Tract and Missionary Societies

Former organizations (often referred to as the T. and M. Societies or Tract Societies) that promoted the following activities: the distribution of Seventh-day Adventist publications, evangelistic correspondence or visitation by lay volunteers, and relief and welfare activities. The conference societies were organized first (beginning in New England in 1870), then these organized local or district branch societies, and finally the General Conference, in 1874, set up a denomination-wide General (later International) Tract and Missionary Society. The conference Tract and Missionary Societies, later called Tract Societies, were replaced by the present Adventist Book Centers; the International Tract and Missionary Society on the General Conference level was replaced by the Publishing Department; later the promotion of lay evangelistic and welfare activities was assigned to a new organization-the Home Missionary Department (now Church Ministries Department). I. Development of the “T. and M.” Societies. 1. The Vigilant Missionary Society. The germ of these departments of the church was a local women’s group called the Vigilant Missionary Society, formed in June 1869 in South Lancaster, Massachusetts, with nine charter members. Its officers were Mrs. Roxie Rice, president; Mrs. Mary H. Haskell, vice president; Mrs. Mary L. Priest, secretary; and Rhoda Wheeler, treasurer. Society members visited their neighbors, helped the sick and the needy, distributed tracts and other publications, and wrote letters sharing their faith in a personal way. Encouraged by S. N. Haskell, who then supervised the Southern New England Mission, they specialized in correspondence and the mailing out of papers on a large scale. From 1870 the Vigilant Missionary Society continued as a women’s auxiliary to the New England Tract and Missionary Society, and other similar societies were formed (although in later years the Vigilant Missionary Societies were not necessarily restricted to women). They retained the correspondence and mailing activities, specializing later in sending out Signs of the Times. 2. State Tract and Missionary Societies. By extending the pattern of the original Vigilant Missionary organization to the whole conference, the first conference Tract and Missionary Society was organized by S. N. Haskell in 1870 for the newly formed New England Conference. This was followed by the formation of district and local “T. and M.” Societies in churches and groups of churches. Haskell’s organization attracted the attention of James and Ellen White, who visited Massachusetts to study the plan. White immediately published his findings and urged other conferences to follow the lead. At a special session of the General Conference, opened Dec. 29, 1871, a resolution was passed recommending the formation of Tract and Missionary Societies, and a committee was appointed for this, led by S. N. Haskell. In 1873 the General Conference asked Haskell to travel in all of the conferences, promoting tract and missionary work. In a few years every conference had its Tract and Missionary Society operating in each church, setting members to work with correspondence reaching to the ends of the earth. A monthly paper, The True Missionary, was published in 1874 to promote missionary work. This contained instruction, statistical reports from various societies, interesting letters, and experiences. 3. Local Societies. The most important result of the establishment of the Tract Society work was in creating and increasing the missionary spirit among local churches. Each district (of several neighboring churches) had a director and secretary and each church had a “librarian,” who ordered publications from the conference Tract and Missionary Society, keeping a supply on hand, and sent in a summary of the local members’ reports of work done. In each church weekly missionary meetings were devoted to reading letters received, relating personal experiences in working for others, and planning future work. Reports were rendered at local and district quarterly meetings. On the fourth Sabbath of each month the theme of lay missionary work was stressed in the church service. According to J. N. Loughborough, from 1871 onward almost as many converts were won by the efforts of Tract and Missionary Society layworkers as through the work of the ministry itself. These societies sent tracts to distant states and to foreign lands and this, together with correspondence, won converts or at least aroused interests that opened the way for public evangelism. These societies served the growing church until 1901, when the General Conference organized general departments for the promotion of different lines of church work. The scope of the work done by the T. and M. Societies is summarized in a pamphlet of 1878: “The object of this organization is to systematically canvass the country with books, tracts, and pamphlets, setting forth the things we hold to be special truths for this time, to obtain subscribers for our various periodicals, visit the sick, call upon, and converse and pray with, families and individuals; and the general organization is designed to seek out openings and supply calls for help, in all the world. “This Tract and Missionary organization is quite recent, the present year, 1878, being only the fifth year with most of the state societies. Yet the funds raised for the work of this society now amount to over $100,000, and during the past year reports show that between four and five millions of pages of reading matter have been distributed, mostly given away, thousands of bound volumes placed in public libraries, nearly ten thousand families visited and prayed with, while publications have been sent to England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, and to every missionary station on the coast of Africa” ( The Seventh-Day Adventists; A Brief Sketch of Their Origin, Progress and Principles [1877–1878], p. 14). 4. International Tract and Missionary Society. At the General Conference held in Battle Creek in 1874, the General Conference Tract and Missionary Society was formed to coordinate the work of the local and state societies. The officers were James White, president; George I. Butler, vice president; Maria Huntley, secretary; Benn Auten, treasurer; and S. N. Haskell, business agent—a term inadequate to describe his activities as the moving spirit of the whole work. At its 1882 annual session held in Rome, New York, the General Tract and Missionary Society, having expanded beyond national borders, changed its name to the International Tract and Missionary Society. The International Tract Society, as it was commonly called, not only gave direction and coordination to the work of the conference and local societies; it also undertook to distribute publications in different countries and also to publish or have published tracts and other reading materials in various languages. Therefore depositories, distributing agencies, or publishing houses, in many lands, even when established on local initiation, were operated under the name International Tract Society. For example, the Advent-Verlag at Hamburg, the Stanborough Press in England, and the Oriental Watchman Publishing House in India began under that name. II. Successors. The T. and M. Societies were replaced by several agencies: the local church missionary societies, the Book and Bible Houses (now Adventist Book Centers), and two General Conference departments. In 1901 the International Tract Society was disbanded, and from 1902 to 1913, the Tract and Missionary work was assigned to the new Publishing Department. Because the Publishing Department was primarily occupied with the production and sale of publications, it became apparent that the lay missionary work needed a new organization, stronger promotion, and means of training new members in this work. The constant admonition of Ellen White during this time was that every church should be a training school for Christian workers. The result was the formation of the General Conference Home Missionary Department (now Church Ministries Department) and the appointment of home missionary secretaries (now personal ministries directors) in each conference mission, or union organization. Many of the local T. and M. Societies had continued to function; these and others newly established came to be called church missionary societies, embracing the entire church membership. The weekly society meetings became the 10-minute missionary service (now Church Ministries period) for promoting lay evangelism, held between the Sabbath school and church services. The librarian was replaced by what was called the local home missionary leader and the church missionary secretary. Later the first Sabbath (instead of the fourth Sabbath) of the month was designated Home Missionary Day, on which the offering, if not always the sermon, was to be devoted to local lay activities. The conference societies, as distributors of publications to local churches and to colporteurs, later became Book and Bible Houses, and still later, Adventist Book Centers.