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TRACT & MISSIONARY OPERATIONS

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

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 48, No. 3.

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TRACT & MISSIONARY OPERATIONS.

By Stephen Nelson Haskell

BY ELD. S. N. HASKELL.
It is five years last November since the first Conference adopted the present system of missionary work among our brethren and sisters. In the spring of 1872, New York and Ohio adopted the same system, and the following year it was received by nearly every Conference this side of the Rocky Mountains. An endeavor to carry out the suggestions made by Bro. White and others at the General Conference resulted in this system. We also saw the same defects in independent local organization that there would be in local church organization without State Conferences.
Two leading ideas have been kept in mind from the commencement: First to unite all the Seventh-day Adventists in the world in co-operating for the spread of present truth; secondly, to provide a way so that all might be without excuse for not using the talent God has committed to them.
The appointment of officers over certain districts was designed to make the work special with each individual. The director should therefore be acquainted with each individual in his district; he should visit the people, labor with them as may be necessary; see that their influence is in behalf of present truth while furnishing reading matter to their neighbors and friends; and also that they are taking an interest in sustaining the cause in all its branches upon the Bible principle of equality.
The want of this kind of labor is one great cause why our missionary efforts are not more effective. Self-sacrificing men and women, who will inspire in others the self-sacrificing spirit, are wanting. There should be persons to do this, so that we might have hundreds of men and women to visit our villages and cities everywhere, talk and pray with the people, and provide them such reading matter as will interest them in the solemn truths which pertain to the present time.
In this way subscribers should be obtained for the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. It may not always be proper to take names for our periodicals the first time you visit a person, unless something is paid toward the paper. On making the second visit the individual can better decide who are really interested in reading. This work should be carried on week after week and year after year. Obtaining subscribers by offering a premium is a plan which is found very successful where it is entered upon with zeal, faith and hope. To find self-sacrificing men and women who will enter cities and villages as colporteurs is as difficult as to find self-sacrificing ministers, and two extremes threaten the effort: 1. The danger of giving individuals not fitted for the work too much encouragement by offering them support; and, 2. The danger of not giving proper encouragement to proper persons. The first extreme is more to be dreaded than the second one.
The REFORMER should not be neglected. The Household Manual has been prepared for the express purpose of offering it as a premium. It can also be used as a premium for the SIGNS, as can any of our one-dollar books.
The plan of subscribing for a number of copies of the SIGNS and REFORMER with which to obtain subscribers, is a branch of the work which should not be passed by without notice. In it is labor. It requires much close thought, and will lead the person who enters upon it, realizing the importance of the work, to earnest prayer that God may help in the matter. Perhaps there is no branch of this missionary work in which it is more difficult to get our brethren and sisters fully enlisted than this. Neither is there any other one branch of the missionary work that will have more of a molding influence on the character of the individual than this; and by it we extend our influence to very many of whom we least think. The opening of correspondence, and thus introducing the SIGNS, is very important. When one interested reader is found (perhaps isolated and poor) it not infrequently happens that scores are reached through him. As a general rule, the less of a denominational character the letter assumes the better. Let our publications, written under the soul inspiring influence of the truth, and the Spirit of God do the arguing.
We will now refer to some things that have been accomplished by the tract societies.
1. A delinquent debt of about $10,000 has been settled with the Publishing Association, and the advance-pay system on our periodicals has been brought about.
2. Our best bound books have been placed in all the principal public libraries this side the Rocky Mountains, where our Conferences are organized.
3. By means of the trial volumes of the REVIEW and REFORMER, and also the VOICE OF TRUTH, scores have been brought into the truth, notwithstanding there was not that caution used by all in gathering up names that should have been manifested. This move showed the strength of systematic effort, and the utility of doing business through one channel, instead of having hundreds of individuals writing to the Office.
4. There have been more than $30,000 raised and expended in placing reading matter before the public within the last five years. New England and New York alone have raised and expended more than $12,000.
5. Correspondence has been established with more than five hundred individuals, and with reading rooms, public libraries, and benevolent societies, in Europe, Asia, Africa, and China, in short, in all parts of the world, including this country. Benevolent societies, public libraries and reading rooms, throughout Europe as well as in this country, wherever the English language is spoken, receive our almanacs, and where they manifest the least interest, our denominational publications are sent. To enumerate individual cases where an interest has been awakened in the truth, and a goodly number have embraced it, by means of this correspondence and sending our publications and periodicals, would only be to mention incidents of almost daily occurrence. One man upon receiving two of our papers which contained one of our thirty-two page Sabbath tracts embraced the Sabbath; he has had, to our knowledge, two editions of the tract published, and is actively distributing it.
6. Steps are being taken by parties outside of our people, if the work is not already accomplished, to translate Sufferings of Christ and other tracts into the Russian and Chinese languages.
The question may be asked, What good can arise from furnishing the REFORMER, SIGNS, etc., to people in different parts of the world, where we do not see individuals immediately embracing the truth? We reply, Let us forestall the enemies of God, so that such a battle against prejudice will not have to be fought as is usually required when the truth is presented.
We would make a few suggestions, if thought worthy of consideration.
1. Steps should be taken to blend more closely the interest of the people of God in all parts of the world in missionary efforts. The work of lay members, as companies and individuals would thus be secured from devouring wolves.
2. Ways and means should be devised to reach all classes, and at least make a favorable impression on them.
3. One or more pages should be put into our almanac, giving notice of our TRACT SOCIETY, the extent of its operations, and such items as would leave a favorable impression upon the mind relative to our existence as a people, and to our work. We should also notice those societies which are favorable to us.
4. One edition of the almanac should be printed as early as October, so that those Conferences located the farthest off can get them as freight as early as November 1st. Another edition can be printed later.
5. A tract of sixteen or at most thirty-two pages on Bible Hygiene would add much to the interest of the work, especially in the Old World, as many improper articles of diet and drink, such as a great variety of meats, wine, etc., are extensively used among the clergy, who give them a Bible sanction; and the person who would change his habits in this respect is branded either as a skeptic or a fanatic, or both.