TRUTH BY SEA | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 23, 1879

TRUTH BY SEA.

By the zeal and efforts of those who are most interested in the missionary work, something has already been done in the way of putting our publications on board vessels bound to the different quarters of the globe, and thus scattering the truth in distant lands. Read the following, and let it stimulate us to still greater zeal:—

“In the great work of the world’s evangelization, Bible and tract distribution hold a prominent place, and the sailor is one of the most efficient colporteurs. They move on all the commercial currents of oceans, seas, lakes, and rivers; they are in all the harbors of the globe, and touch at a thousand marts of trade where landsmen would never go. It was natural that the American Bible and Tract Societies should avail themselves of such an agency for the distribution of their publications. They have done so for several years with increasing success, and during the year ending September, 1877, the distribution by seamen amounted to 10,989 copies of the Scriptures, mainly Testaments, and 2,200,000 pages of tracts sent forth upon 1,327 vessels. One of these vessels touched at fifty different ports in a single month, and in each one left more or less of gospel messengers. This kind of ocean colportage is distinctly American, and so well known is this that on nearly all distant shores the American flag is associated with the Bible and the tract. The Sailors’ Magazine, to which we are indebted for most of our statements, quotes from the letter of a naval officer who has been long at sea, saying: ‘I know by experience that American ships generally have Bibles and tracts. By means of your ships the word of God has been distributed all over the globe. Walking one day along the quay of Rotterdam, I invited a Christian friend to step at once on board the first vessel we should see with the stars and stripes. He would not believe me, when lo, on the very first one we were asked what we wanted, Bibles or tracts.’ Let our sailor missionaries be held in the esteem they deserve, and remembered in the sympathies and prayers of the churches.”