down by the fire at home and study; but feeling that to be a wrong to others, get up, put on our wraps, take some tracts or periodicals, and visit our neighbors one or two miles distant perhaps, and try once more' to say a few words, oftentimes ill-chosen and untimely perhaps, but the best we could do with our limited gifts."

The methods used were various. Personal work was usually confined to the neighborhood, but it might go much farther. Here and there a brother would undertake a somewhat extended trip with horse and buggy. James Harvey wrote from North Liberty, Ind.:

"I have now spent twenty days in going from house to house, offering our publications to the people, and explaining these things, and praying with some of the families. I have visited 220 families, and sold 52,986 pages, for which I have realized $40.59. I furnished the Young Men's Christian Association of Logansport, Ind., with four of our bound books, and gave away some tracts."

He went on to say that he was kindly received everywhere, he and his horse being entertained mostly free of charge, and the people thankfully receiving the tracts and papers he was distributing. He reported one family of four who had decided to keep the Sabbath, while others were carefully investigating the subject.

A good measure of personal sacrifice went to the upbuilding of the work in the early days. One member, a sister in very limited circumstances who greatly needed new spectacles, had earned a little money by nursing, and hoped, when she had collected what was due her, to have enough to buy the spectacles. But on her way to make the purchase, she stopped to put some papers in the rack at the post office. While doing so, she noticed how old and rough-looking the rack was, and then and there decided to provide a new one with the spectacle money. She went immediately to the cabinetmaker, and ordered the new rack; then returned home to endure the pain in her weak eyes for an indefinite period, till more money could be laboriously earned for the purpose. It is pleasant to be able to add that the good woman's sacrifice was rewarded, so that within a short time she had both the rack for the public and the glasses for herself.

The work often produced results far exceeding what might have been expected from the feeble efforts put forth. A believing sister, accompanied by her son, visited one of the Southern States, to remain for the winter. Of her experience Miss Huntley wrote:

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Conscious of her weakness and unworthiness, she made it a subject of prayer that God would give her one soul as an evidence of His love and care. She took with her the Review and some tracts, and with earnest, broken pleadings that God would encourage her with this token, she endeavored to let her light shine, and waited for an answer to her prayers. Impressed with the simple, confiding devotion of a Swede who was living in the family where she boarded, she lent him some Reviews. Soon he confessed himself convinced that the Adventists had the truth, and that he ought to keep the Sabbath. The next to become interested was a son of the gentleman in whose home she boarded, fifteen years of age. Then the mother began to read and ask questions. An older son coming home about this time, his attention was called to the subject."- Review and Herald, Dec. 16, 1880, p. 394.

When this sister returned to her home in the North, none of these persons had definitely taken their stand; but she followed up the interest with papers and tracts, and in a short time all four had embraced the Adventist faith. One of the young men went to Battle Creek College to prepare for a place in the Lord's work.

In the early days in California, there was a believer who formed the habit of placing a tract in the hands of a friend whenever opportunity offered. When J. N. Loughborough visited that section of the country, five persons thus supplied with tracts had begun to keep the Sabbath and were ready for baptism. Moreover, one of the five himself began to circulate tracts, with the result that he also brought out a small company of believers, and wrote in to seek advice about organizing them into a Bible class.

Papers and tracts were also sent to foreign lands, and correspondence was opened up that led in not a few cases to the raising up of Sabbath keepers. This work outside of America gradually came to be left largely in the hands of the General Conference Tract Society. It was in line with this larger mission that came to be mapped out for the general society, that its name was changed at the General Conference held in Rome, N. Y., the early winter of 1882, to the International Tract Society. Under its new name the organization continued to flourish greatly, and probably did more than any other one agency to spread the advent principles during the next ten years in all parts of the world.

The business of the International Tract Society was to send out literature, which consisted chiefly of papers and tracts, mostly in the English language. This literature was supplied by the society free of charge, and was always carried free. The carrying was done mostly by ship captains, themselves oftentimes indifferent to the contents of the papers, but willing to

be accommodating to a society devoted to the business of distributing religious literature.

The society came to have corresponding agents in a great many parts of the world, who acted as distributors of literature. These agents were persons who had become interested in the denominational belief, and nearly always they ultimately became Sabbath keepers, and formed the nuclei of churches afterward organized in those places.

Closing Days of James White

It was in the palmy days of this new and very efficient organization that James White began to lay off the burdens he had been carrying so long and so faithfully. He had lived the strenuous life during those eventful years which had seen the rapid development of the denomination's publishing business east and west, the founding of the Health Institute and of the Rural Health Retreat, the establishment of the Central European Mission, the building up of a flourishing college at Battle Creek, and finally the inception and full development of the International Tract Society, which was doing so much to bring the advent truths to the attention of the larger public, both in America and in foreign lands.

Although other faithful men had been taking up some of the burdens that Elder White had carried almost alone for many years, yet he remained to the last the supreme embodiment of that zeal and enthusiasm for righteousness which was making the Adventist people a power for good in the world. He could not in the nature of things be less than the foremost man of the denomination; whether occupying a leading office or not, his brethren looked to him for leadership, and they never looked in vain.

The closing years of James White's life were largely devoted to the building up of the work on the Pacific Coast. He saw large possibilities in that part of the country, and put forth his best energies in realizing them. His services to the new publishing work in California included, not only wise management. of a growing institution, but enthusiastic advocacy of the needs of the work at the various camp-meetings in the East and Middle West, with the result that thousands of dollars were raised, by means of which the new enterprise was put on a sound financial footing.

He took an equally leading part in the evangelical work in the Golden State. The ship missionary work in the harbor of

San Francisco was the object of his special care. The tentmeetings held at Woodland and Oakland, and the hall meetings in San Francisco, profited much by his earnest labors. Both Elder and Mrs. White saw the need of houses of worship for the cities of Oakland and San Francisco, and they labored un

tiringly till a substantial church had been erected in each of these important cities, at an aggregate cost of $35,000.

When, in 1879, Elder White accepted for the last time the presidency of the General Conference, he had labored continuously in the cause he loved for upwards of thirty-five years, and was entering upon his eleventh year as president. It was the year in which the Battle Creek Tabernacle, the fourth in order of the Adventist church buildings in that city, was dedicated. The building was erected at a cost of $25,475.17, and it accommodated on that occasion fully 3,500 persons. The erection of