STATE QUARTERLY MEETINGS.
By W. C. W.
The time of the fall meetings of our State T. and M. societies is right at hand; and as the coming quarter is the best time in the year to work, we ought to be deeply interested in the success of these meetings, and alive to our duty in connection with them. We here call attention to a few of the many important matters that should come before these meetings for consideration. Besides the business of the tract society, the Health and Temperance Society and the Sabbath-school Association should each hold a quarterly convention. THE TRACT AND MISSIONARY WORK.
For the tract society, the coming quarter is the most important of the year. The hurry of the summer is over, and the long winter evenings are at hand, and now people will pay more attention to reading matter than at any other time of the year. Now is the time for our tract and missionary members to work. Especially is this the time to secure subscribers to our periodicals. Old canvassers say that the next two months is the best time in the year for canvassers and book agents. Money is more plenty than it will be after the holidays, and between this time and New Year's most people supply themselves with reading matter for the year. We appeal to our people to arouse to the importance of our work, and to the advantages of the present as a favorable time to work. If you are usually successful in attracting the attention of your neighbors and friends to the strong evidences of our faith as presented in our tracts and papers, this is a good time to work. If you prefer to labor by mailing copies of our papers to strangers, and afterward persuading them to subscribe, there is no time when you may be more successful than the present. But it is the work of canvassing which should receive the most attention for the coming quarter. We hope our tract societies will instruct and encourage canvassers and colporteurs; for in many places they can do more to spread the truth than a minister who devotes his time to preaching. Each society should search out and encourage two classes of workers,—those who will devote their entire time to canvassing for our papers and books during the fall and winter, making it a means of support, and who will enter those counties and towns where there are no tract societies; and those who cannot go far from home, but will work faithfully in their own neighborhoods. It will be a good plan for the director, as he holds meetings from church to church, after explaining this work, to call for volunteers, and receive pledges from the members that they will devote one, two, or four weeks to this branch of the work during the year. After getting volunteers, thoroughly instruct them about the work to be done, and then get their promises to correspond with you regarding their success or failure. Each director should carry with him from the State meeting canvassers' outfits for Good Health and the Youth's Instructor, with enough premiums so that when he has found and instructed a worker, he can furnish him the tools with which to commence work immediately. He should also have a Canvasser's Roll with “Way of Life” and copies of the REVIEW and Signs, and also copies of our best selling books, so that he may get agents and set them to work at once. We have precious truths in our books and papers, and thousands are ready to read and receive them if brought before them in the right manner. We want our T. and M. members to take the time and trouble necessary to become very successful in this work. We know of nothing better to interest and instruct people in this work than the reading of the True Missionary, and the thorough study of the Constitution and the instruction to members and officers that accompanies it. The new edition of the Constitution contains instruction on how to canvass and an address to T. and M. workers, which are of interest and profit to every member. Each librarian should see that all have this little book and study it. It would work well in many places to devote a part of the next quarterly meeting to a class exercise to consist of questioning the members on their knowledge of the Constitution. THE HEALTH AND TEMPERANCE WORK.
We hope the officers of the H. and T. societies will improve this opportunity to complete the organization of a working force to increase the membership of the society during the fall and winter, and to establish clubs with regular meetings. Good work was done at the camp-meetings, but it was necessarily hurried and cut short by the close of the meeting. Besides discussing at the quarterly meeting the Bible standard of temperance and the objects and aims of our society, there should be agents appointed to push forward the various branches of the temperance work. Each minister should be enlisted as a special agent to obtain members and to organize and visit clubs. There should also be an organizing agent in each T. and M. district to labor with the minister in this work, and to carry it forward in his absence. Besides these, the State officers or the organizing agent should appoint local agents to circulate pledges and secure members in every church. All of these agents should be given full instruction how to work, and should be furnished with all the pledges, certificates, temperance quarterlies, and other printed matter necessary to carry forward the work successfully. The quarterly meetings may be a great help to the S. S. work, if those interested in it will attend the meeting with a desire to be benefited and a determination to encourage each other. Teachers and officers should make a special effort to attend. The Class and Secretary's Record Books should be carried or sent to the meeting for examination, and it is hoped that every S. S. scholar and teacher in attendance will study the lesson for that day, and come prepared to join in a general Sabbath-school on Sabbath morning. Besides giving instruction on the best methods of studying and teaching, the officers of the meeting should appoint a committee to examine Record Books and make corrections, and suggestions as to how they should be kept. If any schools are represented at the meeting that failed to report at the end of the quarter, show them how to fill the blank, and secure a report before the meeting is closed. A teachers' and officers' council will be found one of the most interesting and profitable meetings. In this meeting the leader may point out the responsibility and describe the duties of the teacher, and then answer questions which they ask. After this a free discussion of the various interests of the S. S. work will be very interesting, and of profit to all. W. C. W.