WHERE HAVE ALL OUR WRITERS GONE?

This article was published in 1872 by editor Gilbert Beebe.  What a wonderful problem to have!  Today, we have unlimited digital storage for any articles that we wish to post, but do not have the necessary writers!  How can this be, if we proclaim the truth! - ed.

We are exceedingly anxious to give satisfaction to all who favor us with communications for publication, and at the same time to make our paper profitable and edifying to all those of the household of faith who read it an interesting generally to all who kindly sustain it with their patronage. At no time during our almost 40 years labours in the editorial department have we been favored which so large a number of able writers for our columns as at the present time. But still it devolves on us to select from the many valuable communications on hand, such as in our judgment will be the most useful and edifying to the great mass of our readers. Some valuable articles come to us needing to be rewritten and corrected in orthography, punctuation, and other respects before they pass into the hands of the compositors. For want of time to prepare such articles for the press, such papers are sometimes laid aside, while such manuscripts as come duly prepared to be set up according to the copy are preferred. No writer need conclude, because his or her communications do not appear immediately, that we object to the sentiments they contain. Some well written articles are sometimes kept back as unseasonable, lest they should elicit unprofitable excitement and unprofitable discussion. Our readers will readily see that we occupy a critical and delicate position. We are held responsible for what we select for our columns.

In filling the editorial department, we seldom indulge in the luxury of selecting our own subjects. We always have on hand more applications for our views than we can possibly comply with, and our principal object in this article is to explain and if need be, to apologize to those whose requests for our views have failed to receive a prompt response from us from about 7,000 or 8,000 subscribers scattered over our continent. We are daily receiving requests for our views on some subject and we have more on hand at this moment than we could answer in a year or perhaps in a lifetime. If we possess the ability to solve all questions and explain all mysteries. And time to do justice to every subject. Many volumes will be required, and it may not be extravagant for us to repeat the words of John 21.25. "I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written." But we need to possess the time, nor the ability.

Many passages of the Holy Scriptures which we have been called on to explain are probably more clear to the mind of those who submit to them than to ours. Should we then work in the dark to force or forge some plausible or speculative exposition? We love to see and desire to encourage an inquiring disposition on the part of all who love the truth. And so far as the Lord is pleased to give ability, we take great pleasure in giving such views as we have. As we have time to write and space to publish, we generally select from the numerous subjects submitted, such as seeing the most clear to our own mind or such as in our judgment, will be the most seasonable and edifying to the Saints. Is this right?

There is one more subject to which we are reluctantly compelled to call attention. Our obituary department is always crowded. We almost always have on hand a greater number of obituaries that we can insert without crowding out matters of more general interest. And frequently some of them are leftover for want of room to insert them all. This difficulty would be avoided if those who write them would be satisfied to simply announce the demise of their friends or relatives with a very few brief and pertinent row particulars as to their age and time of death. But if each must fill out a lengthy biography, and publish where the deceased was born, what their parentage was, and when, how frequently they moved, and when they were married, and by whom, with numerous other unimportant particulars, which had best are only interesting to a few relatives and particular friends. We shall be compelled either to decline to publish obituaries altogether or take the liberty to condense them. It would not be generous to occupy all the space and the narration of all that can be said in eulogizing the dead, and then perhaps add a long appendage of imperfect verse, and in doing so crowd out the notice of other deaths which must be kept back to make room.

Hereafter it must be understood that all such notices as require an unreasonable space for insertion, unless, in our judgment, of more than ordinary general interest will either be condensed by us or their publication delayed until we can have the room to insert them.