p. 12 | CAN IT BE SO? by Roswell F. Cottrell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 13, 1876

CAN IT BE SO?

By Roswell F. Cottrell

Can it be possible that so many professed believers in the truth for our times have so little interest in it as not to take our periodicals, which are bearing the truths of the last message to the world? I confess to no small degree of surprise at the statements of Bro. Canright, under the heading, “A Plea for our Periodicals.” It should have been, “A plea for the lives of a backsliding people;” for it is not the periodicals that need help. They will live and bear the truth to those who do not undervalue it. But those who neglect to take and read them undervalue and neglect a means of grace, the only weekly and monthly preaching that many of our people have. How much interest, how much faith in the truth, how much of the spirit of Christ, the missionary spirit, can those have who can willingly forego the privilege of learning from week to week of the progress of the cause, and the spread of the last message among the nations of the world? I fear and tremble for such. I would help them. They need help. But help is within their reach. Will you not, brother, sister, accept of it?

Are you too poor to take the papers? Let your poverty be known, and you shall have the papers free. But can you not retrench some needless expense? Are you not expending more than the price of the papers in the gratification of taste in the use of articles not only useless, but injurious? Don’t talk about want of means to take the papers while you are expending for tobacco, tea, coffee, and other like things, more than double their cost.

The cause to which our papers are devoted is God’s cause; and if we are his people, it is our cause. Those of our papers that are more than self-sustaining are increasing means for the advancement of our cause and the salvation of our fellow-men, the members of our fallen family. Are our papers dear, because they cost more per square yard than those which, in addition to the trashy literature of the day, are largely made up of profitable advertisements, not excluding those of the worse than worthless nostrums of quacks, and the bogus firms and deceptive pretensions of charlatans? The thing that is most wanting is an interest in the cause of God, and a readiness to do for the sake of mankind.

Awake, arouse! brethren and friends. Weigh your interests in the present world and that which is to come, as they are being weighed in the balances of the sanctuary. No longer neglect your means of grace, and your duty to God and benighted, dying humanity. As you value the great salvation, purchased by the blood of Christ, no longer exhibit such manifest indifference to the cause of God. Is the last gracious warning being published to the world? Show an interest in the work. Is the Lord soon coming? Act as if you believed it. Have we but little time to work? Improve it; for the night cometh; and outer darkness will be the doom of the unfaithful servant.

We have no time nor means to selfishly squander upon ourselves; but used in the cause of God and truth, they will increase a thousandfold. Will you not, my brother, take hold of this work anew? Will you not prove yourself on the side of God and suffering, dying humanity, before it is too late for your efforts to be accepted? Take hold of the cause of truth. It is not dying for need of your help; but you are dying for want of an interest in it. The truth will survive. Will you live with it?

R. F. COTTRELL.