p. 101 | MORE EXPLANATIONS by Stephen N. Haskell

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 29, 1877

MORE EXPLANATIONS.

By Stephen N. Haskell

If the readers of the REVIEW will not get weary of reading explanations, we will continue writing them as long as called for, and we have evidence they do any good.

1. The one-third is no part of the Systematic Benevolence. The S. B. is paid for the support of the ministry. The sum equal to one-third of the amount of the S. B. is a free-will offering in addition to the S. B., which each individual is recommended to pay during the year 1877 for the support of the Tract Society.

2. There seems to be with some a misunderstanding in regard to the use of the one-third. The resolution relating to the one-third, passed at the General Conference, Nov. 12, 1876, is as follows:— “Resolved, That this Conference recommend to the several State Conferences that each individual raise a sum equal to one-third of his S. B. pledge for the year to meet the demand for means to be used, as far as necessary, in the proposed increase of the circulation of the SIGNS, the REFORMER, and other publications; this offering to be paid Jan. 1, 1877, or, if more favorable, in four installments; the first to be paid Jan. 1, the second, April 1, the third, July 1, and the fourth, Oct. 1, 1877.

It will be noticed that this resolution relates to three things. (1) The SIGNS, (2) the REFORMER, (3) “other publications.” Now, if all the one-third be appropriated to the SIGNS, the REFORMER and other publications are entirely left out. One-third of the present amount of S. B. is barely enough to pay for ten thousand copies of the SIGNS. If all should be appropriated in this manner, the design of the resolution itself would not be carried out. Furthermore, the Tract Societies would become bankrupt. They would be in no condition to enter upon a fall campaign to purchase almanacs and tracts, or upon any other enterprise which may be advisable.

The plan suggested of clubbing the SIGNS and paying for them in monthly installments, as suggested in SIGNS of Dec. 14, 1876, is a special effort outside of the S. B. or the one-third, while the S. B. and one-third are a more permanent affair. We have stated to our brethren and sisters, after reorganizing S. B., when they have voted to add the one-third to support the missionary work, as follows: Now you are entitled to this sum, the one-third, for the missionary work; and if you use it all for the SIGNS, you have nothing left for anything else; but if you take from eight to fifty copies of the SIGNS to use in obtaining interested readers by canvassing and otherwise, and pay for them in monthly installments during the year, the Tract Society will advance the pay for the SIGNS, and forward them to you at once. Then when you have obtained interested readers, you can have copies transferred to the individuals who have become interested, or you can have the periodicals sent at the expense of the Tract Society, and retain the copies you receive, to use in obtaining other interested readers; but in either case you pay what you have pledged on monthly installments to the Tract Society. The advantages of paying for these clubs in monthly installments is readily seen, also the disadvantage of exhausting your fund, and that frequently before it is raised.

(1) This leaves you a fund by which you can send the SIGNS or REFORMER to those whose interest has thus become awakened, any time during the year, and still retain those sent you if you choose. (2) You also have a fund from which to pay for other publications. (3) If this system is adopted, there will be no necessity that any Tract Society let an account with the Association at Battle Creek, or at Oakland, run over three months, which they never should do. (4) In short, you can do ten times as much, and do it ten times as well, as by the old plan; for when you find readers, you know them to be interested, and your Tract Society is not in debt for sending the paper where it is not appreciated.

(5) It will educate you to be successful workers in the cause of God. If the brethren are poor, and come up on S. B., and cheerfully pay the one-third (and the poor generally do), and can make use of a larger number of copies than they are able to pay for, it is highly proper to draw from the tract fund what is necessary; or, what is better, let some individual volunteer to pay for from eight to twelve copies. In fact, there should be no lack of the SIGNS. Each Tract Society should be able to supply as many copies at any time as can be judiciously used outside of the monthly installments. If this plan be adopted by all of our Conferences, ten thousand copies of the SIGNS are not one-half what will be required yearly.

Wherever I have been, this branch of the work has been taken hold of with the greatest cheerfulness; and, already, good results have followed. There have been not far from one thousand copies of the SIGNS taken in clubs by churches and individuals in places which I have visited during the past sixteen weeks, and in not a single instance have they asked for the one-third to pay for them. In some cases where their circumstances were embarrassing, we proposed it, but they objected. Quite frequently we have checked our poor brethren from pledging too freely. Pledges are made varying from five cents to one dollar per month.

We never take the SIGNS in our hands but our hearts call for a wider circulation. There are none who have any sense of the Christian religion, who could fail of being interested in articles the paper contains. Plans must be laid that will secure a permanent yearly increase of the circulation of the SIGNS OF THE TIMES. Its mission is to arrest the attention of the candid and the careless all over the world wherever the English language is spoken; and this will be its work until probation ends.

3. It is not necessary that each individual should use just the number he or she may pay for when the club is formed. It is not unfrequent that the most successful workers are among the least able financially, and the sisters generally take the most active part in this branch of the labor. Hence the advantage of working together and having a weekly Missionary meeting, even if but a few sisters can meet.

4. Some of our brethren have supposed that if they pledged the one-third they should be released from unpaid pledges. There are individuals who have ever been liberal toward the tract cause, and are poor. The various presidents of our Tract Societies should see that such are not distressed in paying their past pledges. In some cases the SIGNS has been sent to hundreds of interested readers on the strength of pledges made over a year ago, and now the withdrawal of those pledges leaves the Society hundreds of dollars in debt. Under such circumstances, and where the brethren are able to pay those pledges, we see no reason why such should be released. Great care should be taken by a certain class of wealthy brethren, lest they lightly esteem broken vows. The Judgment will reveal the fact that solemn vows made to God under the influence of his Holy Spirit, cannot be released by man. See Eccl. 5:1–6.

5. This plan of clubbing the SIGNS simply relates to one branch of the work, and does not affect any other method that has been adopted. Neither does it take the place of our brethren's subscribing for the SIGNS, and paying therefor two dollars per year. S. N. HASKELL.