The question of temperance and a reform in diet is agitating the public mind as never before. The old “blue pill” theory and the practice of bleeding patients is becoming questioned about as much as the old orthodox theory of “hell being lined with infant skulls.” It therefore becomes the duty of all Seventh-day Adventists to use their influence to direct the public sentiment in the right channel. If God has given light upon the subject of health reform, we should not hide it under a bushel; but let that light shine.
The HEALTH REFORMER ranks as a number one scientific health journal, having the largest circulation of any journal of like character in the world. Experience has taught us that the most successful method to extend its circulation is by obtaining paying subscribers. We should calculate on a permanent increase yearly on our subscription lists of not less than 10,000; and if our brethren and sisters generally would wake up to this work of canvassing with premiums as some are waking up, 25,000 names of paying subscribers might be obtained yearly without neglecting other branches of the missionary work. I am acquainted with a number of canvassers, who, when they have devoted their time to this work, with premiums for the REFORMER, have obtained, as their smallest average, twenty subscribers per week. This has been done in the summer months. One hundred such canvassers would obtain 2000 subscribers per week, 100,000 per year. These individuals make canvassing a paying business. If this can be done in the East, where you cannot step out doors, in a store, in a depot, on the cars, or anywhere else, but you will meet a canvasser with some attractive health publication, religious newspaper, or something else, and where the name canvasser has become obnoxious to the public, it can be done anywhere in this country. There are those of our people that have in the past obtained subscribers for books and magazines, and can sell anything from a six-penny toy to a thousand dollar piano, and that, too, where these articles are neither needed nor wanted. We want these men and women to consecrate the same talent, energy, and devotion to obtaining subscribers for this, the best health journal in the world. To some it seems a virtue to lose all their zeal and energy in the cause of God, when if they had a patent right to sell, they would make a success three times out of five. This is a sad mistake. If there is one thing more than another where earnestness, energy, and close planning are justifiable, it is in obtaining subscribers for those periodicals which contain the solemn truth adapted to the time in which we live.2
It is a shame that we have not twenty devoting their time to canvassing for the HEALTH REFORMER where we have one engaged in this work. Young men out of employment, young ladies who have nothing to do, have you tried this? Have you made it a business? Have you gone about it relying on God to help you? Would you get discouraged as easily in anything you were doing for personal gratification? We hope there are those who may read these lines, who will at once commence canvassing for the REFORMER, determined to make it a success.
We want one hundred canvassers for the HEALTH REFORMER this fall and winter. Shall we have them? Men of piety and nerve, consecration and stability of character, are needed, who will enter the work at once. Premiums can be used as last winter. For particulars, consult your directors, or inquire at the Office of REVIEW AND HERALD. More particulars hereafter. S. N. HASKELL.