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THE LAST NUMBER—FOR SOME

DEAR READERS:—You all know that we do not follow the common custom of “begging,” “coaxing,” “dunning,” etc. Your experience in receiving extra papers, tracts, etc., free, teaches you too that the TOWER is not published for worldly gain. And yet you all know that money is needful to carry on the work. We make these statements as a preface to the announcement that we are about to STRIKE FROM OUR LISTS the names of a large number, from whom we have not heard for more than a year. This course is a necessity because some remove without notifying us, some die, some lose interest, etc. Some stricken off may have deep interest, hence we now say to all who have not subscribed during 1886, nor asked to be put upon the “poor list” for 1886, to write at once. Do not trust to me, and think that the editor knows you want it, etc.; for I have not the time to devote to revising the lists myself, and must entrust it to office help who go only by the marks on the subscription books.

Understand clearly, dear friends, this does not relate to those who send their subscriptions at the first of the year; such are not in arrears and should not send now, but at the usual time. Nor is it intended to cut off from our list a single one of the Lord’s children who worthily receive the TOWER FREE, because too poor to pay for it. It will appear strange to some that any cannot by care and self-denial spare fifty cents a year, one cent a week; and yet we have very many on the free list as “The Lord’s Poor,” who we believe cannot pay. Some of them are invalids, some aged and dependent upon children or friends opposed to the “good tidings of great joy.” We want all such to remember that they are as welcome to the TOWER as to the air they breathe. But they must write at least a card, once a year, stating their interest and desires and their inability to pay. See the “Terms” above.

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— October, 1886 —