OUR friends, because we are mutual friends of the same blessed work and cause.
We present here two pictures in which you will be interested.
We wish also to speak some things which we believe God would have us say, and for which under God the writer is alone responsible, as under God you alone will be responsible for the way you receive them.
The writer believes that the Pacific Press and this paper was established in the providence and under the guidance of God to print and herald the last great threefold Gospel message of Rev. 14: 6-14 to the world. The great divided, professed church, God's people of every land and clime, need the message, need it to unite them in God, need it to enable them to bear true witness for Him to the world; need it to save them from the world's delusions and bring them out of the Babylon (confusion) they are in, need it to prepare them for Christ's coming. It is God's great healing message for His church. He who believes can not, must not, at the peril of his soul, give the trumpet an uncertain sound.
The great body-sick, soul-sick, dying world, careless, hardened, discontented, longing, wretched world, needs this great, glad message which this paper is set to give. It goes without saying that the enemy of all good would do all in his power to destroy this work.
For thirty-two years those who have conducted the Signs of the Times, published by the Pacific Press Publishing Company, have endeavored to give the message; and many, very many, have heard its invitation and have given themselves to God and His work. How many, the judgment of God will alone reveal. As an evangelizing agency it stands at the head of all our publications.
The Temporary Plant of the Pacific Press.
Well does the writer remember how his own poor unregenerate heart, which had been awakened and instructed by a humble minister of Christ, was softened and quickened and melted into tenderness from week to week, for an entire year as he read the Signs of the Times, sent him by an unknown friend. Little did he think then, that he, a farmer boy, a poor schoolteacher, would ever be directly connected with the publication of that paper which came to him as a messenger of light.
But after labor in the field in this country, and three years' experience in Great Britain, in God's providence, he was called to Oakland in 1888, and for about fifteen years has had the awful responsibility of standing sponsor for what the paper contained.
He regrets that it has not been better; that it has not in all ways, at all times, reflected more of the Spirit of the Master, taught more lucidly and simply His truth, preached with greater power His message. He praises God that, notwithstanding all the errors of the human, the great good Father has used it. To His name be all the praise.
During this time he has been closely associated with those who have been responsible for the conduct of the publishing company. Nearly half of this time he has been on the board of directors. He has not always agreed with his brethren in plans and methods, but he has found them to be Christians, anxious to know the right, willing to do it when the light shone clear, never arbitrary or desirous of forcing pet measures.
If mistakes have been made,—as is doubtless true,—they have been mistakes of judgment, lack of clearness of vision, not of heart. If methods or plans of construction have been extravagant, they have been after the order of the mistakes of those who have gone before. Previous plans in God's work have been too often followed and extra expense has been duplicated from older institution to younger, with less thought than was in the nature of the case demanded. Too frequently have men looked upon an elaborate Damascus altar and duplicated it in the work of God. Too often the plans and methods of the world have marred the work of God. Seeking and doing the world's work has invariably4led the people of God to the copying of worldly methods and the imbibing of a worldly spirit, as well as awakening enmity in worldly concerns with whom they come in competition. In this also custom has been followed.
But the Pacific Press has ever been quick to respond to God's call, quick to respond to others' need, ready even to jeopardize its credit in entering new and hard fields, and many of its employees have been sacrificing and liberal to the demands of an ever-needy cause. When the headquarters were moved from Oakland to Mountain View less than ten of its many employees had homes which they could call their own, and not more than one or two of these were free from debt.
When in the light of God's leading the call came to leave the large city and locate out in the purer, better atmosphere and cleaner environment of the country, the Pacific Press and many of its employees responded, knowing that it meant heavier burdens and greater sacrifice.
Its managers believed that the move to the country would be productive of good to the families of its employees, morally and physically, and would give them opportunity of securing modest homes for themselves. So far as we know none who came with us are sorry.
We built in Mountain View more expensively than we ought, on different plans than we ought, yet all who saw it, so far as the writer is aware, pronounced it a model and modest building. It contained but two-thirds the amount of floor space of the building in Oakland, including the large chapel used as assembly room by the church. Yet between the earthquake and fire it was again and again filled full with our own work, and God blessed that work wonderfully.
But the Fire Came.
