T. AND M. LIFE-MEMBERSHIP CERTIFICATES.
By S. N. Haskell
THESE certificates are now completed, and are in the hands of the Secretary of the General T. and M. Society. A sufficient number to supply all who have become life-members of this society, will soon be sent to the secretaries of the various State societies. A few, bearing the signatures of the President and Secretary of the General Tract Society, will also be sent to the President of each174State society, to supply those who may be induced to become life-members. These certificates will be filled out with the names of members by the officers to whom they are sent. All ministers and tract-society officers are authorized and requested to act as agents to secure life-memberships and donations for this society. The business can be done through the various tract societies, provided proper care is taken to state whether money is received for memberships or on donations, and to give the post-office address of members and donors. The General Tract Society will gladly accept of donations of $100, or of sums greater or less than that, according to the ability of the donor, from any who are able and may wish to make such donations. New York, New England, and California are already quite well represented by life-memberships in this society; we hope to be able to say the same of each Conference tract society before the close of 1880. Many scattered brethren and sisters in different parts of the country have become life-members. England and Switzerland are also represented in this manner. Should any who have become life-members by the payment of ten dollars, fail to receive certificates in due time, they should notify the Secretary, Miss M. L. Huntley, Battle Creek, Mich., giving their post-office address. We hope for an accession of not less than one thousand life-members during the coming year. All who have seen the certificate pronounce it a well-executed lithograph, worthy, when framed, of a place in any parlor. If it be asked, What will be done with the funds raised by this society? we answer, They will be used to send publications to different parts of the earth where there are no tract societies organized. Already over fifteen hundred dollars' worth of publications have thus been distributed to different nations in Europe, the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, Liberia, the Diamond-fields of Africa, and Egypt, the birthplace of Moses. Reading matter has also been placed on hundreds of vessels, not for the use of the crew alone, but to be left at the different ports visited by these vessels. In our own country, large numbers of periodicals have been sent South. We do not know of a civilized nation on the globe where our publications, in some form, have not been sent. During the present year we want to place a fifteen-dollar library on board of not less than five hundred steamers leaving different ports in this country. Passengers, who are on the water from five to fifteen days, will thus have an opportunity to give these books a careful reading; present truth will be brought before tens of thousands of people in a single season, and through our publications, the message will be proclaimed on the land and on the sea. If what we believe is the truth, and if it is to reach the utmost bounds of civilization, then we should put forth such efforts as characterize no other people. May God fit us for the work, and give us courage and zeal to perform the same.