p. 344 | THE TRACT SOCIETIES

Seventh-Day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 27, 1880

FromThe Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Vol. 55, No. 22

THE TRACT SOCIETIES.

The press has been regarded by S. D. Adventists as the right arm of our strength. Our field of labor is the world. And as the number of our efficient preachers is small, a large portion of the work of giving the last message must of necessity be accomplished by our publications.

While on a tour through Northern Michigan by carriage, in the year 1868, our company, composed of several carriage-loads, was enjoying the second meal of the day in the shade of a pasture-oak, when kind friends from the nearest house gave us a call. Mrs. W. suggested giving them tracts. These they received with apparent gratitude. We were soon at the home of Sister Jeffrey, at Ithaca. To this faithful woman, who now sleeps, Mrs. W. related the circumstance of giving tracts to kind strangers, and remarked that the Lord had shown her that a great work is to be accomplished in the circulation of such reading matter, and that a book fund should be raised for this purpose. The statement touched the heart of this mother in Israel, and she left the room. Soon she returned with five dollars for the book fund, and as she handed it to Mrs. W., the donor wiped the tears that were rapidly falling.

At our first camp-meeting, held at Wright, Mich., Sept. 1–7, 1868, the sum of $1,400 was actually paid into the book fund, and pledges were taken on the ground sufficient to swell the sum to $2,400. The publication and circulation of tracts received especial attention, and during the three years that followed not less than $35,000 was paid into this fund for the circulation of our religious and health tracts. The work rapidly increased, and became so extensive that organization of the forces engaged in the tract work seemed necessary in order to economize labor and means.

The first State tract society was organized in the New England Conference, November, 1870. In this country there are now twenty-two State and Territorial organizations, embracing Maine, New England, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Dakota, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Kansas, Texas, California, Oregon, and Colorado. Local societies were organized in Switzerland, Norway, and Denmark in the years 1878 and 1879. The General Tract Society was organized August 15, 1874.

The tract societies, in carrying forward their work during the past ten years, have employed not less than $150,000. Thousands of volumes of bound books have been placed in public libraries and on vessels. The number of pages of tracts and pamphlets which have been distributed by the societies, as near as can be gathered from printed reports, is 33,676,077. The number of periodicals distributed is 1,016,346. And let it be borne in mind that only thirty-seven per cent of the members of the societies have reported, and this is only eighteen per cent of the membership of the denomination. Had the full amount of all the work of the societies been reported, the number of pages would probably reach 50,000,000. Add to this the reading matter distributed before the organization of the societies, and by those outside of these societies, and the entire amount would probably reach 100,000,000 pages, besides periodicals and health annuals. The entire sum of the pages of books, pamphlets, and tracts published by S. D. Adventists on all their presses is not less than 250,000,000.

Those only who have a lively interest in the tract work, and have taken part in it, have a just idea of its magnitude and extent.

Through the agency of the tract societies, periodicals and publications have been sent to all the States and Territories of our country, to the Canadas, Nova Scotia, England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales, Holland, France, Italy, Switzerland, Russia, Egypt, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, East and West Indies, Australia, Japan, China, Central and South America, Vancouver’s Island, Madeira Island, Cape of Good Hope, Finland, and to different points on the Mediterranean, Baltic, Red, and Black Seas.

The great and good work which the Lord has accomplished through Eld. S. N. Haskell and his fellow-laborers in the tract cause will not be fully seen and appreciated in this life. Time can never reveal the importance of this work, which eternity alone will unfold. Those whom the Lord led out in the organization of our Conferences, the several associations and societies, and the equitable plan adopted by our people to raise funds for the support of the cause, had but a faint idea of the great and important work they were then doing. Neither can the friends of the cause now comprehend a tithe of the results of the Tract Institutes being held in the several Conferences. These schools are educating the members of the tract societies to do their work wisely and well. And this will create a demand for our publications such as the most sanguine have had but a faint idea of, and will constitute our presses indeed a power in the land.

Mrs. W., in her article headed, Our Publications, in her Testimony to the Church, No. 29, speaks of our publications, their prices, their circulation, and the importance of training men for the work of canvassing, in these stirring words:—

“Many of our publications have been thrown into the market at so low a figure that the profits are not sufficient to sustain our Offices and keep good a fund for continual use. And those of our people who have no special burden of the various branches of the work at Battle Creek, and at Oakland, do not become informed in regard to the wants of the cause, and the capital required to keep the business moving. They do not understand the liability to losses, and the expense every day occurring to such institutions. They seem to think that everything moves off without much care or outlay of means, and therefore they will urge the necessity of the lowest figures on our publications, thus leaving scarcely any margin. And after the prices have been reduced to almost ruinous figures, they manifest but a feeble interest in increasing the sales of the very books on which they have asked such low prices. This object gained, their burden ceases, when they ought to have an earnest interest and a real care to press the sale of the publications, thereby sowing the seeds of truth, and bringing means into the Offices to invest in other publications.”

“There has been, on the part of ministers, a very great neglect of duty in not interesting the churches in the localities where they labor, in regard to this matter. When once the prices of books are reduced, it is a very difficult matter to get them again upon a paying basis, as men of narrow minds will cry speculation, not discerning that no one man is benefited, and that God’s instrumentalities must not be crippled for want of capital. Books that ought to be widely circulated are lying useless in our Offices of publication, because there is not interest enough manifested to get them circulated.”

“The press is a power; but if its products fall dead for want of men who will execute plans to widely circulate them, its power is lost. While there has been a quick foresight to discern the necessity of laying out means in facilities to multiply books and tracts, plans to bring back the means invested, so as to reproduce other publications, have been neglected. The power of the press, with all its advantages, is in their hands, and they can use it to the very best account, or they can be half asleep, and through inaction, lose the advantages which they might gain. They can extend the light, by judicious calculation, in the sale of books and pamphlets. They can send them into thousands of families which now sit in the darkness of error.”},{