TRACT AND MISSIONARY WORKERS.
By James White
We have something to say to the officers and workers in the blessed cause of tract and missionary work. Dear brethren, you have done a great work. Through you our publications have gone to the ends of the earth, and by their means chiefly we now have missionary stations in Switzerland, France, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, besides the Canadas, and at many other points on the Western continent where we have no State Conferences. We repeat it, you have done a great work. Let us call to mind what has been accomplished. 1. You are thoroughly organized, and are ready for any effort that will advance the cause. To bring this about has called into action genius, vigilance, and patient labor. Elder Haskell, under God, has accomplished a great work. You have witnessed his sincerity, his sacrifices, his incessant labors and patient toil, and have worked with him. Already you have done a work, the magnitude and importance of which eternity alone can tell. But the period of your greatest success and usefulness is before you. Go forward. As President Allen, of the S. D. Baptist University, said, our publications are the “right arm” of our strength. 2. In this work of thorough organization, with persons, many of whom have not the elements of order in them, and considering the activity with which the tract and missionary work has been carried forward, the experiences of all who really love the cause of Christ have not been pleasant. Many have not realized the importance of that order and correctness in doing business that has been urged upon them. And Satan, ever ready to take advantage of the situation, has brought sadness upon certain ones, which has led to inaction. But these are rallying and will yet come nobly up to the work. 3. Others have felt that the calls for means have been too urgent and unqualified. Here Satan, of course, has been ready to step in and excite covetousness, sadness, and a rebellious spirit which in some cases has led to refusal to pay pledges made in good faith. Suppose we admit that the experience of ten years has helped those who have managed these things, then what? What if they could not see clearly the end from the beginning? Are these the only men who have erred? Charity invites patient looking over the situation before passing severe judgment on those men of God who have felt the hand of Providence upon them urging them on to a great work. To them the field of labor they were entering was a new one. They entered upon their work more as an experiment than that which had been laid out and tried by others. The hand of Providence seemed to open paths before them, and urged them on. Did they make some false motions? It is a wonder that they made so few. Did they overact in a few cases? Not a tithe as many instances of this kind occurred as those in which cautious hesitation prevented many from doing anything. Shall we look for men who never make a mistake? Shall we expect those who are overwhelmed with toil and care, so that they have hardly time to mature plans, to always keep a perfect balance? The man who spends half a lifetime in getting his balance, and the other half in keeping it, can do nothing else, and is of as little value as a corn cob. He can growl at Providence and retard the great wheel of reform by putting his almost worthless body before it, and never perform one liberal act for God and humanity. A demand for perfection would come from those with better grace after they had done something themselves. On the whole, those who have managed the great work have managed wisely and well. 4. Those who have a heart to work should work on faithfully and energetically. They should feel that they are working for God, and that Satan knows it and is doing all he can do to discourage them. The fault-finders want the work to stop. And if the workers become discouraged, and become faint-hearted and weary in well-doing, this will please them, and Satan and his angels will hold jubilee. The Lord lives and reigns; brethren, work on. This is the only way to help those who are hindered by the temptations of Satan. 5. With the experience of the past we can better lay plans for the future. Times are hard. Our publishing houses are embarrassed. Every Tract and Missionary Society in the land should be completely out of debt before January 1, 1880. Every State, and every district, and every church in the district, and every member of the Tract and Missionary Society should work to this point. The reading matter to be circulated by the Tract and Missionary Societies will be considered at the soon-coming Conference. If we have a pioneer sheet, it should be a live one, ably conducted, and the price as low as can be afforded for one of four pages. Such a sheet can be sent out from Battle Creek, postage paid, for fifty cents a volume of fifty numbers. Such matter as The Life of Christ and the Apostles, Christ in the Old Testament and the Sabbath in the New, and the great truths bursting in upon us upon the grand theme of redemption through Christ, should hold a large place in such a sheet. And the volumes, pamphlets and tracts from the pen that wrote the articles on the life of Christ should be put into all the families where they will be read the coming year. There is power in them to remove prejudice and reach the hearts of the people, to be found in no other works. We close on this subject for the present with these lines:— “Soldiers of Christ arise,
And put your armor on;
Fight, for the battle will be ours;
We fight to win a crown.” “The battle’s almost o’er;
The race is nearly run;
Then with our glorious conquering King,
We’ll sit down on his throne.”