Two Camp Meetings Contrasted by Wm. Covert

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Sep 30, 1915

Two Camp Meetings Contrasted

By Wm. Covert

Tipton, Ind., 1870; Joliet, Ill., 1915

I HAVE been attending camp meetings with Seventh-day Adventists for a period of forty-five years without missing a year. The earliest one I attended was held at Tipton, Ind., in 1870; the latest was held at Joliet, Ill., the present year.

At the opening service of the Tipton meeting there were seventeen members present, and these were called to the altar for prayer, led by Elder James White. At the Joliet opening meeting there were several hundred present, properly distributed in the new 80 x 110 foot tent, and instructed by Elder Westworth.

At the Tipton meeting there were no tents of any kind pitched on the ground, but instead there were five lumber shacks, probably 12 x 12 feet, with conveniences for making our beds upon the ground. At the Joliet meeting we had more than one hundred excellent tents well equipped with flies, and furnished with bed springs, mattresses, and cots. The camp and its beauty could have been well described by reading Num. 24: 5, 6: “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth, as gardens by the river’s side.”

At the Tipton meeting thirty-four church members within the State attended. At Joliet there were fifteen or twenty times as many.

At Tipton none were baptized. At Joliet thirty were buried with their Lord.

At Tipton, Elder White, president of the General Conference, spoke of the great work of proclaiming the last message among the nations of earth before Jesus comes. At Joliet, Elder A. G. Daniells, president of the General Conference, told of the great work now actually in progress among the nations of all the earth.

At the Tipton meeting Elder and Sister White were rejoicing because the message was getting a hold in such a large number of the States in this country. They said eight conferences were then organized, and three States were included as missions belonging to the operations of those conferences. Only one State west of the Mississippi River was within the boundary of these conferences. Our membership in all the denomination at the close of that year was 5,440, and the tithe paid amounted to $21,822.46.

In the North American and Asiatic Division Conferences, more persons were baptized by our laborers the first six months of this year than belonged to the entire denomination at the close of the year 1870. And the tithe paid by the Northern Illinois Conference in the year 1914 was $11,000 more than all that was paid by the entire denomination in 1870.

In 1870 we rejoiced because our publishing assets amounted to $64,471.14, and the book and periodical sales for the year in the denomination amounted to $7,000. We then employed thirty persons in this department of our work, and issued three periodicals in one language. Now we own and operate thirty-seven publishing houses, and have invested in them $1,488,388.46, and are using in the circulation and publishing department of our work 734 laborers and 2,500 colporteurs. We distributed literature last year to the amount of $2,100,000, some of it in eighty-seven languages. And our evangelists are doing oral work in one hundred different tongues. It is now necessary for our presses to issue not less than one hundred and thirty periodicals in order to serve properly the interests of the truth which we are promulgating. And the end is not yet.

Not until 1872 did our educational work take form; and then we started with one school, three teachers, and an enrollment of ninety students, and a valuation of $500. This year our statistics give us 786 primary and advanced schools, including our 206 mission schools. These now employ 1,511 teachers, and they have an enrollment of 27,379 students. The amount invested in these schools is recorded at $2,338,328.14.

Much of this was hinted at as in prospect by Elder White, president of our General Conference in 1870. But all of the foregoing, and much more, was set before us at our Joliet camp meeting as actual things now doing service in the world-wide field where we are operating.

It was an inspiration to our people to hear Elder Daniells, fresh from the Orient, set these things ardently and clearly before us. It was very encouraging to know that what God had long ago by the prophets declared would immediately precede the second coming of our Saviour, is now being fulfilled before our eyes. If any of us are sleeping, it is high time that we arouse and trim our lamps, that light be given to us and to all whom our influence can help.

WM. COVERT.