WHAT WE WANT by Editor

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 20, 1860

WHAT WE WANT.

By Editor

We want the REVIEW to be a paper which shall have a marked and decided influence upon all who read it. There are papers whose position is too general and undefined to be effective for good, whose testimony volume after volume and year after year, may be intently perused without producing in the reader a single nobler impulse, or leading him to take in any single instance a higher or holier position. Such we do not wish the REVIEW to be; but we earnestly desire that it may be a paper from the perusal of which the seeker after truth shall rise a wiser and better man; that it may be laden with truths set home in so clear and christian a manner that their effects can but be seen in the lives and actions of all who read. We desire to see it filled with just such instruction as is needed by a people who are threading their way through the perils of the last days, shunning a pitfall on this side of their path, and a snare on that, here detecting the insidious approach and false gloss of the enemy, and there meeting him in open onset, and fierce affray. We desire to see it exerting such an influence that every subscriber may be vividly conscious of its being a blessing in his hands, of his being a better Christian and farther advanced in his heavenly journey from the privilege of its perusal; and that all those who contribute to its columns, and who in any way labor for its interests, may behold with joy that their labor has not been in vain in the Lord. Such a paper as we desire to see it, it certainly should be; and whenever and to whatever extent it is not so, so far there is a lack to be made up, and a wrong to be remedied. How many will give it a place in their prayers that such may be its position? and how many will labor, so far as God sees fit to employ human agency, to bring about this result?

The interest that many have thus far taken in the REVIEW, and the large place it has seemed to have in their hearts and affections, has been a source of no small gratification and encouragement. Some have even expressed themselves that they valued it next to their Bibles, while others have thought that this seemed too much like the worship of men and papers. But while we are not solicitous that brethren should thus express themselves since it is painful to the ears of some as the voice of flattery and adulation, we are nevertheless solicitous that such should in fact be the case, and that every lover of truth should indeed value the REVIEW next to his Bible. Should it not be so? Think a moment upon its position. It professes to be advocating what is purely Bible truth. It is, moreover, the only paper in the land, so far as we know, which is engaged in the exposition of some special truths which are of vital interest and importance to this generation. And now unless, with every lover of the Bible, and of the truths of the Bible, the REVIEW does come next to that book—if there is anything that comes, in the affections of such, between the Bible and that sheet which is devoted specially and exclusively to its exposition, then as before said, there is a lack somewhere to be supplied, and a wrong to be remedied, either in the paper, or in the heart of the reader.

Such is the object we have in view, and the end for which we labor. We look to you, reader, for co-operation in the good work. Past favors of our contributors are held in grateful remembrance. How many will contribute of the productions of their pen to enrich the columns of volume seventeen?