Humbled we are because of it. With no desire to measure ourselves by others, we would know God's standard. Not in that fire's blinding, lurid light, but in the light of God many things of the past seem clearer as we have drawn nearer to His side and entered more fully into His counsel. We have left the world's work wholly to the world's workmen. We have consecrated building and machines and hearts, we hope, to the work of God.
In the sad experience of that awful night of July 21, the responsible men of the institution, with others called in council, sought God earnestly. Before the lurid lights of its sacrificial fires had slumbered, the Lord said to us, "Arise, and build." The one who, more than all others has had to do with the building and establishing of the Pacific Press, and who has often lifted faithful voice in warning and instruction, has told us and all, that we should not regard the fire as God's judgment, but read the lesson in Job's experience, and that we should build again.
Those bearing the burden and responsibility were not doing this for themselves. More inviting fields lay open to each one. The business was not theirs only as God gave it to them to do. They came at His call; they were and are willing to go at His call. Some of them were filled with all the vigor and buoyancy of youth when they came. They have borne many burdens, stood many times in the breach, spent many wakeful nights while others slept, planning and working for the good of God's cause. They have not thought of self and scarcely of family or home when the need of the institution called them. But weary and worn as they are, they will not forsake the ship; they will not shrink from any duty, any task; they will not strike their colors till God calls them from the duty which He bade them do. And it seems to the writer that knowing these things, he ought to say them.
In all these things he is not speaking of himself, but of his brethren. His relation to the work is in a way more general than theirs; but he knows.
These men of responsibility are building again, a structure containing more than 6,000 square feet less floor space than the one that was burned, less than one-half the space of our Oakland building, which also used much room outside. Every mistake which was made in the construction of the other, they are striving in counsel and study and earnest prayer to avoid. Every luxury is dispensed with. Even conveniences are sacrificed. Only those things are going into the building which will insure safety and economy and the best results. Inside and out it will be iron. It will be iron overhead and cement underneath. There will be nothing to cause a fierce fire.
Contrary to what many suppose, the paper stored within, or piled up in printed books or signatures, burns very slowly and with little heat. There will not be combustible material enough to burn to seriously damage any machine if the building were deliberately set on fire.
Never did men and women—young and old—throw their energies into a work as the greater part of our employees are now doing. They are willing to work; they have "a mind to work." Nearly all who are working here have had better offers elsewhere, some of them magnificent offers commercially, but they propose to stay by the work, because they believe and love God and are devoted to His service.
But funds are needed. Some of our brethren and friends during the past thirty years have expended their energies for themselves, upon their farms, their houses, their stock, their business, while those connected with the work here, as elsewhere, have devoted equal talent and energy to God's cause at a merely nominal wage. They have seen fruits of their labor in a strong publishing house with a good credit. But they did not reckon on the fire; and the writer can not say that it was the fault of a single soul.
But this is true; God suffered it to come. He tries His people. He teaches great lessons. Did He do this that those who are here might learn lessons of humility, of economy, of separation from the world, of trust, of dependence upon Him as never before? They are endeavoring to learn the lessons day by day, hour by hour. But are you sure, dear friend, that there is not a lesson for you also? Our need—your need—moved the heart of God to bestow Heaven's most priceless treasure to save us, from our sins, from the awful condition we had brought upon ourselves, for we are alone to blame. What wonderful love He has to respond to such need.
Shall we not respond to such love? His cause is in need here in Mountain View.
Before that fire, we said, Give us sufficient to do, and the publishing house will swing clear of the debt. Perhaps we were over-confident. However that may be, help is needed now. Does the need touch your heart? It may be that God suffered the fire that your heart might be touched, and to give you the privilege, the inexpressible privilege, of identifying yourself with Him in His need. We do not fear bankruptcy. The cause is His. We do not fear failure. He can not fail. But His crippled cause needs help now.
Are there not those who could give thousands, five thousand dollars or less, who would live longer and better by identifying themselves with God now, and feel that in all time to come the means thus given were publishing the message? Why not relieve God's burden-bearers here from part of the debt-burden that their strength may be used in pushing the message?
I am not pleading with the poor in this world's goods. They nearly always give of their little, and God accepts it. I am pleading with those who can give easily, readily, and feel it not, all the way from ten dollars to five thousand dollars.
We leave it with them, but if at such a time as this we refuse to do, "then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise" "from another place. . . . Who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?" Esther 4:14. Let us pray, friend, "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" and "quench not the Spirit."
