WANTED IMMEDIATELY, TWENTY THOUSAND PAYING SUBSCRIBERS FOR THE HEALTH REFORMER.
By S. N. Haskell
The friends of the HEALTH REFORMER should place this journal in not less than twenty thousand families yearly, in addition to those who have previously received it; while the Health Annual should enter fifty thousand new families, besides supplying those who have had it before. Of the value of the HEALTH REFORMER, and its low price in comparison with other journals of the same character, we need not speak. It has established for itself an enviable reputation, and has a larger circulation than any similar journal in this country; and yet there are tens of thousands of families in which there is suffering from physical maladies, and in which the information it contains is needed. It is a journal which ranks high in the literary world in its mechanical execution, as well as for the matter it contains. The Health Annual prepares the way for the journal. Where they have read the Annual, they are prepared to subscribe for the REFORMER. This is the testimony of those who have given their time to canvassing. HOW CAN THIS NUMBER BE OBTAINED?
1. By our ministers, directors, and all that feel the importance of this work, taking hold of this matter, subscribing for it themselves and getting as many others to subscribe as possible, in no case less than one subscriber at full price. 2. Let each individual send as many as one copy to friends, the cost of which will be sixty cents. 3. By canvassing with the premiums offered. There are scores of men and women who can thus obtain a livelihood. In some localities the “Way of Life” is just the thing to use. In other places, the “Household Manual” is made a specialty with success, then comes the “Uses of Water.” A number of canvassers who have obtained hundreds of subscribers for the HEALTH REFORMER with the “Household Manual” have stood ready to be individually responsible for one thousand paying subscribers this fall and winter, providing they could have that number of Manuals, or a book of the same nature equal in size. This shows what can be done. The second edition of the “Household Manual,” which is now ready, is better adapted to this purpose than the old one. Not every one who is a good canvasser can make a success of doing missionary work from house to house, any more than all who are good fireside laborers can make successful preachers in new fields. Each gift has its proper place. When each respectively does his duty, the cause of God advances. No building will stand without braces, and yet a brace is not a sill, but it is just as necessary. It is thus with the work of God. “For the body is not one member, but many.” We want those who have never tried canvassing and those who have. We want from a score to fifty, in each Conference, who will take hold of this work at once. How many will enter the field this present fall and winter, men and women who will make a business of it? We want those who have faith, and hope, and courage in God; those who will seek God earnestly each day for his blessing to rest upon them, and will go about the work with zeal and a determination, in the fear of God, to make it a success. Such will succeed. It is as much a gift to be a successful canvasser as it is to be a successful preacher. There is no preacher who does great things at first; but by constantly trying, praying, giving to it much close thinking, meeting with a thousand rebuffs and many failures, yet still continually working to the point, he finally, with the blessing of God, makes a success. We want men and women of nerve to enter this department of the work. We want them to commence immediately, that hundreds of cities, towns, and villages may be canvassed this fall and winter; and that twenty thousand paying subscribers may be obtained. Who will respond in a practical manner? The prices given in the REVIEW for the new canvassers’ book opens the way for one thousand men and women to make canvassing successful pecuniarily. This, however, should not be the only motive which should actuate individuals to take hold of this work. If, in any manner, we can, by the blessing of God, relieve the distressed, lift up the fallen, impart light and knowledge to those who sit in darkness, we carry out the mission of our divine Lord. Every Tract Society director should have a supply of the “Household Manual,” so that those wishing to canvass can be supplied. All the business can be done through your Tract Society, as all other such business is done. We expect this fall and winter to see a more extensive move made in this direction than ever in the past; and now is the time to commence.