The Church: Its Organization, Order and Discipline

Missionary Rules, Reporting, etc

Some of the foregoing statements refer especially to rules adopted in the tract and missionary societies, which had made the work of the society “a laborious task.” Especially was this the case with the devoted, earnest souls, who did effective work, but had not the ability to make the required reports, or perchance had obtained their tracts without following all the round specified in the rules of the society. The writer in those days saw persons plead with tears for tracts for some soul who was anxious to read, but the careful librarian, determined to follow the rules, refused them because they failed to keep an exact account of the number of pages they gave away, and did not report as specified in the mechanical rules. COOD 143.4

In an unpublished Testimony of 1894, attention is again called to these things, but to avoid the difficulty the missionary society was not to be abolished, neither was order to be abandoned, as may be seen by what follows: “I learn that it is proposed by some of our brethren to do away with the organization of some, at least, of the branches of our work. No doubt what has led them to propose this step is that in some of our organizations the machinery has been made so complicated as really to hinder the work. This, however, is not an argument against organization, but against the perversion of it.” COOD 144.1