years since, when we were not worth a dollar of the perishable things of this world, and had but a few scores of denominational friends, we issued 24,000 copies of one of our Sabbath tracts. And as we asked some of our brethren of small faith, not as large even as a mustard seed, to assist us in meeting the expenses, they murmured at our risky course. They could not see why we should publish 24,000 books for a few score of brethren to read. But we did not publish them for the brethren to read, but to go to the outside world. And by faith they went out, and brought in hundreds to the faith. And since that edition was exhausted, we have published more than 100,000 copies of the same work. As a people we want more good Advent faith, that brings the soon-coming kingdom, with all its rewards and glories, very near, and causes this poor little world to recede.

Come nearer to God, brethren, and get the missionary spirit, and learn to love poor sinners more than the good things of this life. Come where the Spirit of God shall rest upon you, where you may feel happy in using a portion of your means, and a share of your time in missionary work. Resist the spirit of the world. Resist the devil that he may flee from you. In one sense, he is a conquered foe. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. It is your privilege to walk with God, commune with Christ, be guarded by good angels

and filled with the Holy Spirit. There is work to be done, there are sacrifices to be made, and crowns of glory to win. Are you in doubts and darkness? Then do the works of faith, and light will shine away the darkness.

J. W.